Religious Liberty

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In Afghanistan, believers in religious minorities have every reason to go underground

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In Afghanistan, believers in religious minorities have every reason to go underground

There's a logical reason that Taliban forces have not been accused of destroying any churches in Afghanistan.

"That's the dirty little secret. There were no churches before the Taliban returned to power," said Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and a human-rights activist for 30 years. "Christians were already underground because of the constant threats to their lives, so they didn't have any church buildings to blow up."

Everyone remembers the shocking videos when desperate Afghans chased a U.S. military plane on a Kabul runway, pleading to be among those evacuated. At least two people fell to their deaths after clinging to a plane during takeoff.

Ever since, there have been reports about the dangers faced by those left behind, especially Afghans with ties to the U.S. military, the fallen government or workers in secular or religious non-profit groups that remained behind to continue humanitarian work.

Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadis, Shia Muslims and members of other religious minorities are also living in fear.

"They are all on the run. They are all in hiding," said Shea, reached by telephone. "People are being hunted down and beaten and are threatened with death if they don't betray members of their families who are considered apostates" by the Taliban.

It's impossible not to discuss religious freedom during this crisis, she added. "Everything the Taliban does is about religion. Religion is involved when they hang people for violating their approach to Islamic law or when they attack women and girls who want to go to school. For the Taliban, this is all connected."

The problem is that religious freedom concerns are often drowned out during debates about politics, economics, climate change and other issues in violent flashpoints around the world.


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In reportage on Russia and Ukraine, don't neglect the importance of two rival churches 

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In reportage on Russia and Ukraine, don't neglect the importance of two rival churches 

On top of the 2014 seizure of Crimea and years of infiltration in eastern borderlands, Russia now poses a more severe threat to neighboring Ukraine.

Whether the nation faces a military invasion, or even a World War 2.5, or less bloody subversion and hoped-for domination, journalists these next few years will need to understand and depict the religious aspect of Ukraine's rising nationalism and resistance against Russian expansionism.

Here are some basics. Russia and Ukraine contain by far the two largest national populations in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The new World Christian Encyclopedia edition (which belongs in every media and academic library) counts 114 million Orthodox in Russia for 79% of the population, and 32 million in Ukraine for 73%.

Terminology note for writers: "Eastern Orthodox" is the precise designation for such churches, related historically to the Ecumenical Patriarchate based in Turkey, that affirm the definition of Jesus Christ's divinity by the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). The separate branch of so-called "Oriental Orthodox" is non-Chalcedonian; its largest national church is in Ethiopia.

Ukraine's ecclesiastical history, like its political history, is highly complex. The saga began with the A.D. 988 "baptism of Rus" in Kyiv (Russians prefer "Kiev") when Prince Vladimir proclaimed Orthodoxy the religion of his realm and urged the masses to join him in conversion and baptism.

Russians see Christendom's entry into Eastern Europe as the origin of their homeland and the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian President Vladimir Putin cites this history to support his claim for Ukraine as a client area within greater Russia instead of a validly independent nation. His post-Soviet Kremlin maintains close bonds with the Russian Church's Moscow Patriarchate, which in turn has centuries of ecclesiastical authority within Ukraine.


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Do athletes have a moral duty to protest Chinese authoritarianism? How about Elon Musk?

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Do athletes have a moral duty to protest Chinese authoritarianism? How about Elon Musk?

Do elite international athletes have a moral responsibility to publicly comment or act in a way that acknowledges their awareness of oppressive — or worse — political conditions in nations in which they compete?

Do societal moral standards require them to speak up, even when criticism and confrontation jeopardize their ability to compete and may threaten to derail an entire career?

The Beijing Winter Olympics — scheduled to begin in early February in and around China’s capital city — makes this a timely question.

Several democratic nations have announced “diplomatic” boycotts of the Beijing competition. They include the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, and Japan. (To be clear: democratic claims alone do not necessarily stifle a nation’s darker impulses and render it “moral.”)

That means that no political office holders from the the boycotting nations will attend these Games, but qualifying athletes are free to make their own choices about competing.

The following paragraphs from the above linked Washington Post article explain the limits on free speech China is demanding (with International Olympic Committee acquiescence).

The IOC has said athletes will be free to express themselves during the Games as long as they abide by IOC rules barring any demonstrations during sporting events or medal ceremonies.

Athletes could raise any number of issues, including allegations of cultural genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the erasure of civil freedoms in Hong Kong, and the arrests of human rights lawyers, activists and outspoken Chinese citizens. [Note that the Post left Tibetan issues, a major international sticking point for the West, off this list.]

But Chinese authorities are extremely sensitive to criticism about the country’s human rights record, its role in the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, and even the country’s efforts during the Korean War.


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Is America really threatened by civil war? What is religion's role in these tensions?

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Is America really threatened by civil war? What is religion's role in these tensions?

American Civil War talk is all the rage this New Year.

