Godbeat

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New take on culture wars? American Muslims clash with the Sexual Revolution

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New take on culture wars? American Muslims clash with the Sexual Revolution

In terms of Islamic doctrine, alcohol is "haram," or forbidden, and the Quran is blunt: "O ye who believe! Strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork."

But it isn't hard to find Muslims that never boarded that bandwagon.

"There are Muslims who drink and get drunk. That's a fact, but that doesn't mean they can change what Islam teaches," said Yasir Qadhi, dean of the Islamic Seminary of America, near Dallas. "That's a sin. We all sin. But we cannot change our faith to fit the new norms in society."

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be controversial for Islamic leaders to affirm that their faith teaches absolute, unchanging truths about moral issues -- including subjects linked to sexuality, marriage and family life.

But Muslims in America never expected to be called "ignorant and intolerant" because they want public-school leaders to allow children to opt out of academic work that clashes with their faith. But that's what is happening in Montgomery County, Maryland, and a few other parts of the U.S. and Canada, where Muslim parents have been accused of cooperating with the cultural right, said Qadhi.

"That is so painful. … Truth is, we are not aligning with the political left or right," he added. "You cannot put Islam into a two-party world, where you have to choose the Democrats or the Republicans and that is that."

On the legal front, a Maryland district court recently ruled that parents do not have "a fundamental right" to avoid school activities that challenge their faith. The legal team for a coalition of Muslims, Jews, Orthodox Christians, evangelicals and others quickly asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the Mahmoud v. McKnight decision.

At the same time, Muslim leaders are debating a May 23 statement -- "Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam" -- signed by more than 200 Muslim leaders and scholars, representing a variety of Islamic traditions.


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Pew Research Center report lifts the veil (as much as possible) on religion in China

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Pew Research Center report lifts the veil (as much as possible) on religion in China

Amid a flow of recent news stories on the economic problems that plague China and its disruptive impact on global affairs, the Pew Research Center on August 30 issued a landmark 160-page report with a wealth of information on another persistent issue -- the status of various religious groups in this nation of 1.4 billion after 74 years of unremitting effort by Communist rulers to suppress or eliminate faith.

Given North Americans’ long-running interest in both China and its religious situation, especially for Christians, this report is important news. Editors will want to summon their art departments for charts to complement coverage. The report’s depiction of data sources and the huge difficulties in obtaining reliable information from the mainland adds to this notable achievement.

The upshot, according to Pew demographer Conrad Hackett, is that by available measures, China is — on the surface — “the least religious country in the world.” Not surprising when media and public meetings are restricted and the regime forbids religious education while subjecting children to intensive atheistic propaganda at school. Only a tenth of the Chinese report religious affiliation, and 3% say religion is “very important” in their lives, compared with 98% in nearby Indonesia (or 37% in the United States).

Government barriers meant Pew could not conduct its own field surveys as in other nations. So the numbers come from government reports, research by Chinese universities (a risky academic specialty), one private polling firm and the Sweden-based World Values Survey. The report provides excellent guidance on interpreting limits and problems with the available data sources and confusion over definitions.

Note this striking example: The government lists 34,000 registered Buddhist temples, compared with 190,000 counted by Sun Yat-sen University experts.

Yet the people are permeated with spiritual beliefs and superstitions. These include gravesite visits to venerate or assist ancestors in the afterlife, rituals to seek personal benefits, incense-burning, fortune-telling, planning of activities around auspicious calendar dates and feng shui (placement of buildings and furnishings thought to manipulate energies). With or without formal affiliation, a third of Chinese believe in the Buddha or enlightened Buddhist beings, and 18% believe in Taoist deities.

Are some believers afraid to discuss faith ties, while living under China’s expanding social credit system of rewards and punishments?


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Religion News Service does a fine job of interviewing LGBTQ+ critics of BYU honor code

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Religion News Service does a fine job of interviewing LGBTQ+ critics of BYU honor code

First things first: Religion News Service deserves praise for publishing a story about the doctrinal code at a private religious university that actually discusses the contents of said code.

