Godbeat

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Today's complicated politics: Are evangelical pews 'red' while more pulpits are 'blue'?

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Today's complicated politics: Are evangelical pews 'red' while more pulpits are 'blue'?

Like everybody else, American religion writers are caught in a politics-drenched environment that for Republicans gets hot with the first debates August 23 and September 27 and presumably wraps up with the Ohio primary March 19, if not before.

Given the pertinence of the religion factor in U.S. politics, kudos to Yonat Shimron of Religion News Service for her piece last week spotlighting a significant article — “Clergy-lay political (mis)alignment in 2019–2020” — in the September issue of the international academic journal Politics and Religion.

The authors, Duke University sociology Professor Mark Chaves and post-doctoral researcher Joseph Roso, set out to decide whether there’s a significant gap on politics between clergy leading local congregations and the lay members in each of U.S. religion’s four largest Christian niches — “Evangelical” Protestant, “Mainline” Protestant, Black Protestant and Catholic.

The conclusions are based upon reliable and representative sets of data (see the article for particulars), The Guy perpetually chides political reporters for neglecting Catholics, who are almost always the pivotal swing voters. But reporters, who must assess hyper-newsmaker Donald Trump’s prospects for nomination and election, will be especially interested in whether there’s a significant gap between the loyally Republican white evangelical clergy and laity.

Answer: No. Their pastors and lay members are overwhelmingly the same politically, and that’s also the case with Black preachers and parishioners. However, unity on conservative politics may or may not be the same thing as unity on a particular candidate.

Meanwhile, “misaligned” differences occur with Catholics and especially with Mainline Protestants, whose pulpits vs. pews gap has been a topic of lively conversation for a half-century.

Check out the article for the full numbers and analysis. All the findings are important, but here are some key ones.


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Plug-In: Prayers for Maui -- houses of worship burned, then people of faith arrived to help

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Plug-In: Prayers for Maui -- houses of worship burned, then people of faith arrived to help

All of us have been watching news of the devastating wildfires in Hawaii.

That’s where we start our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

Wildfires’ human toll: At least 55 people are dead in Hawaii’s worst natural disaster, and that number will likely rise as search and rescue operations continue, The Associated Press reports.

President Joe Biden, Pope Francis and other prominent leaders and ordinary people around the world are offering prayers.

Up in flames: The fires leveled the historic town of Lahaina on Maui, destroying cultural landmarks, according to ABC News.

Those landmarks include the Waiola Church, the first Christian church on Maui; and the Baldwin Home, its oldest house, which served as a missionary compound around 1834.

A Buddhist temple also is among the sites feared lost or damaged, as are Episcopal and Methodist churches.

USA Today’s Terry Collins shares these heartbreaking reflections from a leader of the Waiola church:

It took just two words for Judy Kinser to describe her beloved historic church on the island of Maui, which just celebrated its 200th anniversary three months ago.

"Destroyed. Devastating," Kinser, treasurer and office administrator at Waiola Church in Lahaina, Hawaii, said Wednesday. "Not sure if the church building and preschool buildings (are) also gone."

As word and images of the wildfires began spreading across the town of Lahaina, longtime member Anela Rosa, the church's lay minister of 13 years, tearfully confirmed the worst.

"It's gone, the social hall, the sanctuary, the annex, all of it," Rosa told USA TODAY Wednesday. "It is totally unimaginable."

Relief efforts: As always after disasters, faith-based organizations are mobilizing help.


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Catholic archbishop offers some candid thoughts to a conservative Lutheran crowd

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Catholic archbishop offers some candid thoughts to a conservative Lutheran crowd

Serious fasting is hard, even for a Catholic archbishop, especially when the aroma of spaghetti sauce is wafting through a church during an Italian community dinner.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone learned that lesson during California's bitter battles over the meaning of "marriage," "family" and other common terms that had become controversial. But he had promised to join in 100 days of prayer, and 40 days of fasting, as part of an ecumenical coalition's efforts to defend centuries of teachings on sexuality.

It was evangelical Protestants who proposed the fast, even though traditional Catholics have practiced that discipline for centuries.

"They meant serious fasting — like not eating, or eating very little, just one meal a day. So, not just giving up dessert, you know?", said Cordileone, during this summer's "Issues, Etc." conference at Concordia University in Chicago, sponsored by Lutheran Public Radio. (This independent online network also produces my GetReligion.org podcast.)

The inside joke about Catholics "giving up dessert" hit home, even though he was speaking to Missouri Synod Lutherans.

There was a time when Lutherans would not have invited a Catholic archbishop to this kind of event, said Cordileone. There was a time when it was rare for Catholics to cooperate with evangelicals and other believers seeking common ground on moral and social issues.

