Islam-Muslims

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Step back from digital news blitz with deeply layered religion pieces about China and India

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Step back from digital news blitz with deeply layered religion pieces about China and India

The web has seduced us — and by us I mean me — into a life of 24-7 journalistic overload. For me, that can mean running out of bandwidth before getting to a story that actually deserves close attention. My limited brain can digest only so much before it shorts out.

Even a strung-out news junkie such as myself needs to log off every so often. Self-styled media literacy is as addictive as blissful ignorance.

Religion coverage has suffered greatly in this new journalistic reality. We’re provided an abundance of attention-grabbing stories about clergy hypocrisy, largely involving sexual, material or political excess. We get too few stories that connect the data points of everyday religious complexity that allows us to understand issues more deeply.

Here are two recent stories that struck me as worthy of the attention that’s too often withheld. One involves China, the other India. The only connection between them is that they both reveal deep truths about the religious reality of the societies they report on.

Let’s start with China, the more straightforward of the two stories.

It comes from Foreign Policy and ran under the intriguing, but incomplete, headline: “The Chinese Communist Party Is Scared of Christianity.”

Why incomplete? Because as the writer notes, it’s not just Christianity that scares China’s totalitarians rulers. It’s all unauthorized official thinking, religious or otherwise.

Did the headline mention Christianity alone because editors figured that would play best with their mostly western readership? Is this another example of algorithmic journalism?


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When the FBI infiltrates a Bible study, why does CNN say it was a fake 'Bible study'?

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When the FBI infiltrates a Bible study, why does CNN say it was a fake 'Bible study'?

Every so often, one comes across a news story that’s beyond odd.

Ever since the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, law enforcement has been trying to get to the bottom as to who and what were the planners for all this. We all know that. But this time around, the FBI infiltrated something new — a Bible study in Alexandria.

Or, as many media are saying, a “Bible study.”

Look at this part of a CNN piece. The key is to try to find some information on a specific religious institution or movement linked to this activity:

The FBI has infiltrated a "Bible study" group in Virginia that after the January 6 riot had members discussing surveilling the US Capitol and their wish for secession from the US, and investigators closely followed one member's plans to build and test Molotov cocktails, according to recently unsealed court records.

The newly disclosed criminal case against Virginia man Fi Duong -- who also goes by "Monkey King" and "Jim," according to the court record -- arose after Duong interacted with undercover law enforcement officers several times on January 6 and into recent months, when the FBI ultimately gained access to his group in Virginia then accompanied him to an old jail as Duong allegedly pursued bomb-building.

Looks like an FBI agent befriended Duong and began hanging out with him and his friends.

Duong told the FBI agent that his group tried to be "cloak and dagger" and wanted to "build resistances," according to court records. The agent then attended what the group members called a "Bible study" meeting at an Alexandria, Virginia, house in February, where the group members discussed the Bible and secession, weaponry and combat training, and using methods to make their communications private, according to court records.

One person in the group commented at the meeting about creating "a semi-autonomous region" for Virginia. "I like the Constitution; I don't like the Democratic sh*t this region keeps voting for," the person said, according to the FBI.

I’m curious why the scare quotes are put around this Bible study group when it’s obvious there really was discussion about the Bible at this gathering. I listened to CNN’s video alongside the article and the reporter called the gathering “a so-called Bible study meeting.”


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New podcast: Spot any 'ghosts' in New York Times story about aid for (large) U.S. families?

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New podcast: Spot any 'ghosts' in New York Times story about aid for (large) U.S. families?

At first glance, it looks like another New York Times story about all those public policy debates between the entrenched Republicans and White House, along with the narrow Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill.

But if you look carefully, there is a reason that this Gray Lady update about the arrival of the expanded Child Tax Credit was, to use a turn of phrase from “Crossroads” host Todd Wilken, a “haunted house” of religion-news ghosts. He was riffing on a term your GetReligionistas have used since Day 1 at this blog. (Click here to tune in this week’s GetReligion podcast.)

