Pentecostal-Charismatics

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Crazy political stuff happening in churches right now, but which events get the elite ink?

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Crazy political stuff happening in churches right now, but which events get the elite ink?

It’s that time, once again. It’s time for the mainstream press to be terrified of that fact that, for millions of Americans, the content of their religious beliefs frequently has implications for what happens inside voting booths on Election Day.

This happens all the time on both the Religious Left and the Religious Right, although it appears to be more common in sermons on the political left (click here for more on that from Baptist progressive Ryan Burge).

If you have any doubts about press concerns about this issue, see this recent collection of headlines from one of those daily Pew Research Center emails about religion in the news:

* Churches are breaking the law and endorsing in elections, experts say. The IRS looks the other way — ProPublica

* Virginia pastor investigated for campaigning during church services — The Associated Press

* The senator-pastor from Georgia mixes politics and preaching on the trail — The New York Times

* Black church tradition survives Georgia’s voting changes — The Associated Press

* ‘We need to make America godly again.’ The growing political influence of Latino evangelicals — CNN

* Battle for Catholic vote inflames Pa. governor’s race — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Remember that GetReligion mantra: Politics is the true faith of most elite-newsroom professionals, who — functionally — believe that politics is the only answer If you want to get something done in the real world. Politics is real. Religion? Not so much. Thus, it is logical that religious faith is important to the degree that it affects politics.

Is the blue-zip-code press more worried about political influence on the conservative side of this equation? Of course, especially this soon after an earthquake like the fall of Roe v. Wade. I would also admit that, at the moment, the stunning rise of nondenominational, independent evangelical and Pentecostal churches has made it even harder for reporters to cover what is and what is not happening in the institutions that define conservative Christianity..

This brings me to that ProPublica investigation that hit social-media the other day: “Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way.”


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The rise of nondenominational churches, a big news trend that's really hard to cover

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The rise of nondenominational churches, a big news trend that's really hard to cover

Maybe the biggest story in American Christianity over the last 40 years is the incredible rise in
the share of Americans who identify as nondenominational Protestant Christians.

In the 1970s, they were just a rounding error in the religious landscape. That was then.

Today it’s impossible to ignore the number of nondenominational churches — the vast majority of which are evangelical or Pentecostal — that have sprouted up in every city, suburb and rural area in the United States.

There are likely more nondenominational Protestants in the United States today than Southern Baptists and mainline Protestants combined. Yet, they are somewhat of an enigma to those reporters who cover religion.

Why? Because it’s impossible to make a lot of generalizations about this movement. It’s hard to pin them down, even when doing basic research.

The religious groups that are part of this non-movement movement don’t have annual meetings that are easy to track and for journalists to cover. They don’t have national spokespersons.

What makes it even more difficult is that many of these churches are, to some degree, still aligned with a denomination, but don’t publicize that on their websites or make mention of that in worship services.


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Plug-In: Religion-beat highlights -- Religion News Association presents its annual awards

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Plug-In: Religion-beat highlights -- Religion News Association presents its annual awards

What a fun night!

The Religion News Association presented its 2022 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence in a hybrid ceremony Wednesday at Columbia Journalism School in New York City.

Among the highlights:

• Sarah Pulliam Bailey, religion writer for The Washington Post, won for Excellence in Religion News Analysis, including a piece on “Preachers and their $5,000 sneakers.” Even better, Bailey brought her new baby with her to celebrate.

• Tom Gjelten, retired religion correspondent for NPR, won for Religion Story of the Year for his piece “An inconvenient genocide: Why we don’t know more about the Uyghurs” for Moment magazine. (Last week’s Plug-in highlighted the other finalists.)

• Julia Duin, a veteran religion journalist, including her work here at GetReligion, won for Excellence in Religion Reporting at Online-only News Outlets and placed in two other categories. Duin was honored for stories she wrote for National Geographic, Politico and Newsweek. The headline on that Politico piece: “The Christian Prophets Who Say Trump Is Coming Again.”


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Podcast: Are (all) evangelicals the only folks tempted to gloss over candidates' sins?

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Podcast: Are (all) evangelicals the only folks tempted to gloss over candidates' sins?

Oh my. It appears that editors at the New York Times has veered back into what could be called “evangelical voter monolith mode” once again.

I base that comment on the thesis paragraphs of a recent Times report that ran with the headline, “‘Saved by Grace’: Evangelicals Find a Way Forward With Herschel Walker.” That story was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). I will return to the Walker drama in a minute.

