{"id":267,"date":"2010-09-27T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T12:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html"},"modified":"2010-09-27T12:15:00","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T12:15:00","slug":"rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html","title":{"rendered":"RNA2010 Notes &amp; Belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert Express Their Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m back from the annual <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rna.org\/default.asp?\">Religion Newswriters Association <\/a>conference, where journalists, academics and PR folks gather every year to talk shop. (Check out the live Twitter feed I helped produce: <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/#search?q=%23rna2010\">#RNA2010<\/a>.) This year&#8217;s gathering was in Denver and included sessions on <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-bible-translations-and-tweets.html\">Bible translations<\/a>, evangelical leadership and investigative journalism; next year&#8217;s will be in Durham, NC with sessions on Islam and diversity. <\/p>\n<p>One of the highlights for me, as one of the next-generation religion reporters at the conference, was seeing how a veteran like&nbsp;Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times &#8212;&nbsp;named RNA Religion Reporter of the Year for her 2009 work &#8212;&nbsp;handled herself in two tense exchanges: asking Archbishop Charles J. Chaput why he refuses to talk to the NYT (see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/nicole-neroulias\/denver-archbishop-chaput-_b_738516.html\">my Huffington Post piece <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getreligion.org\/2010\/09\/bam-chaput-boycotts-the-nyt\/\">GetReligion&#8217;s analysis<\/a>), and addressing a Scientology spokesperson&#8217;s complaints about reporting&nbsp;on allegations made by&nbsp;ex-Scientologists. <\/p>\n<p>As for my belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Schrute on NBC&#8217;s &#8220;The Office,&#8221; spoke via Skype about his Baha&#8217;i faith and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.soulpancake.com\/\">SoulPancake website and upcoming&nbsp;book on spirituality and creativity<\/a>.<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-left\" alt=\"rainn wilson.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/70\/import\/rainn%20wilson.jpg\" width=\"339\" height=\"336\" \/> (Ed Helms, who plays &#8220;Andy&#8221; on&nbsp;&#8220;The Office,&#8221; has told him seem like mutually exclusive goals.)&nbsp;Some interesting notes from that session:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Wilson was raised Baha&#8217;i by &#8220;bohemian&#8221; parents, drifted away, then came back to it as an adult. He hosted a weekly Belief Night (prayers, poetry readings) at his home for years after the 9\/11 attacks, but now just hosts&nbsp;a Soul Saturday about once a month.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s wrong to see Baha&#8217;i faith as just a combination of other religions (though adherents do read from other holy books and revere Jesus Christ and Abrahamic faith prophets), or some kind of&nbsp;offshoot of Islam: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bahai.org\/\">Bahai&#8217;s follow Bah\u00e1&#8217;u&#8217;ll\u00e1h&#8217;s teachings<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>He has declined offers to be more of a Baha&#8217;i spokesman, because he feels unqualified (and also thinks it&#8217;s &#8220;sad&#8221; that a &#8220;big dorky guy&#8221; has ended up the faith&#8217;s celebrity hero by default), but feels comfortable discussing his own experiences.<\/li>\n<li>He turns down some &#8220;morally repugnant&#8221; roles due to his religious beliefs, but is OK with &#8220;morally questionable&#8221; stuff, like&nbsp;the role<a href=\"http:\/\/entourageshow.blogspot.com\/2008\/07\/rainn-wilsons-talks-about-entourage.html\"> he played on HBO&#8217;s &#8220;Entourage&#8221; a few years ago<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>BONUS BELATED FUN FRIDAY<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com\/the_daily_dish\/2010\/09\/stephen-colbert-the-greatest-catholic-of-our-moment.html\">Check out Stephen Colbert&#8217;s congressional testimony last week&nbsp;<\/a>&#8212; mostly in character &#8212;&nbsp;about the plight of migrant workers who&nbsp;harvest America&#8217;s food&nbsp;and the need for immigration reform. Near the end, Colbert, a Catholic, broke character in response to a question about why he is doing this:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;You know, &#8220;whatsoever you did for the least of my brothers,&#8221; and these seem like the least of my brothers, right now. A lot of people are &#8220;least brothers&#8221; right now, with the economy so hard, and I don&#8217;t want to take anyone&#8217;s hardship away from them or diminish it or anything like that. But migrant workers suffer, and have no rights.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Check back for updates and share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m back from the annual Religion Newswriters Association conference, where journalists, academics and PR folks gather every year to talk shop. (Check out the live Twitter feed I helped produce: #RNA2010.) This year&#8217;s gathering was in Denver and included sessions on Bible translations, evangelical leadership and investigative journalism; next year&#8217;s will be in Durham, NC&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>RNA2010 Notes &amp; Belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert Express Their Faith - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"RNA2010 Notes &amp; Belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert Express Their Faith - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m back from the annual Religion Newswriters Association conference, where journalists, academics and PR folks gather every year to talk shop. (Check out the live Twitter feed I helped produce: #RNA2010.) This year&#8217;s gathering was in Denver and included sessions on Bible translations, evangelical leadership and investigative journalism; next year&#8217;s will be in Durham, NC&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-27T12:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/rainn%20wilson.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"RNA2010 Notes &amp; Belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert Express Their Faith - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"RNA2010 Notes &amp; Belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert Express Their Faith - Belief Beat","og_description":"I&#8217;m back from the annual Religion Newswriters Association conference, where journalists, academics and PR folks gather every year to talk shop. 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This year&#8217;s gathering was in Denver and included sessions on Bible translations, evangelical leadership and investigative journalism; next year&#8217;s will be in Durham, NC&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-09-27T12:15:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/rainn%20wilson.jpg"}],"author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html","name":"RNA2010 Notes &amp; Belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert Express Their Faith - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/rainn%20wilson.jpg","datePublished":"2010-09-27T12:15:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-09-27T12:15:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/rainn%20wilson.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/files\/import\/rainn%20wilson.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/09\/rna2010-fun-friday-rainn-wilson-stephen-colbert-express-faith.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"RNA2010 Notes &amp; Belated Fun Friday: Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert Express Their Faith"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. 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She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}