OK, let’s play “spot the religion ghost.” First, here is the double-decker headline on this report:

Monthly Payments to Families With Children to Begin

The Biden administration will send up to $300 per child a month to most American families thanks to a temporary increase in the child tax credit that advocates hope to extend.

Nine out of 10 children in the United States will be eligible for these payments, which are linked to the COVID-19 crisis, but call back memories of policies from the old War on Poverty. The program will expire in a year, at which point the debates over its effectiveness will crank into a higher gear. Here’s the Times overture:

WASHINGTON — If all goes as planned, the Treasury Department will begin making a series of monthly payments in coming days to families with children, setting a milestone in social policy and intensifying a debate over whether to make the subsidies a permanent part of the American safety net.

With all but the most affluent families eligible to receive up to $300 a month per child, the United States will join many other rich countries that provide a guaranteed income for children, a goal that has long animated progressives. Experts estimate the payments will cut child poverty by nearly half, an achievement with no precedent. …

While the government has increased many aid programs during the coronavirus pandemic, supporters say the payments from an expanded Child Tax Credit, at a one-year cost of about $105 billion, are unique in their potential to stabilize both poor and middle-class families.

As you would expect, many Republicans oppose what they consider a return to old-style “welfare” payments of this kind.

That’s many Republicans, but not all.


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Many pieces in this news puzzle: New Israeli coalition reflects land's complex religiosity

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Many pieces in this news puzzle: New Israeli coalition reflects land's complex religiosity

What does it say about Israel that its founding prime minister was someone who today might be labeled a “BuJew,” a Jew strongly attracted to Buddhist philosophy? Or that it took Israel more than 70 years to produce a prime minister who identifies with Orthodox Judaism?

The BuJew prime minister was, of course, the otherwise secular David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s George Washington equivalent. Ben-Gurion actually took several days during a 1961 two-week state visit to Burma (today’s Myanmar) to attend a Buddhist retreat. I can’t imagine an Israeli prime minister doing that today given the Jewish state’s current political turmoil and Orthodoxy’s influence.

The first Orthodox prime minister is set to be Naftali Bennett, who as of this writing is scheduled to command the top spot in Israel’s nascent anti-Netanyahu governing coalition, itself tentatively set to formally assume office within days.

Again, what does all of this say? A lot, I’d argue, about Israel’s religious complexity and the degree to which religion and politics are tightly intertwined, perhaps inseparably so, in Israel (and the Middle East in general, but that’s a larger topic for another day).

I’d also argue it underscores the importance for journalists opining on Israel to be well versed on its religious politics — from its varied and often antagonistic Jewish factions, to its distinctive Arab Muslim, Christian and Druse communities — if they are to adequately explain the thinking that goes into Israeli decision making.

Consider the following. Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, the longtime right-wing prime minister, is a secular Jew, as are most Israeli Jews. Yet he nonetheless enjoyed the support of his nation’s ultra-Orthodox parties. Netanyahu gained their support by including the parties in his ruling coalitions, giving them great access and sometimes control over public funds needed for their community institutions and economic safety nets.

Bennett, meanwhile, has gained the condemnation of several leading Orthodox Jews, even though identifies with this religious descriptor.


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Thinking about forced marriages (with the Forward), but also happy Catholic moms with lots of kids

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Thinking about forced marriages (with the Forward), but also happy Catholic moms with lots of kids

At first glance, this weekend’s two “think pieces” appear to clash.

But readers (and viewers) who dig deeper will find two radically different looks at important and valid stories linked to marriage and family life in very different traditional religious communities — Jewish, fundamentalist Protestant and Islamic.

There is much here for religion-news professionals, and news consumers, to ponder.

One story is dark and hellish, looking at the reality of forced marriages in a few religious groups. The other glows with positive images and voices, as mothers in the United Kingdom share stories from their lives in large, traditional, Catholic families.