Here is the shocking part. This long news feature about Brigham Young University even mentions, near the end, that students who disagree with the school’s teachings actually have their own reasons to choose to live and study on this campus. Is free will involved? This is a mystery. Hold that thought.

However, I would note that this recent RNS report — “BYU officially restores honor code ban on ‘same-sex romantic behavior’” — leaves a crucial, related question unanswered: Do students actually SIGN the doctrinal code as part of enrollment? In other words, do they pledge to follow, or not to openly oppose, the contents of the code?

That’s a logical question, since this story makes it clear that students living in a voluntary community defined by these doctrines are still free to oppose them in public media.

In fact, the RNS story does not include material from an interview with a single student, faculty member, parent or trustee who defends the doctrinal code. This could be a statement about RNS journalism doctrines (Why quote people who are wrong?) or it may reflect the reality that it is now more controversial to openly support the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than it is to oppose them. Here is the story’s overture:

LGBTQ students at Brigham Young University celebrated three years ago when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ flagship school quietly deleted from the honor code a ban on “homosexual behavior.” For the first time, many students began holding hands or kissing in public. Others took the moment to come out as queer.

Then, a month later, the Church Educational System administrators who oversee BYU’s campuses issued a statement clarifying that despite the deleted language, “same-sex romantic behavior” wasn’t compatible with the honor code.

Last week, the Church Educational System restored language to the code explicitly prohibiting LGBTQ affection — now called “same-sex romantic behavior.”


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Mainstream press (again!) fails to put McCarrick's past and victims into proper context

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Mainstream press (again!) fails to put McCarrick's past and victims into proper context

It’s been quite some time since a story involving a major figure or incident in the Catholic church was covered by both the mainstream and religious press.

Stop and think about that for a moment.

The story in question at the moment involves disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, one of the most influential Catholic prelates of the past half century on both sides of the Atlantic.

Pope Francis, readers will recall, defrocked McCarrick — the press-friendly former cardinal of Washington, D.C. — in 2019 following a Vatican tribunal into allegations that he had molested a 16-year-old boy decades ago. McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals the prior year, but only after an accusation that he had molested the teenage altar boy while serving at the Archdiocese of New York was found to be credible. At that point, some newsrooms finally began covering years of off-the-record reports about McCarrick’s behavior with seminarians.

McCarrick, now 93, has gone into seclusion the past few years. He’s been largely forgotten by the mainstream press (with a few notable exceptions).

That all changed on Aug. 30 when the latest chapter in the McCarrick saga emerged in the form of a court hearing. A Massachusetts judge ruled that the former cardinal was not competent to stand trial in another sex abuse case. The 2021 case stems from a charge that “Uncle Ted” — as he was often called by seminarians — had sexually assaulting a teenage boy in Massachusetts.

The Associated Press covered the story this way, replete with a dateline. Here’s how the article opens:

DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — The once-powerful Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick will not stand trial on charges he sexually assaulted a teenage boy decades ago, as a Massachusetts judge dismissed the case against the 93-year-old on Wednesday because both prosecutors and defense attorneys agree he is experiencing dementia.

McCarrick, the ex-archbishop of Washington, D.C., was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019 after an internal Vatican investigation determined he sexually molested adults as well as children.


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Plug-In: That openly prayerful coach is back on the sideline, after his Supreme Court win

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Plug-In: That openly prayerful coach is back on the sideline, after his Supreme Court win

NEW YORK — I filed this edition of Weekend Plug-in from my temporary, 38th-floor apartment in Midtown Manhattan. I’ve spent the week enjoying a mix of work and fun in Metropolis.

As I typed this, Pope Francis had just arrived in Mongolia, “becoming the first pope to visit the vast country with one of the world's smallest Catholic populations, nestled between Russia and China — two nations with complicated Vatican relationships,” as the National Catholic Reporter’s Christopher White reports.

Francis has long expressed an interest in visiting Russia and China, but Mongolia might be as close as he gets, the Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca explains.

