Godbeat

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Plug-In: Has Nashville become the 'new frontier' of today's religion news universe?

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Plug-In: Has Nashville become the 'new frontier' of today's religion news universe?

Twenty years ago, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to work for The Associated Press.

I spent less than a year in Music City before transferring to Dallas, but oh, what a fun 11 months for a religion reporter (and country music fan).

I covered the fight over a proposed Tennessee lottery and a prayer service on the night the Iraq War began, but some of my favorite stories were less weighty:

• A profile of a man who paid children $10 each to learn the Ten Commandments (until 15,000 “memorization affidavits” from across the nation flooded his mailbox after my story ran).

• A feature on Gospel Music Week, when some of Nashville’s most popular bars and nightspots traded lying-and-cheating songs for hymns about prayer and redemption.

• An interview with the 104-year-old widow of a famous Black traveling evangelist.

Blame Liam Adams, The Tennessean’s religion reporter, for this trip down memory lane.

In a fascinating deep dive published this week, Adams and his colleague Cole Villena delve into “Williamson County, the suburban ‘new frontier’ for American evangelical Christianity.”

“An already heavily Christian area is on track to become a capital of evangelicalism in the U.S.,” the story asserts, referring to the fast-growing county south of Nashville.

I pointed out to Adams on Twitter that my family lived in Williamson County — Spring Hill, to be precise — in our brief time in the Nashville area.

“All religion reporting roads lead through greater Nashville apparently,” chimed in Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt, herself a former Nashville resident.


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Old debates behind the new headlines: What does the Bible teach about abortion?

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Old debates behind the new headlines: What does the Bible teach about abortion?

THE QUESTION:

What does the Bible teach about abortion?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

This question is raised by the assertion that the Bible “says nothing about abortion.”

So writes Melanie Howard, a scripture scholar at Fresno Pacific University, a Mennonite Brethren campus self-defined as both “evangelical and ecumenical” that “embodies Christ-centered values.” Her July 25 article titled “What the Bible actually says about abortion may surprise you” for TheConversation.com was widely distributed to Associated Press and Religion News Service clients under the three outlets’ cooperative agreement.

Later in the article, Howard is more precise, explaining correctly that though abortion was known and practiced in biblical times it “is not directly mentioned” in scripture. True, but there’s more to be said about how the Bible views unborn human lives.

The biblical passage that applies most specifically is Exodus 21:22-23, which involves miscarriage but was extended to the abortion issue by ancient rabbis. It states that if a pregnant woman is hit accidentally “when men fight” and “a miscarriage results,” the person responsible pays a negotiated fine. But “if other damage results” (understood to be the woman’s death), then the “life for life” principle requires the death penalty. (This Memo uses the 1999 JPS translation throughout).

The Jewish Study Bible (2nd edition, 2014) presents the faith’s understanding from ancient times that this passage means “abortion is permitted when necessary to save the mother.” Today, even pro-life conservative Christians mostly agree with that. Due to this passage, Judaism also teaches that “feticide is not murder” because the unborn life is not yet regarded as fully a person. Over the centuries, authoritative “responsa” from rabbis issued varied opinions on allowing abortions in specific circumstances.

Otherwise, one Christian website lists 100 Bible passages said to bear on abortion.


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Podcast: Why are churches closing? There are many forces at work, but doctrine still matters

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Podcast: Why are churches closing? There are many forces at work, but doctrine still matters

For years, there was a simple answer to the old question: Why do some churches grow, while others shrink?

You simply bought a copy of the 1972 book “Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion” by the late National Council of Churches leader Dean M. Kelley and that provided information answering lots (but not all) of the big questions. It was crucial that this groundbreaking book was written by a mainline Protestant insider, as opposed to a Southern Baptist or Assemblies of God leader.

Of course, everyone knew that some churches grew because of location, location, location. Also, there were always a few liberal churches that grew because of talented preachers or other strengths. Like I said: Kelley answered lots of church-decline questions, but not all of them.