First, let’s look at this piece from Simi Horwitz at the Forward: “In 21st century America, where arranged child marriages remain a scourge.” The overture:

Kate Ryan Brewer’s “Knots: A Forced Marriage Story” is one disturbing, though important, documentary, one that grows increasingly unsettling as three articulate and intelligent young women matter-of-factly recount their belittling, exploitive, and ultimately dehumanizing experiences in forced marriages. Mercifully each has escaped and forged successful, independent lives; one has become a recognized outspoken activist on behalf of victims.

The filmmakers assert that the practice of arranged marriages, often involving brides who are 15 or younger, continues almost unchecked and unchallenged. In fact, the only states that require the marrying parties to be at least 18 are Delaware, New Jersey, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Between 2000 and 2010, nearly 250,000 children in the U.S. were married, and 77 per cent were young girls wedded off to much older men. In some cases they were forced to marry their rapists in order to salvage their reputations and the family’s honor.


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New podcast: New York Times still ignoring religion ghosts in 'demographic winter' trends

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New podcast: New York Times still ignoring religion ghosts in 'demographic winter' trends

I could, without breaking a sweat, create a list of important religion-beat news stories that are, to some degree or another, connected to the sinking birth rates in the Unites States and around the world.

Clashes between Chinese leaders and Muslims inside their borders? Decades of declining numbers of men seeking Catholic priesthood? The sharp decline in the power of “mainline” Protestant churches? American political clashes between red-zip code and blue-zip code regions, usually seen as tensions between rural and urban life. Tensions between Orthodox and progressive Jews. Soaring numbers linked to anxiety and loneliness. And so forth and so on.

So when I saw this headline in The New York Times — “Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications“ — I immediately thought to myself, “Here we go again.” I also figured that this would be the topic for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Sure enough, this new feature was the global version of a Times story several years ago that led to a GetReligion post with this headline: “New York Times asks this faith-free question: Why are young Americans having fewer babies?” As I wrote at that time:

In a graphic that ran with the piece, here are the most common answers cited, listed from the highest percentages to lowest. That would be, "Want leisure time," "Haven't found partner," "Can't afford child care," "No desire for children," "Can't afford a house," "Not sure I'd be a good parent," “Worried about the economy," "Worried about global instability," "Career is a greater priority," "Work too much," "Worried about population growth," "Too much student debt," etc., etc. Climate change is near the bottom.

The economic and cultural trends are all valid, of course. But they also point toward changes in how modern people in modern economies define and look for “meaning in life” and the beliefs that define those choices.

Think birth, marriage, vocation, death. We are talking about topics that, for several billion people on this planet, are linked to religious faith.

So what did the Times have to say?


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What's going on with faith trends in American Judaism, nationally and in your locale?

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What's going on with faith trends in American Judaism, nationally and in your locale?

Since 9-11, the media have — with good cause — lavished attention upon Islam in America.

There's been less interest in the cultural and demographic challenges facing Judaism, long the nation's second-largest religion behind Christianity. Jewish news coverage in the mainstream press tends to focus on Democratic Party politics, trends in anti-Semitism and attitudes toward Israel and the unending Mideast mess.

Those are important, of course, but what about Judaism as a living 21st Century religious faith? Here, as so often, the Pew Research Center steps up with its 248-page survey on "Jewish Americans in 2020" (click here for the .pdf report).

The Guy proposes that this is the ideal moment for journalists to focus on the religion of Judaism, asking rabbis and lay synagogue leaders how Pew's trends are playing out both nationally and with their particular audiences and locales.

At one time, Jewish federations conducted such community surveys. This one follows up Pew's major survey in 2013 but direct comparisons with the 2000 numbers are iffy due to changed methodology.

