He invited us to come in to talk about Winnipeg s inter-church Missionfest. We need to rethink how faith is treated in the media. Here are my suggestions. The faiths that direct the lives of a significant portion of the Canadian population are worthy of regular attention by the Canadian media. More Canadians meet weekly in a place of worship than in any other collective activity.
Houses of worship are among the few places where genuine community can still be found.
A 1993 Angus Reid poll showed that two-thirds of Canadians in fact hold very orthodox Christian views of God and Christ and a third pray daily. Religion still instructs the core values of large numbers of people and directs their choices and behaviour. It is not satisfactory to treat faith differently than other elements of Canadian life by relegating it to a certain day of the week and a certain portion of the paper. While such sections may have their place, they can also be ghettos that allow the papers to think they ve fulfilled their duty to the devout among their readers. If our faith affects how we live as families, how we do business, how or what we teach, what we do about the conditions about us, how we interact with the culture, what we do with our income, the choices we make politically or the entertainment we choose, stories related to faith should appear at any time and anywhere in the paper.