What about 2022 in post-pandemic church life? For starters, many churches will never be post-pandemic — because many congregations (and maybe denominations or communions) were changed forever and we will see more evidence of that in the next few years.

All of this is an overture to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) which focuses on a must-read feature story by Godbeat veteran Bob Smietana. The headline at Religion News Service: “For a small Chicago church, closing down was an act of faith.” This was a personal, heartfelt story for Smietana, since this was a congregation that he once called home.

Like so many pastors around the United States, the Rev. Amanda Olson has kept one eye on the Bible and another on the evolving religious landscape.

She knew change was coming to the church in America.

Yet she hoped her congregation might be spared the worst of it.

“Everyone thinks that churches are going to close,” said Olson, the longtime pastor of Grace Evangelical Covenant Church on Chicago’s North Side. “But nobody thinks it is going to be their church.”


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What will American Protestantism look like after the wars inside the 'Seven Sisters' are done?

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What will American Protestantism look like after the wars inside the 'Seven Sisters' are done?

Over decades, the map of U.S. Protestantism has been redrawn by splits over the authority and interpretation of the Bible that eventually focused on the LGBT dispute. Now we have a major case study that journalists will need to cover at the local, regional, national and global levels.

A balanced coalition of leaders in the large United Methodist Church (UMC) developed a treaty for mutually respectful separation — the Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation protocol — for that’s currently degenerating into a wasteful fight like other groups have suffered.

Reporters and concerned readers will want to dive into these commentaries and news stories:

* Look at a United Methodist timeline: Why are conservatives going nuclear with lawsuits?

* What happened to United Methodists’ proposal to split the denomination?

* Time is Running Out for Traditionalist United Methodists!

* For United Methodists, the center is not holding

* Special sessions of United Methodist annual conferences 2022

* United Methodist Church bishops mount defense amid conservative attacks (paywall protected)

* Liberal Bishops Have Redefined United Methodist Polity

The current maneuvers by the North American UMC establishment may well limit the number of dropouts joining the Global Methodist Church. Its vision has been to unite a million or more U.S. Methodist evangelicals with the growing Methodist churches in Africa and Asia, creating an effective and innovative international denomination dedicated to defending current Methodist doctrines. This could help counteract some U.S. conservatives’ drift into Christian nationalism. Is that still feasible?


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Fellowship of Christian Athletes wins an 'equal access' case, even if LATimes missed that

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Fellowship of Christian Athletes wins an 'equal access' case, even if LATimes missed that

Once upon a time, back in the days of the Bill Clinton White House, there was a strong church-state coalition that stretched, basically, from the Assemblies of God to the Unitarians. The legal activists in this coalition didn’t agree on everything, but they did agree on some basic First Amendment principles that helped defend believers in a wide variety of religious minorities.

If you know the history of that era, you can sense that a few important words are missing from the recent Los Angeles Times report (behind a paywall) that ran at Yahoo!News with this aggressive headline: “Court says San Jose school district must recognize Christian club that excludes LGBTQ kids.”

That headline, of course, could have noted — somehow — that the this victory for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes was based on the same legal principles that defend the First Amendment rights of LGBTQ support groups at the same school.

The key is that there are two crucial words — “equal access” — that are missing from this rather solid story, which includes enough quoted material from voices on both sides for readers to figure out what is going on (if they have a background in church-state studies). Hold that thought.

First, here is the Times overture:

In spring 2019, a teacher at Pioneer High School in San Jose posted a message on his classroom whiteboard questioning a "Sexual Purity" statement that a club for Christian student athletes was requiring its leaders to sign.

The club's statement said sexual relationships should exist only between married, heterosexual couples. The teacher wrote that he was "deeply saddened" that a club on the public school campus made its leaders "affirm" those ideas, and he asked students what they thought.

