Church & State

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Five faith facts about the life of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman at SCOTUS

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Five faith facts about the life of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman at SCOTUS

Faith. It’s an important part of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s story.

Here are five religion facts about the 51-year-old judge who on Thursday became the first Black woman confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court:

1. Jackson will be “the first-ever nondenominational Supreme Court justice,” as Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt points out.

2. She’ll become the second current Protestant on the court (along with Neil Gorsuch), joining six Catholics (Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas) and one Jewish justice (Elena Kagan), according to Christianity Today’s Megan Fowler.

But Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins tweets that Jackson will be “the only current Supreme Court justice who publicly IDsas Protestant.” “Gorsuch attended an Episcopal church before joining SCOTUS,” Jenkins explains, “but grew up Catholic and how he personally IDs is unclear.”

3. Jackson “has put her religious faith front, center — and vague,” notes The Associated Press’ Peter Smith. “She’s spoken strongly of the role of her faith in her life and career but hasn’t gotten into the specifics of that commitment.”

RNS’ Adelle Banks offers more details on Jackson’s past statements about her faith in God.

4. At a hearing last month, Jackson was pressed on her faith by Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, ReligionUnplugged.com’s Hamil R. Harris reports.

The Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas recounts this exchange between Graham and Jackson:

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how faithful would you say you are in terms of religion? I go to church probably three times a year so that speaks poorly of me. Do you attend church regularly?,” Graham said.

Jackson declined to give a rating, noting that she worried about the message doing so would send to Americans watching at home.


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Naw! Nobody in the Title IX wars is asking LGBTQ questions about religious schools

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Naw! Nobody in the Title IX wars is asking LGBTQ questions about religious schools

Every now and then, I finish reading a major-media news story and I think: Wait a minute. There’s a massive hole here (and one that’s going to produce all kinds of news headlines). Didn’t anyone notice?

In this case, we are talking about another story involving a head-on collision between the First Amendment and the evolving doctrines of the Sexual Revolution. The battleground is the hyper-tense world of higher education. The Washington Post headline, in this case: “New Title IX rules set to assert rights of transgender students.”

We will get to the overture in a moment. But can you spot the “hole” that is sort-of mentioned in this background paragraph which is buried way down in the Post report?

Title IX is a 1972 law that bars discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal money. Schools found in violation risk losing federal aid. Advocates have long held that this definition rightfully includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

OK. Does “any educational program or activity that receives federal money” include student-loan programs?

If so, maybe this story should have at least mentioned the 7,000 or so religious colleges and universities in this land? I mean, is there any chance that LGBTQ activists are going to challenge the religious liberty claims of these schools, many of which are explicitly doctrine-defined voluntary associations?

With that in mind, read the top of this feature at The Conversation: “What is the religious exemption to Title IX and what’s at stake in LGBTQ students’ legal challenge?”

While federal law shields most U.S. students from gender and sexual orientation discrimination, an estimated 100,000 LGBTQ students at religious institutions do not have the same protections.

Under a religious exemption provision, scores of colleges and universities can – and do – discriminate on the basis of someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

A class action lawsuit now challenges that discrimination.


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Plug-In: Nation's religion-beat pros gather -- in person this time -- for annual conference

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Plug-In: Nation's religion-beat pros gather -- in person this time -- for annual conference

BETHESDA, Md. — Let’s make this quick. I need sleep.

Seriously, I wrote this week’s post after an exhilarating — but exhausting — first day of the Religion News Association’s annual meeting.

Journalists who cover religion news — including ReligionUnplugged.com’s own Meagan Clark and Hamil Harris — convened Thursday at a hotel northwest of Washington, D.C.

It’s RNA’s first in-person conference in 2½ years.

Session topics range from expanding global religion coverage to when to label a religious group a cult. Follow the Twitter hashtag #RNA2022 to keep up with all the Godbeat discussions.

But be warned: The news doesn’t stop for any conference.

As attendees picked up their name tags Thursday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court “ruled 8-1 in favor of a death row inmate seeking to hear vocal prayers and feel his pastor’s touch as he dies,” as the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas reports.

“OF COURSE the Supreme Court is making me handle breaking news during my conference trip,” Dallas tweeted.

For more background on the case, see past coverage here and here.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Jackson invokes her Christian faith, stays mum on specifics: “Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has put her religious faith front, center — and vague.” I love that lede by The Associated Press’ Peter Smith.


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This is still a question that scholars debate: Why did early Christianity rise so rapidly?

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This is still a question that scholars debate: Why did early Christianity rise so rapidly?

THE QUESTION:

Why did early Christianity rise so rapidly?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

New religions appear all the time, nowhere more than in the United States, but very few ever achieve prominence and permanence. Christianity is a rare and dramatic case of a faith that triumphed. The tale is told in Rodney Stark's classic "The Rise of Christianity" with this descriptive subtitle in the 1997 paperback edition (still on sale): "How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries."