No, not that war, the one that cost 620,000 lives and was evoked by President Biden to castigate Senate Democrats and Republicans who are blocking passage of new election-ballot rules. Rather, The Guy refers to the drumbeat of warnings that the disunited United States may in the near future face an internal legal and economic cold war or some kind of hot war.

National Public Radio's Ron Elving reports that "not long ago the idea of another American Civil War seemed outlandish. These days, the notion has not only gone mainstream, it seems to suddenly be everywhere." He summarized anxiety-producing polls that show a polarized nation, and noted that 434,000,000 firearms are in civilian hands.

Then there's New Yorker Editor David Remnick's article "Is a Civil War Ahead?" New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg likewise wonders, "Are We Really Facing a Second Civil War?" A Times op-ed by former National Security Council staffers Jonathan Stevenson and Steven Simon offers "the worst case scenario" in which "the United States as we know it could come apart at the seams" with "insurrection, secession, insurgency and civil war."

New January books include "The Next Civil War: Dispatches From the American Future" by novelist Stephen Marche, who sees virtually inevitable doom, and the slightly more upbeat "How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them" by Barbara F. Walter of the University of California San Diego. (Is it mere coincidence that The Atlantic's London writer Tom McTague is just out with "How Britain Falls Apart"?)

One typical forecaster is all the more interesting because he's Canadian. Thomas Homer-Dixon of Royal Roads University issued a New Year's Eve alarm in the influential Globe and Mail. He believes that as soon as 2025 "American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship."

Outlandish?


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Novak Djokovic is both Orthodox and unorthodox: Why ignore faith when covering this story?

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Novak Djokovic is both Orthodox and unorthodox: Why ignore faith when covering this story?

First things first. I am not a tennis fan. I don’t think I have seriously cared about the outcome of a tennis match since the late Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975.

Also, as a Baby Boomer at high risk (asthma), I have had both shots and the booster. I am currently in semi-lockdown. I wear a mask when shopping and in jammed public places. I’m one of those folks in the middle — pro-vaccine, but anti-government mandate. What about religious exemptions? As I have written here at GetReligion, that would be a complex U.S. Supreme Court case.

This brings me to the Novak Djokovic drama. I vaguely knew that he was one of the world’s top tennis players, but knew nothing about his unique — bizarre, even — beliefs about a host of medical issues.

Then I saw an image that hit home for me, as an Eastern Orthodox Christian believer. It showed Djokovic doing what Orthodox parents do — helping his young son light prayer candles and venerate icons.

What follows in this post has nothing to do with whether readers think Djokovic is right or wrong, a liar or a Serbian hero, a lunatic or a misunderstood believer, of some kind of another. What I am doing here is asking a journalism question about mainstream coverage of this battle in the wider COVID-19 wars. I read the New York Times, of course, so that was where I immediately went for information.

The question: How could journalists try to tell the story of Djokovic and his opposition to COVID-19 vaccines without digging into his complex and, it seems to me, confusing set of Orthodox and unorthodox religious beliefs? Isn’t that a crucial and factual element of this story?

I am aware, of course, that anti-vaccine sentiment is present in some Orthodox circles — such as Serbia — but certainly not all (my own bishop has been very careful during the pandemic).


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Two think pieces on changes in American religious life, with a few political twists

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Two think pieces on changes in American religious life, with a few political twists

It’s time for another “think piece” weekend double-shot.

In other words, I want to point readers toward two different online features that, at first, may not seem to be related. However, when you look closer you can see the DNA that connects them.

The first is a blog post by my friend Rod “Live Not By Lies” Dreher, but I want readers to consider his post as a mere frame work around a blast of data from the Pew Research Center team. The headline on Dreher’s post states, once again, an old trend (think “Sheilaism”), but one that is being more — not less — important: “Christianity Declines — But Not ‘Spirituality’.”

Dreher points to this quotation from a recent Pew feature, which digs deeper into the center’s mine of religiously unaffiliated research:

The secularizing shifts evident in American society so far in the 21st century show no signs of slowing. The latest Pew Research Center survey of the religious composition of the United States finds the religiously unaffiliated share of the public is 6 percentage points higher than it was five years ago and 10 points higher than a decade ago.

Christians continue to make up a majority of the U.S. populace, but their share of the adult population is 12 points lower in 2021 than it was in 2011. In addition, the share of U.S. adults who say they pray on a daily basis has been trending downward, as has the share who say religion is “very important” in their lives.

Currently, about three-in-ten U.S. adults (29%) are religious “nones” — people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked about their religious identity. Self-identified Christians of all varieties (including Protestants, Catholics, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Orthodox Christians) make up 63% of the adult population. Christians now outnumber religious “nones” by a ratio of a little more than two-to-one. In 2007, when the Center began asking its current question about religious identity, Christians outnumbered “nones” by almost five-to-one (78% vs. 16%).

The recent declines within Christianity are concentrated among Protestants.

A trend this massive will affect almost every area of American life, including politics.