"To tell you the truth, I actually long for the good old days when we used to have the luxury to fight with each other over doctrinal issues," said Cordileone, drawing laughter. "But right now, the ship is going down. … The crew cannot afford to stand on the bridge and discuss the best kind of navigation equipment to use — when the ship is going down."

The "ship," he stressed, is not the church — "It's our civilization." If clergy cannot work together to defend ancient doctrines on marriage and family, while also striving to convince their own flocks to live by them, then "our civilization is … hanging by a thread."


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Complicated question in the news: What do Jews believe about the death penalty?

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Complicated question in the news: What do Jews believe about the death penalty?

QUESTION:

What do Jews believe about the death penalty?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

There was relief last week when a unanimous Pittsburgh jury approved the death penalty for the man (not to be dignified here with a name) who in 2018 massacred 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Congregation, in the deadliest act of anti-Jewish violence in U.S. history.

There’s a strong aversion to capital punishment in the teaching across the branches of Judaism but, as we’ll see, this is not absolute, and Judaism’s biblical and textual tradition on this is complex.

There were mixed feelings in Pittsburgh’s historically close-knit Jewish community. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that capital punishment “was the preference of some but not all of the victim’ families” and “some local Jews openly opposed” execution. The New Light Congregation, which also worships in the Tree of Life building, said “many of our members prefer that the shooter spend the rest of his life in prison” and question feelings of “vengeance or revenge against him.”

As appeals grind away, presumably for years, the antisemitic murderer will join the 41 inmates awaiting execution at the federal prison system’s death row or “Special Confinement Unit” in Terre Haute, Indiana, which was established when Congress reinstated the federal death penalty in 1988.

Meanwhile, The Associated Press says the morality and practicality of capital punishment could become a big issue in the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign for the first time since 1988. Republican front-runners Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are both making execution central to their anti-crime messages.

And the opposite. Liberal Democrats are vexed that President Joe Biden pledged in 2020 to abolish the death penalty in federal statutes but has not done so. However, his Department of Justice currently has a moratorium in place while it conducts a thorough examination of problems with methods of killing and racial unfairness in judicial application.

Consideration of Jewish belief begins at the beginning.


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When covering women's ordination news, don't ignore the Protestant little guys  

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When covering women's ordination news, don't ignore the Protestant little guys  

One of 2023’s major religion-news events was the decision by the Southern Baptist Convention, by far America’s largest Protestant denomination, to expel two congregations and to exclude any others that ordain women to be “any kind of pastor,” thus barring assistants, educators, chaplains and ordained missionaries as well as lead pastors.

The 2000 rewrite of the SBC’s crucial Baptist Faith and Message document had stated somewhat ambiguously that “the office of pastor is limited to men.” Debate continues to swirl on a new constitutional amendment, which needs second and final approval at next June’s meeting.

That’s a big story. Journalists tend to ignore smaller denominations that also provide news potential on these issues along the following lines.

Many conservative evangelicals are “egalitarians” who favor women clergy and lay office-holders, but an interesting example on the opposite “complementarian” side is the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA),  based in Lawrenceville, Georgia. As it happened, the PCA General Assembly was discussing the role of women in ministry during meetings in Memphis the same week as the Baptists’ New Orleans showdown.

The PCA is a story in and of itself.

This denomination began in 1973 as 41,000 southern Presbyterians broke from a more liberal “mainline” church and then managed notable northern outreach. While the SBC slowly shrinks, as of this year’s 50th anniversary the PCA boasted nearly 400,000 members in 2,000 congregations, 600 career missionaries, annual proceeds exceeding $1 billion and a new church opening on average every two weeks. The career and then death of its well-known New York City Pastor Timothy Keller earned MSM coverage.

From the beginning, the PCA has opposed female clergy. Its Book of Church Order states regarding clergy, lay elders, and lay deacons that “in accord with Scripture, these offices are open to men only.” But there’s continual agitation. Some prominent PCA congregations formally “commission” female deaconesses or deacon “assistants” (.pdf here) who help the fully “ordained” deacons.


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Questions for journalists: What would it take for Catholic church attacks to become news?

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Questions for journalists: What would it take for Catholic church attacks to become news?

I am venturing into Clemente Lisi territory with this post, and I know that. However, there are questions about the national wave of attacks on Catholic churches and sacred sites that have started to bother me. Maybe this is a test case of how the post-American Model of the Press marketplace is really going to work? Just how biased is the acceptable bias going to get?

Let’s start here: If bad people attack African-American sanctuariess, is this a news story? The answer, of course, is “Yes.” Everyone agrees, with the exception of unrepentant racists.

