Sex

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Panning purity culture: What the press doesn't get about basic Christian doctrines on sex

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Panning purity culture: What the press doesn't get about basic Christian doctrines on sex

Here we go again.

Evangelical “purity culture” is getting royally trashed these days for being responsible for a multiple murder last week in Atlanta. If only, these stories suggest, this man hadn’t been so messed up by primitive Christian morals, he might not have gunned down eight people.

Members of the GetReligion team have written before (in this 2019 piece by the Religion Guy) about how reporters consistently don’t get the doctrinal issues that are linked to purity culture. Here we are again with a string of murders by a Southern Baptist man who had a sex obsession. Suddenly, the national conversation is about the Christian teachings that might have driven him to it.

A number of media took a whack at the topic. I’ll start with Business Insider, which, in a piece headlined “The Atlanta shooting and the dangers of American evangelicalism’s trademark purity culture,” commits tons of journalistic sins starting with its fourth paragraph:

"It's not a jump to say white conservative Christianity played a role here," said Joshua Grubbs, an assistant professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University. "The facts need to come to light, but all the facts that are in the light right now suggest it's at play." …

Huh? All white conservative Christians are now complicit in the shootings? This whole marrying of what various writers hate about Christianity to “white evangelical culture” shows a massive ignorance of evangelicals.

First, a lot of evangelicals, especially younger ones, aren’t white. Show up at a college InterVarsity meeting sometime (that is, those that are still are allowed to use university facilities, which many aren’t these days because of their views on gay marriage) and take a look at the variety of folks there.

Back to the Business Insider piece:

Two key concepts here are "temptation" and "sex addiction." Both feature heavily in evangelical "purity culture," a set of rituals and beliefs around gender roles, designed to encourage believers, especially young men and women, to abstain from sex outside of heterosexual marriage.

The article marshals a list of scholars to trash white supremacy, the boogeyman in all this.


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New podcast: Early clue that Liberty may return to being a 'normal' Christian university?

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New podcast: Early clue that Liberty may return to being a 'normal' Christian university?

Here’s a question for journalists and news consumers who remain interested in the future of the complicated, complex world of evangelical Protestantism: Now that Donald Trump is out of office, does it matter who becomes the next president of Liberty University?

Note that this question assumes that the future of Liberty is important — as a mainstream news story — if it is linked to politics, as opposed to questions about the future of Christian higher education.

There is another way to state this question: Would it be important if Liberty returned to the conservative Christian style and image of its founder, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, instead of the high-energy, openly political agenda of Jerry Falwell, Jr.? In other words, the focus would be on conservative Christian beliefs and education, as opposed to political clout. That’s the question that was at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

If you followed the life and work of Jerry Falwell, Sr., you know that he was (#DUH) quite political. But this wasn’t an agenda that dominated the daily life and academic priorities of his university. Liberty was a conservative Baptist university and, for the most part, acted like one.

That changed under Jerry Falwell, Jr., of course. Consider this chunk of an “On Religion” column about that:

… Falwell Jr. developed a swashbuckling style that caused heat, especially when linked to race, guns, jets, politics, yachts and his specialty – real estate. Controversies about his de facto partnership with President Donald Trump thrilled many Liberty donors, alumni, parents and students, while deeply troubling others.

Many Christian college presidents are super-pastors who provide ties that bind to denominations, churches and networks of believers. Falwell Jr. — a lawyer — turned into a dynamic entrepreneur who courted powerful conservative politicos.

On regular Christian campuses, there "are higher expectations for presidents than members of the faculty, and members of the faculty live with greater expectations than students," noted religious-liberty activist David French, writing at The Dispatch.

"Liberty flipped this script. The president lived life with greater freedom than his students or his faculty. …”

This brings me to a fascinating news feature that ran the other day in The New York Times under this double-decker headline:

Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk Leaves Liberty University Think Tank

The Falkirk Center, named for its founders, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Charlie Kirk, was the center of evangelical Trumpism. Now, both are gone.


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3D chess in Rome? Pope Francis approves Vatican decree affirming doctrines on marriage

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3D chess in Rome? Pope Francis approves Vatican decree affirming doctrines on marriage

All together now: Is the pope Catholic?

Actually, in this age of conspiracy theories — on right and left — the question of the day appears to be: Is THIS pope Catholic? I am referring, of course, to the Vatican’s decision to affirm centuries of Christian doctrine stating that sex outside of marriage is (trigger warning) “sin” and that the sacrament of marriage is limited to the union of a man and a woman.

