Terry Mattingly at Get Religion goes off on WaPo On Faith co-founder Sally Quinn’s approach to journalism and religion. It’s a great, substantive, take-no-prisoners rant. He starts by quoting from Quinn’s list of things she’s learned since founding the influential and always-interesting religion commentary site:

1. Nobody knows.

2. All religions are the same — and not.

3. Everything is about religion.

4. We are all looking for meaning.

5. Why there is suffering.

This causes TMatt’s beard to combust:

The key question, once again, is why Quinn is convinced that religion — as opposed to dozens of other complex and mysterious subjects covered by journalists — must exclusively be viewed through a lens of feelings, emotions, opinions and, thus, commentary. Is religion, in effect, too dangerous to cover as news? Trust me, I know that religious doctrines, traditions, beliefs and emotions, when combined, can be volatile and hard for journalists to handle in an accurate, balanced and professional manner. However, this is not a valid reason to flip a switch and assume that this journalistic task is impossible. Quite the opposite.

What does Quinn mean when she says that the first lesson she has learned through “On Faith” is that, “Nobody knows”? On one level, this is a simple truth about a wide variety of topics — politics, fine arts, economics and sports leap to mind — in which it is impossible to nail down many crucial variables in a laboratory.

… If “no one knows” is the guiding principle, then right-wing blowhards are telling the truth when they say that they think that President Barack Obama is actually a Muslim. It is a fact, of course, that he walked down an aisle in a liberal Christian congregation and made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It is a fact that he has shared his Christian testimony in a wide variety of settings. But, hey, no one knows. Right?

Think this through. The first thing we know is that no one knows. The one fact we know is that facts do not matter. Thus, religion is a subject that is best addressed through opinion and commentary, not journalism.

Read the whole thing.