Sociologist Stark is now retired as co-director of Baylor University's esteemed Institute for Studies of Religion. The book treats its subject as a puzzle to be explained by objective social science scholarship and does not consider whether Christian teachings are true.

Though we lack reliable census data, Stark's best estimate was that only 7,530 Christians existed at the close of the apostolic era in A.D. 100 [which conflicts with Acts 2:41]. He said the total exceeded 1 million by 250 when systemic persecution by the Roman empire was reaching its peak. The Edict of Milan in 313 allowed the faith to exist without harassment, and as of 350 there were 33.9 million Christians. Stark figured that was a 56.5% majority of the population. Inevitably, by 380 this became the empire's official creed.

What happened? Stark's scenario drew upon more than 300 works plus his own original research, and made heavy use of economic market theory. Let's skim some of what he concluded.

Stark thought Christianity's key advantages included the spread of Greek-speaking Jews across the Greco-Roman world who provided a base to build upon, the failures of rival paganism, attractive charitable efforts (especially during ruinous epidemics), innovative respect for women, high birth rates, good organization, close fellowship, demanding and respected moral standards, the inspiring example of martyrs willing to die rather than renounce their faith and positive doctrines that were attractive to new city dwellers coping with chaos and squalor.


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No longer a Ukraine news sidebar: Pope Francis asks if combat can ever be moral

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No longer a Ukraine news sidebar: Pope Francis asks if combat can ever be moral

As Russia's invasion sought to erase Ukraine from the map, Moscow's Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a key ally of dictator Vladimir Putin, met via video last week with Pope Francis.

The Religion Guy had planned to propose a wartime sidebar about the theological justifications for combat that could run any time, but suddenly the theme has gained timely mainbar status.

That's because an official Vatican release reported that Francis stated this at the meeting: "There was a time, even in our churches, when people spoke of a holy war or just war. Today we cannot speak in this manner. A Christian awareness of the importance of peace has developed. Wars are always unjust, since it is the people of God who pay."

Francis' 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti declared similarly that "it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a 'just war'."

Francis deplores the bloodshed in Ukraine, but did not publicly castigate Putin or Russia by name, presumably in case a neutral papacy could help negotiate an end to the conflict. (That argument is used to explain Pope Pius XII's silence during Nazi Germany's Holocaust against European Jewry.)

Journalists can, at this point, ask several logical questions:

* Is Francis declaring dead the church's "just war" teaching, first formulated in the 5th Century by St. Augustine?

* Should 1.36 billion Catholics shift to pacifism, which excludes support for all wars?

* Is Ukraine wrong to take up arms to defend its existence as a sovereign and democratic nation?

Nearly all Christian commentators agree that Russia's aggression is evil and Ukraine's military defense against it is justified.


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As Florida's DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn't news -- unless it's used to attack him

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As Florida's DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn't news -- unless it's used to attack him

The two things that lots of people don’t want to read about these days is the coronavirus pandemic and Donald Trump, part of a larger trend regarding news fatigue in this country. Unfortunately, this post will mention both and only because it is about Ron DeSantis.

The Florida governor has been in the news the past few years because of his connection to the former president and a virus that paralyzed the planet for two years. A hero to the right and bogeyman to the left, DeSantis has received plenty of mainstream news coverage — much of it one-sided — because of his use of so-called culture war issues to push legislation.

DeSantis, who is running for re-election and among the favorites to run for the White House in 2024, has been a lightning rod for Democrats and a focus of criticism from the mainstream press for the last two years. His actions regarding COVID-19 were at odds with how blue states handled the virus, often catapulting him to national attention.

While the coverage has predictably focused on politics, the religion-news hooks in these stories have largely been ignored — unless they were highlighted to be used against him. The bottom line: DeSantis is not the kind of Catholic who draws cheers from journalists who admire progressive Catholics.

Those angles were once again set aside by the press coverage of the recent debate about the state’s sex-education bill.

As political conservatives and liberals battled it out over the merits of this bill, the press ignored DeSantis’ Catholic faith throughout the past few weeks of coverage.

The legislation — which the press insisted on calling the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — was, as the Associated Press recently noted, the following:

Since its inception, the measure has drawn intense opposition from LGBTQ advocates, students, national Democrats, the White House and the entertainment industry, amid increased attention on Florida as Republicans push culture war legislation and DeSantis ascends in the GOP as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

There’s a lot to unpack in that paragraph, but mostly for what’s not mentioned.


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Beyond the Orthodox questions: How might the Ukraine war scramble world Christianity?

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Beyond the Orthodox questions: How might the Ukraine war scramble world Christianity?

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has potential to be "the most transformational" European conflict since World War II, writes New York Times foreign policy columnist Thomas Friedman.

Will it be transformational for Christianity?