But, but, but, clearly Pope Francis must be playing some kind of three-dimensional chess with this action, moving the doctrinal pieces in some subtle way that will become clear in “reforms” at a later date? This was a case in which one could catch whiffs of disappointment and even conspiracy thinking on both the Catholic left and right (and in the press).

To see this in print, check out the overture in this Washington Post report: “Pope Francis says priests cannot bless same-sex unions, dashing hopes of gay Catholics.” The headline assumes, of course, that all gay Catholics oppose the church’s teachings on this matter but, well, nevermind.

ROME — Pope Francis has invited LGBT advocates to the Vatican. He has spoken warmly about the place of gay people in the church. He has called for national laws for same-sex civil unions.

But Monday, Francis definitively signaled the limits to his reformist intentions, signing off on a Vatican decree that reaffirms old church teaching and bars priests from blessing same-sex unions.

The pronouncement, issued at a time when some clerics were interested in performing such blessings, leans on the kind of language that LGBT Catholics have long found alienating — and that they had hoped Francis might change. It says that same-sex unions are “not ordered to the Creator’s plan.” It says acknowledging those unions is “illicit.” It says that God “cannot bless sin.”

The decree shows how Francis, rather than revolutionizing the church’s stance toward gays, has taken a far more complicated approach, speaking in welcoming terms while maintaining the official teaching. That leaves gay Catholics wondering about their place within the faith, when the catechism calls homosexual acts “disordered” but the pontiff says, “Who am I to judge?”

Let’s see. We have the standard use of the word “reform” to prejudge this matter. We have a sense of yearning that Pope Francis is taking a “more complicated approach” to this doctrinal issue.


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'Total Woman' redux: Obscure white evangelical says stupid things and it's national news

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'Total Woman' redux: Obscure white evangelical says stupid things and it's national news

About the time that I started teaching journalism in Washington, D.C., I saw a movie in which Beltway professionals (including speechwriters) played a rather cynical bar game. I think the movie was “Speechless,” with Michael Keaton and Geena Davis.

If my memory is correct, the game was called “Spot the soundbite.” The goal was to watch a long, complicated political speech and then to accurately predict the tiny, often sensational 5-10 second “bite” that would make it into television news reports.

The message, of course, was that substance and nuance didn’t mean much in public life. Emotions and feelings linked to a fleeting soundbite — which could be funny or emotional or whatever — were what mattered. All together now: “Where’s the beef!” It was also clear that it was easy for journalists to pick good, sharp soundbites from “good” candidates and bad, stupid soundbites from “bad” candidates.

This brings us to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), in which host Todd Wilken and I discussed the latest example of a preacher getting caught, in the age of YouTube and social media, failing to understand the rules of “Spot the soundbite.”

I heard about this epic news story when a former student — who has national print and television experience — sent me a wry email that said: “It’s weird that this random preacher’s sermon merits an NBC News story, no?” Indeed. In the world of short attention spans and tiny online news reports, this sermon by an unknown preacher, in a tiny church, in the middle of nowhere, in an obscure denomination, deserved a 900-word report.

My witty former student knew, of course, why this sermon received lots of national news coverage — including staff (not wire service) coverage in The New York Times (we will get to that shortly).

Yes, this preacher said some genuinely bizarre and disturbing stuff about women and marriage, especially when viewed through a #ChurchToo lens. However, was it national news that an unknown pastor said these things? Well, it is if the sermon contains the word “Trump” and this pastor can be turned into an archetypal symbol of white evangelicals in flyover country, the rubes many journalists blame for electing Orange Man Bad in the first place.

This preacher did not understand how to play “Spot the soundbite.”


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Thinking about disunited Methodist future: Questions, terms and fault lines to ponder

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Thinking about disunited Methodist future: Questions, terms and fault lines to ponder

So the “United” Methodists are back on the clock, in terms of waiting for their amicable divorce?

It would appear so, as COVID-19 continues to delay all kinds of large-scale meetings for pretty much everyone. Maybe they could have a socially distanced meeting in something like the University of Michigan’s “Big House” stadium (which seats about 110,000 under normal conditions)?

This is a huge story, of course, any way you cut it — with major implications for the shrinking world of the Seven Sisters of oldline liberal Protestantism, as well as putting the spotlight on the thriving evangelicalism of the Global South. As GetReligion patriarch Richard Ostling noted the other day:

The United Methodist Church is on the brink of America's biggest religious schism since the Civil War, with the conflict centering on sexual morality, biblical authority and theological liberalism.