But before we go there, let’s pause and flash back to a Gray Lady report from a few months ago that ran with this headline: “As a ‘Seismic Shift’ Fractures Evangelicals, an Arkansas Pastor Leaves Home.” It’s the first half of that headline that interests us, right now. Here is some of the crucial language:

Across the country, theologically conservative white evangelical churches that were once comfortably united have found themselves at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions. …

Michael O. Emerson, a sociologist at the University of Illinois Chicago, described a “seismic shift” coming, with white evangelical churches dividing into two broad camps: those embracing [Donald] Trump-style messaging and politics, including references to conspiracy theories, and those seeking to navigate a different way.

That’s accurate, of course. Anyone who has followed evangelical debates in the Trump era knows that the big story is rooted in tension, pain and divisions — not monolithic unity about how to approach politics.

At the same time, evangelicals are still facing a crushing binary reality when they approach election-day decisions — trying to decide, in some cases, between what they view as flawed GOP candidates and Democratic candidates whose stances on First Amendment and sanctity-of-life issues put them in a “can’t go there” category.

Evangelicals of various kinds do not agree on how to handle that, falling into camps that resemble the 2016 and 2020 national elections.

Thus, here is a flashback to my Trump-era evangelical voter typology from several years ago. When reading it this time, simply substitute “Walker” for “Trump” and apply these camps to White, Black (they exist) and Latino (they exist) evangelical/charismatic voters in Georgia.


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Yes, Southern Baptists are talking about '60 Minutes' (while Ryan Burge keeps doing the math)

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Yes, Southern Baptists are talking about '60 Minutes' (while Ryan Burge keeps doing the math)

One thing is certain, if you follow political scientist Ryan Burge on Twitter. You are going to read quite a few things that you agree with and quite a few things with which you will disagree.

Here’s the key to that statement: It really doesn’t matter who “you” are. You can be a liberal mainline Protestant and you will read things that please you and things that infuriate you. Ditto, if you are Southern Baptist Convention leader.

If you are a religious “none,” in Pew Research Center terms, then Burge is mapping your life and beliefs, one chart after another. If you are a nondenominational, independent evangelical/charismatic leader, Burge was one of the first researchers who grasped that your world is now the fastest growing corner of the marketplace of American religion.

Burge makes many Southern Baptists mad. He also makes many Episcopalians and liberal mainliners mad, even though Burge is, himself, a progressive Baptist pastor/thinker as well as a political science professor at a state university. I would imagine, however, that leaders on the right and the left are learning that they are going to have to study the trends shown in all of those Burge charts on Twitter (and in his books).

To be honest with you, I can’t remember when I spotted Burge’s byline and I’m not sharp enough, in terms of computer skills, to spot the oldest item in the nearly 4,000 items that show up in a Google search for “Ryan Burge” and “Terry Mattingly.” I’m guessing 2018 or so. However, Burge has been cooperating with GetReligion for several years now, with me retweeting, oh, hundreds of his tweets with a “Yo. @GetReligion” slug. He also has allowed me to re-publish some of the essays he has written for the Religion in Public weblog (and for Religion Unplugged).

I bring all of this up for two reasons.

(1) Many news consumers who continue to follow legacy media may have seen him featured last night in a “60 Minutes” feature about the Rev. Bart Barber, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

(2) Burge and I recently agreed on the format for a new GetReligion feature that we will call “Do the Math,” in which he will take four or five of his data-backed tweets and then connect them to spotlight trends that journalists need to follow.


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Podcast: Are sweaty men exercising at dawn (then praying) a New York Times story?

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Podcast: Are sweaty men exercising at dawn (then praying) a New York Times story?

Anyone who watches advertisements during football games knows that American men are doing just great, these days.

There appear to be gazillions of racially diverse circles of thin men out there — roughly 30-50 years of age — who get together all the time in sports bars with loads of disposable income to spend on beer and mountains of chicken wings in a wide variety of flavors. Others travel all over the place in their rad sports vehicles or those pick-up trucks that are part troop-carriers, part luxury vehicles.

There are some rotund, middle-aged, often bald, White losers out there, of course, but their family members or lovers are still around to laugh at their misadventures.

Yes, this screed from an elderly guy (on a diet, even) is directly connected with this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). This week’s program focused on a fine, fascinating New York Times piece by religion-beat pro Ruth Graham. The double-decker headline on this piece proclaimed:

For Suburban Texas Men, a Workout Craze With a Side of Faith

In Katy, outside Houston, many men have taken up F3, a no-frills fitness group where members push themselves physically but also bond emotionally.