There's a slim chance peace could be restored, but at this writing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin appears committed to doing whatever it takes to demolish the independence of his once-friendly neighbor and its young democracy. We might see Russian military occupation, a puppet regime, persistent armed resistance by furious Ukrainians, ongoing aid by the West and at some future point a humiliating defeat and withdrawal -- a replay of the decade-long occupation of Afghanistan that played into the Soviet Union's collapse and therefore to Ukraine's independence.

Russia faces accusations of war crimes amid mass killings of innocent civilians, and bombardment of homes, hospitals, schools and infrastructure, with attendant suffering.

The contours of world Christianity could be scrambled, as a result of all of this. This religious aspect seems a mere sidebar for the news media just now.

But long term, the Russian Orthodox hierarchy has fused the church's stature with a regime hit by widespread moral condemnation, sagging influence and rising economic and diplomatic isolation. Opprobrium comes not just from the U.S. and western allies. In a United Nations vote, 141 nations denounced the "aggression" while only four problematic regimes backed Russia. Even China abstained.

The media should be alert to the following possible scenarios.

The starting point for discussion is a current church split within Ukraine, whose Orthodox population is second only to the massive church of Russia. See detail here in a previous Memo.

In 1686, the Ecumenical Patriarch, "first among equals" who lead Orthodoxy's independent "autocephalous" branches, granted the Moscow Patriarch the jurisdiction over Ukraine that it still exercises. But after national independence, a rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine now led by Metropolitan Epiphanius arose, and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew — with the sympathy of western leaders — formalized its autocephalous status in 2019.


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There goes that Ryan Burge guy, again: Myths about evangelicals, Catholics and others

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There goes that Ryan Burge guy, again: Myths about evangelicals, Catholics and others

During my years as a journalism professor (now over), I must have told my students the following a thousand times: Pay close attention when one of your sources consistently offers information and insights that (a) fit the actual facts on the ground, yet (b) anger (or at least puzzle) people on both sides of the hot-button issues that make headlines.

For several decades, my classic example of this phenomenon has been political scientist John C. Green of the University of Akron, best known for years of consulting work with the Pew Forum team. A few years ago, I added religious-liberty specialist David French to that list. Sociologist James Davison Hunter, author of that “Culture Wars” classic? Ditto. How about the notorious scholar Karen Swallow Prior?

Then that Ryan Burge guy (@RyanBurge) started lighting up Twitter with chart after chart backed with data on religion and public life. He’s been a GetReligion contributor, in a variety of ways, for several years now and was a big hit when he Zoomed into a December religion-news program at the Overby Center at Ole Miss.

If you agree with Burge on everything, then you aren’t paying attention. That’s a compliment. Like Green, Burge is a man of the mainline-church world, but he’s consistently candid about the trends that he sees on left and right.

How he has another book out — “20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America” — and readers are sure to disagree with one or more of his myths. But the numbers he spotlights are always worthy of attention, especially for journalists who cover religion, culture and politics.

I’ll note some new Burge appearances on audio and video podcasts, as they roll out in the weeks ahead — starting with the one at the top of this post. He also did a Religion News Service Q&A the other day with Jana Riess that ran with this provocative headline: “Evangelicalism isn’t dying, and Catholics are going Republican.”

The first question is exactly what you’d expect, if you’ve been following Burge in recent years:

Your first chapter says that rumors of evangelicalism’s death are premature. Could you talk about that?


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One of the central religion-beat issues of our day: What is 'Christian nationalism'?

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One of the central religion-beat issues of our day: What is 'Christian nationalism'?

THE QUESTION:

What is “Christian nationalism”?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

“Christian nationalism” became common coinage in the U.S. fairly recently, usually raised by cultural liberals who view it with alarm, and often with “white” as an added adjective. The term is not generally embraced by those considered to be participants.

As journalist Samuel Goldman remarks, to describe something as Christian nationalism “is inevitably to reject it.”

The Merriam-Webster definition of plain “nationalism” is “loyalty and devotion to a nation” but adds this important wording: “ … especially a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.”

“Nationalism” is not the same as “patriotism,” the natural and benign love and loyalty toward one’s homeland that characterizes all peoples and countries, including huge numbers of non-nationalists on America’s religious left as well as the right. Nor is it the same thing as either political or religious conservatism but is instead a narrow faction within those broad populations.

The latest bid to shape public perceptions of the concept is a 63-page “Report on Christian Nationalism and the January 6 Insurrection,” issued last month by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJCRL) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). Click here for .pdf text.

These two organizations may seem odd partners, since FFRF claims that “persons free from religion” have brought about “most” of the West’s “moral progress.” But FFRF shares the Baptist committee’s devotion to strict separation of church and state and opposition to “targeting of religious minorities” and “the politicization of houses of worship” as well as to Christian nationalism.


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