At stake is an empire with 6.7 million U.S. members and 31,000 congregations located across most American counties, 6.5 million members overseas and $6.3 billion in annual donations (though there's now a severe money crunch). Many of those churches sit on prime urban and suburban real estate.

You know that COVID-19 has to be affecting the economics of all of this, especially for the center-left UMC establishment. Will they try to run out the clock somehow, assuming that the doctrinal conservatives will simply leave on their own (thus avoiding the need for some kind of severance check)? But that kind of split would lead to legal warfare (think of it as the United Methodist lawyers Employment Act) over church sanctuaries, clergy benefits, etc. Ask the the Episcopalians about that.

This leads me to two think pieces for reporters and news consumers to file. The first comes from the Mark Tooley, the must-follow analyst on the Methodist right: “Global Methodism’s New Church.” He covers essential background, with logical attention to Methodist growth in Africa, then offers this helpful summary:

Why are conservatives leaving when they won at the General Conference?

Liberals, although outnumbered globally, dominate the U.S. church and its bureaucracy. Few American conservatives want to inherit liberal church agencies, seminaries, and local conference structures, whose financial viability is already dubious.


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Attention news editors: Are German Catholic bishops poised to become liberal Luthers?

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Attention news editors: Are German Catholic bishops poised to become liberal Luthers?

Germany’s Catholic bishops embarked on a series of conversations in 2018 aimed at reforming church teachings. It was an ambitious, if not audacious, effort addressing everything from homosexuality, priestly celibacy and the ordination of women.

As always, the word “reform” — in this context — means modernizing ancient church doctrines.

Conservative Catholics across the world decried the prospect. The tensions that arose at that time — and still simmering today — even caused some to warn that a permanent split could occur.

Indeed, the dreaded “s-word” — schism — can be used to describe the current moment. It was just last year that a high-ranking prelate argued that pushing such changes could lead to a “German national church.”

That’s a big news story — period. Over the past three years, the bishops in Germany haven’t been shy about making headlines — in Catholic-market publications. The question is when their proposals will draw major coverage by professionals in major newsrooms, including television networks.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has elevated women at the Vatican, but he hasn’t endorsed such progressive doctrinal proposals — although his papacy has emboldened the Germans to push for such changes.

The church across the West has suffered tremendously due to secularism and the clergy sex scandal, especially in Germany. None of these German innovations, along with the alleged cover-ups, has helped matters. Still, the German bishops have continued to propose “reforms” in the past few weeks — with a series of moves that could forever change Roman Catholicism.

These latest pronouncements have received attention in the U.S. press, primarily in conservative religious publications. There are exceptions, but overall these fast-moving developments have gone unnoticed as of late.

These moves come as the church in Germany continues to lose members. In 2019, for example, over 272,000 Catholics quit the church.


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Puzzle: Many reporters ignoring Equality Act's impact on this crucial Schumer-Kennedy legislation

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Puzzle: Many reporters ignoring Equality Act's impact on this crucial Schumer-Kennedy legislation

I have been following the Equality Act coverage and, so far, a crucial piece in this puzzle has been missing.

Thus, here is a one-question pop test. That question: Name the piece of stunningly bipartisan legislation — vote was 97-3 in U.S. Senate — from the Bill Clinton era that will be gutted by passage of the Equality Act? Hint: It was introduced in the House by Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993, and in the Senate on the same day by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA).

We are, of course, talking about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In today’s advocacy-media age that would, of course, be the “Religious Freedom” Restoration Act, complete with “scare quotes.”

The key is the impact the Equality Act would have on religious parachurch groups, social ministries, hospitals and educational institutions, from preschools to universities.

Now, does everyone agree on how the Equality Act would impact the First Amendment rights of religious believers and their doctrine-defined ministries?

Of course not. There are strong, credible voices on both sides of that debate that deserve serious, accurate, informed coverage by the mainstream press. However, this process — let’s call it “journalism” — would require newsroom managers to admit that this issue exists.

That’s why Andrew Sullivan — one of the world’s best-known gay public intellectuals — called the introductory Washington Post Equality Act story a “press release” (think PR) for the Human Rights Campaign. Here is that story’s description of the legislation’s impact:

The Equality Act would amend existing civil rights laws, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act, to explicitly ban LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce, housing, education, credit, jury service and other areas of American life.