The resulting firestorm led to the San Jose Unified School District rescinding recognition of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for excluding LGBTQ students in violation of the district's nondiscrimination policy. In response, the club and its international parent organization sued in federal court, alleging religious discrimination.

On Monday, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes won a major victory when a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the club be reinstated as an official student group for the current school year while litigation between the parties continues in the lower district court.

Shutting down the FCA violated the “nondiscrimination policy”?


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Plug-In: Why faith still matters -- Bob Smietana on how religion is getting reorganized

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Plug-In: Why faith still matters -- Bob Smietana on how religion is getting reorganized

Religion reporter Bob Smietana’s “aha!” moment came a few years ago while covering a hurricane.

When a tornado, flood or other disaster occurs, so-called faith-based FEMA organizations typically play a crucial role in the relief effort.

“Usually, a bunch of church folks and other religious folks show up,” explained Smietana, a Religion News Service national reporter. “They cook meals, they clear trees, and they help people rebuild their houses and put their lives back together.”

But given the decline of organized religion in America, might those helpers — at some point — disappear? And if so, what might that mean for the nation’s social fabric? Such questions came to Smietana during his “aha!” moment.

“Something in my head went, ‘Oh, wait. All those people doing this faith-based disaster relief are usually older church folks, and most of them are White,’” he told me, noting the shrinking proportion of White Christians in America.

Reflecting on the hurricane volunteers, he realized, “There’s no one in the pipeline to replace those folks when they’re gone.”

The veteran Godbeat pro shared that anecdote as we talked about the ideas behind his insightful new book, “Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters”, which releases tomorrow.

Here’s how Worthy Publishing describes Smietana’s book: “A look at the ways the Christian church has changed in recent years — from the decline of the mainline denominations to the megachurchification of American culture to the rise of the Nones and Exvangelicals — as well as a hopeful vision for reimagining what the church might look like going forward.”

My own take: The 200-plus pages of “Reorganized Religion” certainly are timely, delving into long-term demographic trends while exploring challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and post-2020 political division.


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Hillbilly Thomists: Dominican brothers singing about the Americana ties that bind

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Hillbilly Thomists: Dominican brothers singing about the Americana ties that bind

With its sobering lyrics and a droning country-blues riff, "Holy Ghost Power" by the Hillbilly Thomists is a song with zero chance for Christian radio success.

The jilted protagonist has been "living off of grits, whiskey and Moon Pies." His man cave offers no refuge: "A hundred channels of nothing on the TV at 10. It's like Diet Coke and original sin. … Now it's a zombie town, there's a lot of undead. They wander around looking underfed."

But the chorus offers hope: "He makes a rich man poor; He makes a weak man strong. No more going wrong just to get along. I felt the force of the truth when they pierced His side. I saw the war eagle dive and I could not hide."

It wouldn't shock old-school country fans if this was a Johnny Cash song. But it was written by a banjo-playing Dominican from Georgia who has an Oxford theology doctorate and now leads the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Writing to the National Reso-Phonic Company, Father Thomas Joseph White said he likes to play this classic blues guitar "in my office looking out at the Roman Forum that's 2,700 years-old."

That makes sense in the Hillbilly Thomists, a "musical collective" of Dominicans, most of whom have Bible-belt roots. The band recently staged a concert in the Grand Ole Opry and, over the past decade, has recorded three albums of music that would sound at home at Appalachian fairs, but not in most church halls.

There's a vital tie linking these songs to the life and work of this band of priests and brothers, said Father Simon Teller (who plays fiddle). Whether singing Appalachian hymns or their own original songs, the Hillbilly Thomists -- dressed in the white habits of their order -- keep returning to images of suffering, sorrow, eternity, hope, grace and redemption.

"We're priests in the Dominican order and that kind of states our vision of the world and the faith and everything we do," he said. "In our day job, we're working a lot with people who are dealing with very concrete situations and have a lot of very concrete questions."