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Religion news 2021: Which story was No. 1? Return of Taliban or Jan. 6 riot at U.S. Capitol?

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Religion news 2021: Which story was No. 1? Return of Taliban or Jan. 6 riot at U.S. Capitol?

For journalists who braved the chaos, the Jan. 6th riot on Capitol Hill offered a buffet of the bizarre -- a throng of Proud Boys, QAnon prophets, former U.S. military personnel and radicalized Donald Trump supporters that crashed through security lines and, thus, into history.

Many protestors at Trump’s legal "Save America" rally carried signs, flags and banners with slogans such as "Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my president" or simply "Jesus 2020." In this context, "Jesus saves" took on a whole new meaning.

Some of that symbolism was swept into the illegal attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In its poll addressing major religion events in 2021, members of the Religion News Association offered this description of the top story: "Religion features prominently during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. Some voice Christian prayers, while others display Christian or pagan symbols and slogans inside and outside the Capitol."

Consider, for example, Jacob Anthony Chansley -- or Jake "Yellowstone Wolf" Angeli. With his coyote-skin and buffalo-horns headdress, red, white and blue face paint and Norse torso tattoos, the self-proclaimed QAnon shaman, UFO expert and metaphysical healer became the instant superstar of this mash-up of politics, religion and digital conspiracy theories.

"Thank you, Heavenly Father … for this opportunity to stand up for our God-given inalienable rights," he said, in a video of his U.S. Senate remarks from the vice president's chair. "Thank you, divine, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator God for filling this chamber with your white light and love. Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ. …

“Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn. Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the communists, the globalists and the traitors within our government."

That was one loud voice. A big question that must be answered, in future trials and the U.S. House investigation, is whether it's true -- as claimed by the New York Times -- that the "most extreme corners of support for Mr. Trump have become inextricable from some parts of white evangelical power in America."


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Sikhs, Santas and prophets: Do beards symbolize good or bad character?

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Sikhs, Santas and prophets: Do beards symbolize good or bad character?

THE QUESTION:

Santa take note: Do beards symbolize good or bad character?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Any self-respecting Santa Claus will have actual or artificial paunch, a red suit and, perhaps most important, that luxuriant white beard. Yet notwithstanding shopping-mall Santas and St. Nicholas, as well as St. Nicholas of Myra, the bearded but monk-skinny 4th Century original, some fear that beards symbolize questionable character.

Take the New York Yankees. Please. In 1973, boss George Steinbrenner was perturbed by a player's sloppy appearance during the National Anthem and ever since no player or other employee has been allowed to have a beard or long hair "except for religious reasons." The Yankees presumably borrowed their famed appearance code from the U.S. military and police departments.

And yet. Jesus Christ is portrayed with a beard, since in the 1st Century mostly the upper crust had the time and money to bother with shaving. As for revered secular figures, Abraham Lincoln decided to become America's first bearded president for unknown reasons just after his 1860 victory (though predecessors John Quincy Adams and Martin Van Buren sported serious sideburns).

A cloud of suspicion hovers over chin whiskers in the U.S.-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (nicknamed LDS and, formerly, "Mormon"). Headquarters personnel are almost always clean-shaven, and the same for young male missionary duos unless their district leader happens to allow beards.

This is not, however, a matter of doctrine.


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Old, nagging conflicts will continue to dominate religion news in the coming year

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Old, nagging conflicts will continue to dominate religion news in the coming year

Yes, there will be a hotly contested U.S. election in 2022. And pretty much every secular and religious faction is keyed up awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on whether to revise or revoke its rulings that legalized abortion.

Big decisions like this typically land in late June.

Other lingering disputes on the news coverage agenda include the following.

* As the U.S. Senate struggles with a rewrite of the Catholic President Joe Biden's elephantine social-spending bill, the Catholic bishops' conference vehemently opposes any inclusion of abortion funding.

The bishops, along with Orthodox Judaism's synagogue union, also fear (.pdf here) this law will cripple funding for widespread religious preschools. In yet another church-state debate, Biden hopes to end religious exemption from anti-discrimination rules, which went into effect in January.

* Inside the world of Mainline Protestantism, the unending dispute over the Bible and LGBTQ+ issues may produce the biggest U.S. church split since the Civil War at the United Methodist Church's General Conference. Early in 2022, a commission must decide whether the twice-postponed conference, now scheduled for August 29-September 6 in Minneapolis, can finally occur despite two years of COVID-related snarls and, some say, stalling by the UMC establishment.

* The T in LGBTQ won new Methodist attention as just-retired Pennsylvania Bishop Peggy Johnson and her husband, a Methodist pastor, publicized the latter's gender transition while identifying publicly as a "cisgender" male.

Last March, a sizable body of U.S. conservatives announced plans to leave the denomination and unite with former mission churches overseas — primarily in Africa and Asia — to form the "Global Methodist Church," led temporarily by Virginia Pastor Keith Boyette (540-898-4960).


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