As so often, Pew worked from an unusually large random sample of 4,718 Jewish adults who were interviewed between November 2019 and June 2020. To learn more about Pew's revised methodology to cope with low "response rates" among those sampled -- among factors that produced the embarrassingly wrong 2020 political polls -- see this prior Guy Memo.

As writers dig into the numbers they'll understand fears that unless things change "we are going to lose the illusion of there being a Jewish people." So says "modern Orthodox" Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, speaking with Forward.com (“Pew’s new study of American Jews reveals widening divides, worries over antisemitism”).

The bottom line: Across the board, the gap between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews is deepening. This looks very much like the gap between declining U.S. "mainline" and "liberal" Protestants over against conservative or "evangelical" believers, or the gap between traditional religious believers and the growing world of atheists, agnostics and the “religiously unaffiliated.”


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Yes, there's a religion story behind those statistics about China's shrinking population

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Yes, there's a religion story behind those statistics about China's shrinking population

China made the news again last week for an odd reason — its demographics.

Only 12 million babies were born last year in China, the lowest number since 1961. You can think of 35 years of forced abortions and mandatory IUD devices for that. Oh, and going after the offspring of Uyghur Muslims, house-church Christians, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners figure into that number, as well.

But the details of that important religion angle didn’t make it into the stories I read. In the New York Times:

Figures from a census released on Tuesday show that China faces a demographic crisis that could stunt growth in the country, the world’s second-largest economy. China has long relied on an expanding and ambitious work force to run its factories and achieve Beijing’s dreams of building a global superpower and industrial giant. An aging, slow-growing population — one that could even begin to shrink in the coming years — threatens that dynamic.

Now listen to how the next paragraph explains how this happened.

While most developed countries in the West and Asia are also getting older, China’s demographic problems are largely self-inflicted. China imposed a one-child policy in 1980 to tamp down population growth. Local officials enforced that policy with sometimes draconian measures. It may have prevented 400 million births, according to the government, but it also shrank the number of women of childbearing age.

“Sometimes draconian” measures? Forcibly aborting a woman’s second child is, by definition, draconian.

Beijing is now under greater pressure to abandon its family planning policies, which are among the world’s most intrusive; overhaul an economic model that has long relied on a huge population and a growing pool of workers; and plug yawning gaps in health care and pensions.

Well, yes, when local cadres monitor the exact timing of women’s periods to make sure they’re not pregnant, that’s pretty intrusive.


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Was Jesus truly without sin? Did he have doubts? Do these questions matter to anyone?

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Was Jesus truly without sin? Did he have doubts? Do these questions matter to anyone?

THE QUESTIONS:

Was Jesus Christ totally without sin? Does it matter?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Christian tradition says yes, and yes.

This month, related discussions with weighty implications popped up online, so The Religion Guy takes a look at this belief, which dates from the very earliest days of church history. But we begin with the fact, perhaps surprising to Christians, that Jesus' sinlessness is also taught by Islam. These two faiths combined engage upwards of 4 billion people.

In the Quran's account of Jesus' birth, older English translations of verse 19:19 say the child is "holy," but modern versions by Majid Fakhry (endorsed by the authoritative Al-Azhar University), A.S. Abdel Haleem, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr's team understand the Arabic adjective to mean the somewhat stronger "pure."

The Muslim belief is reinforced by a standard hadith saying of the Prophet Muhammad that "no child is born but that Satan touches, but when it is born it starts crying loudly because of being touched by Satan, except Mary and her Son.: (Sahih Al-Bukhari, 6.65.4550). Muslim commentators explain that Jesus, Muhammad and the other prophets may have made simple human mistakes but never sinned, that is, consciously violated the will of God.

Muhammad's mention of Mary befits Catholicism's Immaculate Conception, made mandatory dogma by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The Catholic Catechism states that "from the instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life."

Protestants dissent. But all Christians unite on Jesus' sinlessness, which is taught in four of the New Testament books:

-- "For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

-- "We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).

-- "He committed no sin" (1 Peter 2:22).


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