As Mongolia Catholics welcome Francis, the nation’s evangelicals wrestle with growing pains, according to Christianity Today’s Angela Lu Fulton. Also, check out this Julia Duin background report at GetReligion.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. Our big story concerns the return of a Washington state high school football coach who won a school prayer case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

What To Know: The Big Story

God on the gridiron: “Joe Kennedy — also known as the “praying coach” — is back as an assistant coach for the first time since the Supreme Court ruled that the Bremerton School District in Kitsap County had violated his religious freedom.” That’s the synopsis from Duin, who goes in depth on Kennedy’s return for The Free Press.

Readers may recall that Jovan Tripkovic interviewed Kennedy for ReligionUnplugged.com after the coach’s SCOTUS victory in 2022.

Friday night lights: The Seattle Times’ Nine Shapiro sets the scene for Kennedy’s return:

This much we can say for sure: Bremerton High assistant football coach Joe Kennedy will pray after Friday night’s opening game of the season, as the U.S. Supreme Court said he could.

“I’ll just go over to mid-field, like I always do, face the scoreboard, take a knee, and thank God for being here,” the 54-year-old coach said, sitting in the grandstands after practice Wednesday, having returned to coaching the Knights in early August following an eight-year absence.


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Thinking about the abaya, a garment causing new mosque-and-state conflicts in France

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Thinking about the abaya, a garment causing new mosque-and-state conflicts in France

It’s back to school time across much of the world, but nowhere has the annual ritual drawn more attention than in France.

This attention comes after French officials said they will bar children in public schools across the country from wearing the “abaya,” a full-length robe used by some Muslim women to convey modesty.

The rationale for the ban, they said, was to stem a growing number of disputes in its secular schools. But critics of the new measure called it discriminatory, fueling another debate across France regarding the way Muslim women dress. Debates about immigration played a role in this, as well.

France, which prides itself on its secularism in public institutions, has since 2004 barred middle and high school students from wearing any symbols that have religious meaning, including a cross, a yarmulke or head scarf.

Since 2010, it has also been against the law to wear a face-covering veil in public. Last year, lawmakers placed a ban on hijabs and other “conspicuous religious symbols” in sports competitions. Earlier this summer, France’s top administrative court ruled against allowing body-covering “burkini” — a head-to-ankle piece of swimwear — in public pools for religious reasons, arguing it violated the principle of government neutrality toward religion.

What is the abaya? It is a flowing dress that covers both arms and legs but not the head or hands.

While the robe is popular in Arab-majority countries, it does not have a clear religious meaning. it is mostly worn by Muslim women who want to follow the Quran’s teachings regarding modesty.

Some Muslims consider the female body — with the exception of the face and hands — “awrah,” which means it should be concealed in public and not to be seen by men.


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Podcast: Let's play, 'Name that pope!' The Pope Francis vs. St. Pope John Paul II edition

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Podcast: Let's play, 'Name that pope!' The Pope Francis vs. St. Pope John Paul II edition

Nearly a decade ago, I wrote my “On Religion” anniversary column (No. 26 at that time) about a game that Catholics seemed to be playing in cyberspace.

Some called this game, “Name that pope!” At this stage of Catholic life, early in the Pope Francis era, quite a few Catholics were frustrated with the many journalists who claimed there were striking differences — on social justice, poverty, the environment and peace — between the new pope and the previous two occupants of the Throne of St. Peter.

Pope Benedict XVI and St. Pope John Paul II were, you see, stern conservatives obsessed with clashes between centuries of Catholic moral theology and the Sexual Revolution. Pope Francis offered a kinder, more compassion vision focusing (all together now) on social justice, poverty, the environment and peace.

That old “Name that pope!” game played a pivotal role in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). We were talking about a new Associated Press story that ran with this headline: “Pope says some ‘backward’ conservatives in US Catholic Church have replaced faith with ideology.”

