If it is really religious, then it is not really about politics. Or so we suppose. We also tend to see religiously significant events through thick lenses of preconception. In the news media, stories are too often shaped by ideas of what religion is and isn't, what it should and shouldn't be, rather than by what reporters see and hear. If there is any lesson to be drawn from what follows, it is that adequate treatment of religion requires good, old-fashioned reporting.
Religion is anything but an easy subject to cover.
This is not simply because, in America, it comes in so many brands. It also plays many different roles-from the most private and personal to the most public and ceremonial. It is also, these days, a moving target, changing its institutional forms, adding new dimensions to its operations, subject to shifting understandings of the First Amendment. Mark Silk is director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. Religion in the News is a publication of the Center's Pew Program on Religion and the News Media.