"Holy Ghost Power," for example, is "not sung from the voice of a clergyman. It's sung with the voice of a man who's living a very ordinary life that is going off the rails in a very ordinary way," said Teller. "There's a malaise there and he's unsatisfied by the things of this world."


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Bonus podcast: Clemente Lisi on news about 'good' Catholics, as opposed to 'bad' ones

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Bonus podcast: Clemente Lisi on news about 'good' Catholics, as opposed to 'bad' ones

Here is a question from the news, sort of, that cuts to the heart of this bonus GetReligion podcast by Clemente Lisi, taken from his on-air visit this week with Todd Wilken at Lutheran Public Radio (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

If Gov. Ron DeSantis started carrying a rosary, and talking about it quite a bit in the context of his Catholic faith (think President Joe Biden), would journalists in major newsrooms see this as a good thing or a bad thing? Possible answers: “Yes,” “No” and “You need to ask?”

Go ahead, if you want to, and think about it in the context of these recent posts: “Concerning the right-wing rosary attack — was that Atlantic feature really 'news'?” and “Tip for reporters — Don't assume what Catholics believe based on politics or Internet memes.”

In reality, the spark for this podcast came from Religion Dispatches piece the other day, by exevangelical trans scribe Chrissy Stroop, with this headline: “Media fail to acknowledge that 2024 hopeful Ron DeSantis is as Catholic as Biden.” Hold that thought.

The Religion Dispatches piece included commentary on a March 22 GetReligion post with this headline: “As Florida's DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn't news — unless it's used to attack him.” By the way, editors there failed to note that Lisi is Catholic, as opposed to evangelical, which seems relevant.

Here is the key passage from the Lisi post:

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. … 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.


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Podcast: Journalists should ask if faith-based schools clearly state their doctrines on sexuality

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Podcast: Journalists should ask if faith-based schools clearly state their doctrines on sexuality

I forget who originally came up with the term “Romeaphobia.”

This can be defined as the hatred or fear of all things that can be viewed as links to Roman Catholicism or the early church in general. Obviously, this affects issues linked to worship and church governance. However, in my experience (I grew up in Texas), many evangelicals (especially Baptists) have a fear of clear, authoritative doctrinal statements that, you know, might be interpreted as “Roman” creeds. All together now: We are “Bible Christians” and that’s that.

I am not saying this to take a shot at my heritage (I am very thankful for the deep faith and examples of my family and my father was a Southern Baptist pastor). The reason I mention this up is because, in my opinion, this anti-creedal Romeaphobia is playing a major role in an important news story all over America. This was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Does this USA Today headline sound familiar? It should, for readers from sea to shining sea: “Christian Florida school tells parents gay and transgender students must 'leave immediately'.”

My goal here is to offer advice to reporters who want to do accurate, fair-minded coverage of these church-state skirmishes (let’s hope there are some out there). I’m also offering press-relations advice to terrified leaders of Christian schools at all levels, from kindergartens to colleges. The Romeaphobia angle? That takes us into legal nuts-and-bolts questions about these conflicts.

Let’s start with the rather familiar USA Today overture:

A Florida-based Christian school sent out an email informing parents that LGBTQ-identifying students "will be asked to leave the school immediately."

According to the email obtained by NBC News, the top administrator of Grace Christian School in Valrico, Florida, Barry McKeen, sent the email to the families for the kindergarten-grade 12 school on June 6. He later confirmed and doubled down on the policy in an Aug. 18 video on the school's official Facebook page.

The June email read: "We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender identity/lifestyle, self-identification, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful in the sight of God and the church. Students who are found participating in these lifestyles will be asked to leave the school immediately."

For starters, private schools — liberal and conservative — have First Amendment rights, including the right to clearly state their foundational doctrines and, thus, disciplines that apply to staff, faculty and students. Tip No. 1 for reporters and church leaders: Get to know the details of the UNANIMOUS 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision commonly referred to as the Hosanna Tabor case.

But we need to figure out what actually happened in this Florida case.


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