Hold that thought, as we return to the earlier edition of “Name that pope!” Let’s run through this unedited chunk of that column:

Start with this quotation: "The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion."

Name that pope: That's Pope Francis, believe it or not.

Round two: "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs."

Name that pope: That's Pope Benedict XVI.

Round three: "If we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! ... Instead of bringing life, they bring death."


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Pope Francis and his Synod on Synodality (part one) looks like 2023's story of the year

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Pope Francis and his Synod on Synodality (part one) looks like 2023's story of the year

Move aside, Southern Baptists and their drive to restrict women’s pastoral ministry in church. Women will be just one of many contested topics when Pope Francis presides October 4–29 over his Synod of Bishops at the Vatican, already in line to become the religion story of the year, even though final decisions await a second session in October, 2024.

Interest escalated with last week’s vigorous attack on the meeting from conservative Catholics, in the form of a 110-page booklet translated into eight languages, made available free online for journalists and parishioners. “The Synodal Process Is A Pandora’s Box” contends that planners have stacked the deck and this “watershed in Church history” constitutes an “imminent” threat to “demolish” the “Catholic Church as it has always existed.”

Hard to top the news possibilities that could amount to a Vatican II and a half: Marriage for priests, ordination of women as deacons (though not as priests) with more power otherwise, lay preachers, broader inclusion for “LGBTQ+” Catholics (yes the Vatican uses that fashionable term), blessing ceremonies (but not marriages) for same-sex couples as the Church of England authorized this year, openness to polygamy and Communion to divorced-and-remarried Catholics and restitution for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Or not. Germany’s “Synodal Way” process has taken the lead in promoting such revisionist proposals. By contrast, some U.S, bishops downplayed participation in the pope’s synod project or publicly criticized it.

Raising the stakes, according to Rome's Civilta Cattolica on Monday, Francis told an August 5 meeting in Portugal that in the American church there is "a very strong reactionary attitude. It is organized and shapes the way people belong, even emotionally." The pope also said "there is an appropriate evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals" and that "backward-ism is useless."

News coverage understandably emphasizes the “Pandora’s Box” booklet’s foreword by American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the onetime archbishop of St. Louis who is now retired as head of the Apostolic Signatura at the Vatican, the church’s highest tribunal.


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Religion News Service offers the poignant story of Amarillo's few good United Methodists

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Religion News Service offers the poignant story of Amarillo's few good United Methodists

Here we go again. This time around, we are dealing with a completely valid news story linked to the local, regional, national and global divorce that’s unfolding in the United Methodist Church. While news headlines insist that this drama is about LGBTQ+ issues, alone, decades of debates show that it’s rooted in differences over core doctrines, such as biblical authority, salvation, the identity of Jesus, marriage, the Resurrection, etc.

At the local level, the divorce is causing pain in lots of pews, especially when local churches vote — either to defend the existing UMC Book of Discipline or to align with a church establishment that wants to change it — creating divided flocks.

When this happens, journalists will need to talk to people on both sides of the split to find out why they have made the decisions that they have made. Correct?

Well, apparently not, according to this Religion News Service feature: “Left behind by disaffiliations, Texas town’s United Methodists charter a new church.” In this case, it appears that there are “good,” evolving United Methodists and then there are “bad” Methodists, who want to leave church doctrines as they are.

The “good,” evolving believers are offered a chance to offer their views about the new realities in disunited Methodism — as they should. They are a crucial part of the story. However, what about those “bad” believers who disagree with efforts to change the denomination’s doctrines? Alas, there is no need to talk to the “bad” Methodists.

Let’s walk through this, starting with the overture:

AMARILLO, Texas (RNS) — Earlier this year, the seven United Methodist churches in this city in the Texas Panhandle voted to leave the country’s second-largest Protestant denomination over theological questions about homosexuality and gender identity.

This is, of course, the viewpoint of the UMC establishment here in the United States — that this divorce is about LGBTQ+ issues, period. There are millions of Methodists in America, Africa, Asia, etc., who say the tensions are more complex than that.

Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind.


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