I heard from several readers praising this story (and followed buzz on Twitter) and people kept saying: What inspired the Gray Lady to do a positive story about a bunch of evangelical men (one with a “Republic of Texas” tattoo) bonding through exercise, fellowship, service and prayer?

The first answer: The story was written by a veteran religion reporter, not someone off the political or strange cultures desk. The men talk, they tell their own stories. They are not walking straw men ready for a beating. By the way: It also looks like F3 groups, or at least the one in this feature, are pretty diverse in terms of race. Hold that thought.

I think the crucial statement is at the top of the article and it isn’t the lede. Here is the note from the editors:

We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. In a Houston suburb, men have been flocking to a workout group that promises more than just a sweat session; together, they aim to ease male loneliness.

Note the touch of humility: “We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time (I added the bold type). The goal here is to let Americans outside describe their own lives, as opposed to the Times doing that for them?


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Question for journalists to mull: What will America's religious life look like in 50 years?

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Question for journalists to mull: What will America's religious life look like in 50 years?

Scribes in the U.S. press snapped to attention last year when the Gallup Poll announced that as of 2020 less than half of Americans held religious memberships for the first time in its eight decades of asking the question. Only 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue, mosque or other house of worship, a dramatic loss from the 70% as recently as 1999.

Now comes the Pew Research Center with a related pulse-pounder issued last week.

Pew figures that currently 64% of Americans (including children) identify as Christians in some sense, compared with 6% for other religions and a hefty 30% for “nones” and “nothing in particulars” — those without religious affiliation. Then we’re told that 50 years from now the Christian percentage may well fall to a modest 54% or even to a remarkable 35% in the worst-case scenario, while the non-religious population rises to somewhere between 34% and a slim majority of 52%.

Understandably, the Pew numbers became spot news for, among others, CBS, National Public Radio, the Washington Examiner and Washington Post, both newspapers in faith-focused Salt Lake City, USA Today, Britain’s The Guardian and a host of religious outlets.

This remains a good spot story for media that haven’t yet reported Pew’s basics. But even media that have reported the topline numbers could return to the theme with illustrative anecdotes and reactions from area religious leaders. And for sure journalists and religious analysts will want to give the full report some careful thought.

Pew emphasizes that its numbers are only “possibilities,” not “predictions of what will happen,” and comments that such a future would have “far-reaching consequences for politics, family life and civil society.” For example, also consider the multiple social science surveys that associate religious involvement with psychological and medical well-being and positive life outcomes for youths. Also, there is the impact of religious charity, not only effective huge organizations but private person-to-person interactions. Also, religions strengthen community in our “Bowling Alone” culture.

Pew calculated four future scenarios based largely upon the rates at which Americans may switch in or out of Christian identification and in or out of religious “none” status.


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Here's a solid religion information source for office, home libraries and (of course) newsrooms

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Here's a solid religion information source for office, home libraries and (of course) newsrooms

Here are some interesting facts about war-ravaged Ukraine you might not have heard:

* The nation was 97% Christian in 1900, slumped to 60% when atheistic Soviet Communists held power, and has rebounded to 86%. But in one survey only 20% of Ukrainians said religion is “very important” for them.

* The Orthodox Church historically under the Moscow Patriarchate has 13.5 million members. But even before the current Russian invasion, the young rival Orthodox Church of the independent Kyiv Patriarchate had gained a bigger following of 16 million.

* Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Protestants, though a small minority, have so thrived since national independence in 1991 that Ukraine is known as Eastern Europe’s “Bible Belt.” Pentecostal believers who once survived in the underground church are now a force in civic affairs.

* Despite electing the first Jewish president, anti-Semitic incidents still occur.

* Regarding morals, “domestic violence is a massive problem,” especially in COVID-19 times, with complaints up 40% in the first half of 2020 compared with 2019.

Why mention these newsworthy pieces of information?

That’s a sampling of the sort of data about each of 233 countries you’ll find in the brand-new “Global Christianity: A Guide to the World’s Largest Religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe” (Zondervan Academic, $29.99 paperback). This valuable and inexpensive resource updates key information from the 2019 edition of the invaluable “World Christian Encyclopedia” (Edinburgh University Press, list price $270 with discounts online).

The new book’s editor is Gina Zurlo — https://ginazurlo.com; gzurlo@gordonconwell.edu) — co-editor of the “Encyclopedia” and co-director of the independent agency that produces it, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.


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