Blog Profiles: Religion Blogs

Welcome to Blog Profiles! Each week, PR Newswire media relations manager Christine Cube selects an industry or subject and a handful of sites that do a good job with promoting, contributing, and blogging about the space. Do you have a blog that deserves recognition? Tell Christine why on PR Newswire for Bloggers.

I’m venturing into new territory here.

It’s honestly been forever since we looked at blogs from the religion world. And I came up with the idea for this mostly from our content list of industries and subjects that journalists and bloggers can sign up for, in terms of news releases from PR Newswire.

But the Catholic in me also remembers we’ve now entered Lent.

This brings me to my first blog and post, Lent Begins!, on HuffPost Religion.

HuffPost Religion is a great blog. It covers quite a bit of territory: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Religion and Science, Interfaith, Scripture Commentary, and Prayer and Meditation.

You don’t have to look far to find interesting reads on this site.

Narrowing down just a few to share with you was the hard part. I immediately was drawn into Denmark Chief Rabbi Mourns Loss of ‘Irreplaceable’ Jewish Guard Following Attack. And then there were these fascinating bits: What People Are Really Thinking When They Invite You to Church and Ash Wednesday Explained.

In the latter, Religion News Service’s Kimberly Winston breaks down Ash Wednesday: “It’s supposed to be a reminder that our lives are short and we must live them to the fullest.”

Follow @HuffPostRelig on Twitter.

Episcopal Café seeks to be an “independent voice, reporting and reflecting on the Episcopal Church and the Anglican tradition.”

“The Café is not a platform of advocacy, but it does aim to tell the story of the church from the perspective of Progressive Christianity,” the site says.

This is a cool blog because Episcopal Café shares tools and information to either inform or deepen one’s faith.

Some posts that I found interesting include Keeping Up With the Evolution of Marriage, Tools for Mapping Your Church Strategy, and 40 Bags in 40 Days, which talks about decluttering and simplifying during Lent and using its 40 days to give up or give away unnecessary things.

Follow @episcopalcafe on Twitter.

CNN’s Belief Blog covers the “faith angles of the world’s biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment.” It’s edited by Daniel Burke.

CNN does an excellent job with reporting complex and hard news stories on this blog.

Some pieces that I thought CNN covered well include updates to the terror attack in Copenhagen: Artist Survives Copenhagen Attack: “They Threw Me in a Storage Room” and Denmark Terror Suspect Swore Fidelity to ISIS Leader on Facebook Page.

Other items you can find on Belief include 5 Myths (And One Surprising Fact) About Lent and Five Teens in Custody After Jewish Cemetery Attack.

Follow @CNNbelief on Twitter.

Gleanings is a blog of Christianity Today that features “important developments in the church and the world.”

A post that immediately caught my eye was What to Give up for Lent? Twitter Reveals Top 100 Ideas of 2015.

The top choices of things to give up? School, chocolate, Twitter, swearing, and alcohol.

“Each year, Stephen Smith of OpenBible.info tracks hundreds of thousands of Lenten tweets during the week of Ash Wednesday,” the post says and proceeds to quote Smith.

“As I write this post, with about 4,000 tweets analyzed, perennial favorites ‘alcohol,’ ‘chocolate,’ and ‘social networking’ lead the list,” he wrote in his Monday debut of the 2015 list. “Given winter weather conditions in the eastern U.S., I expect that snow- and winter-related tweets will be popular this year.”

Other really interesting posts include Take Me to Church? Half of Pastors Believe Faith Will Become Online-Only Experience and So Long New York: American Bible Society Heads to Philly.

Follow @CTmagazine on Twitter.

P.S. Ever wonder how we come up with ideas for our blog profiles? Our handy list of industries and subjects on PR Newswire for Journalists stays top of mind. If you’re a blogger or journalist looking for religion news, let us know. We’re happy to customize that feed for you on PR Newswire for Journalists.

Christine Cube is a media relations manager with PR Newswire and freelance writer. Follow her @cpcube.