Now, if bad people attack Roman Catholic churches, is that a news story? The answer appears to be “No.” This is news for “Catholic,” “religious” and “conservative” newsrooms. It appears to be a minor story, zip code by zip code, in local news. This violent trend is not news for elite, national-level media.

Why is that? Possible answers include: (a) These attacks are being done by people who are “good” in the eyes of journalists because their cause is just. (b) These are bad Catholic churches (they do not fly Pride flags, etc.). (c) There are just too many of these attacks for them to be considered “news.”

Finally, (d) if these attacks were news, public officials would have to ponder whether they are “hate crimes.” This would violate the unspoken law that it’s impossible to commit a hate crime against a group that has not been declared “oppressed” by The New York Times, National Public Radio, Yale Law School and others.

Would this trend be a story if the world’s second most famous Catholic delivered an Oval Office address on the subject? Maybe we will see, if President Joe Biden sees trouble brewing in New Hampshire.

Oh well, whatever, nevermind. Here is yet another one of those “local” stories: “Cross cut down at Santiago Retreat Center in Silverado Canyon, investigators looking for suspect.” The familiar details:

A 14-foot wooden cross at the Santiago Retreat Center was sawed down this week, leaving staff and counselors shocked while Orange County sheriff’s officials try to identify a suspect, authorities said.


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Elite press skips doctrine at World Youth Day in favor of (#surprise) scandal and politics

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Elite press skips doctrine at World Youth Day in favor of (#surprise) scandal and politics

This summer has been a very busy one for Pope Francis and the church. Adding to all this news was World Youth Day held in Lisbon, Portugal. Last held in 2019, the event — often nicknamed the “Catholic Woodstock” — was initiated by Saint Pope John Paul II in 1985.

The concept of World Youth Day has been influenced by the Light-Life Movement that has existed in Poland since the 1960s, where Catholic teens celebrated a “day of community” during youth camp retreats. This has morphed into the five-day event that ended yesterday.

The journalists in the mainstream press have never known what to do with this event. This is, after all, a positive gathering that brings together millions of people, mostly young Catholics. This is not an everyday thing. It shows young Catholics happy to embrace the church, while celebrating its teachings — a stark contrast to the secular world and the messages of hopelessness and sin we get each day.

As a result, the mainstream press covers World Youth Day and the pope’s appearances through a lens of scandal and (#ShockedShocked) politics.

Doctrine, as is often the case, is simply swept aside. Anything positive that can be gleaned from the gathering of so many young people is tossed aside. World Youth Day is a snapshot of the church’s future — but you wouldn’t know it from much of the coverage of the last week. For example, going to confession (with the pope helping out) is a major part of the World Youth Day experience. Valid story?

For great — and complete — World Youth Day coverage, the Catholic press did its job, once again. Places such as Crux, The Pillar on Substack and Catholic News Agency created pages where all their stories could be found. In other words, a one-stop-shop for all things World Youth Day.

How did the mainstream media do?

Take a guess.

I understand there are different audiences to satisfy, but ignoring what’s in front of their eyes — large masses of young Catholics excited about their faith — in favor of what I saw as negative coverage isn’t a snapshot of reality. It is, instead, a focus on what editors and journalists think their own loyal niche audiences want to read about the modern church.


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Plug-In: Justice in the Tree Of Life synagogue shooting -- will killer be executed?

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Plug-In: Justice in the Tree Of Life synagogue shooting -- will killer be executed?

I’m back in Oklahoma after spending big chunks of the last week in California and Texas.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with the killer’s sentence in the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting.

What To Know: The Big Story

Antisemitic attack: “The man who killed 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue was formally sentenced to death Thursday, one day after a jury determined that capital punishment was appropriate for the perpetrator of the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.”

That’s the lede from The Associated Press’ Peter Smith (a religion writer who has covered this case from the beginning) and Michael Rubinkam.

Painful process: Survivors characterized Robert Bowers’ trial as extremely difficult to endure and a necessary accounting, according to the New York Times’ Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Anna Betts and Jon Moss. The Times:

“Most families of the victims have said that they supported a death sentence, but some have been outspoken in their opposition to it. One, Miri Rabinowitz, whose husband was killed, said executing the gunman would be a “bitter irony” because her husband had been devoted to “the sanctity of life.”

What’s next: But a big question remains: When will Bowers be put to death?

An even bigger question: Will he actually be executed?

As Religion New Service’s Yonat Shimron points out, “it will take years and likely decades for the sentence to be carried out, if it happens at all.” RNS explains:

Bowers will join 41 others on federal death row. Sixteen people have been executed by the federal government since Congress reinstated capital punishment in 1988.


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