If passed, the legislation would provide the most comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights protections in U.S. history, advocates say, significantly altering the legal landscape in a country where more than half of states lack explicit legal protections on the basis of sexuality or gender identity. …


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United Methodists remain on clock: Will 2022 see biggest church split since Civil War? (updated)

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United Methodists remain on clock: Will 2022 see biggest church split since Civil War? (updated)

The United Methodist Church is on the brink of America's biggest religious schism since the Civil War, with the conflict centering on sexual morality, biblical authority and theological liberalism.

At stake is an empire with 6.7 million U.S. members and 31,000 congregations located across most American counties, 6.5 million members overseas and $6.3 billion in annual donations (though there's now a severe money crunch). Many of those churches sit on prime urban and suburban real estate.

But when? The 2020 General Conference to settle matters was postponed until this coming Aug. 29- Sept. 7 in Minneapolis, a city that currently limits meetings to 150 people. News calendars are iffy until the imminent UMC decision on whether it can meet then, or must delay a second time or whether it's possible to manage such a complex international meeting online.

Whenever and however delegates assemble, by most accounts they're prepared to adopt some version of the 33-page "Protocol of Reconciliation & Grace Through Separation" (.pdf here) hashed out last year via professional mediation among representatives of various factions.

One breakaway has occurred prematurely. Online worship last Nov. 29 established the hard left "Liberation Methodist Connection." The new denomination is intended for Methodist exiles to live out their "God-given identities" regardless of not only same-sex identity but e.g. gender expression, sexual non-monogamy, immigration status, piercings, body art or drug use.

However, the main event involves who inherits the UMC's name, logo, endowments, properties and structures. In U.S. Methodism, liberals and centrists combined have political power to install a laissez-faire LGBT policy, while the evangelical wing dissents alongside millions of Methodists in Africa and the Philippines. (This structure is unusual. Most "mainline" denominations that have legislated full LGBT inclusion are U.S.-only.)

The Wesleyan Covenant Association figures conservative congregations and pastors will happily leave behind UMC assets, schools and agencies and is busily preparing a new breakaway denomination under "Protocol" terms that would merge Americans and booming churches overseas.


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Want to trigger Episcopalians? Ask an evangelical superstar to preach at National Cathedral

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Want to trigger Episcopalians? Ask an evangelical superstar to preach at National Cathedral

Halfway between Norway and the North Pole, scientists have buried a million seeds and crop samples under a mountain in the Svalbard archipelago -- in case an environmental doomsday comes to pass.

That strategy rings true during "this crazy, chaotic season" when so many are anxious about the coronavirus pandemic, global warming, lost jobs, surging debts and the bitter state of public life, said evangelical megachurch leader Max Lucado, in a recent sermon streamed online by the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

“Most of us can't hide out in a bunker, yet threats of calamity may make us try to do so," he said. "If the wrong person pushes the wrong red button -- it's enough to make a person purchase a plane ticket to Svalbard."

But there was a problem. While pre-service publicity stressed that Lucado's books have sold more than 120 million copies and Christianity Today has called him "America's pastor," this invitation alarmed legions of Episcopalians opposed to his history of orthodoxy on sex and marriage. His sermon about God offering comfort in the midst of chaos avoided hot-button topics, but his cathedral appearance triggered an online storm.

Before the event, the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith linked the Lucado invitation to the cathedral's history of hosting a variety of religious leaders. This has included evangelicals such the late Billy Graham, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and megachurch leader Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Southern California.

"When we only engage with those with whom we agree on every issue, we find ourselves in a dangerous (and lonely) place," wrote the cathedral's dean. "That means this cathedral, and this pulpit, are big enough and strong enough to welcome pastors, rabbis, imams, clergy of every faith. … It does not mean we agree with everything they might believe, but it does mean that we exhibit and inhabit a sense of open handed welcome."

However, Hollerith issued a formal apology in response to the online backlash, noting: "In my straight privilege I failed to see and fully understand the pain he has caused. I failed to appreciate the depth of injury his words have had on many in the LGBTQ community. I failed to see the pain I was continuing. I was wrong."

While Lucado is known as an evangelical moderate, Episcopalians were outraged by a 2004 sermon, and online commentary, stating that he "categorically opposes" gay marriage, as well as his conviction that "homosexual activity" is sin.


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