The Headlines You Won't See

The latest "news" about Christianity from the BBC has got us thinking about the types of Christianity-based stories that do, and don't, make it into the headlines.

The Beeb's latest piece, on a book which claims the timings of Easter week in the Gospels don't fit together, fits into the first of our three "this gets into the mainstream media" categories:

• 1: Fairly random (but probably quite attractive) academic says Bible inaccurate (subtext: Christianity foolish).
• 2: Vicar/choirmaster/any-old-church-employee runs off with teenager/someone’s wife/bloke (subtext: Christians hypocrites).
• 3: Church/denomination rows/bickers/splits over something (subtext: Christians divided and out of touch). (There is a variation on this theme, as seen in the Independent yesterday: Church in unstoppable decline).

And here are the three headlines you won’t see quite as often!:

• 1: “Academic’s theory disproving Bible turns out to be pure speculation”
• 2: “Becoming a Christian saved my marriage/family/life”
• 3: “It was God wot done it says pastor as gospel-centred, outward-looking church doubles membership in a year”

If you’re interested in looking at how the different events of Easter week as recounted by the four Gospel writers actually fit together, this timeline is great.