Sex

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Lawsuits and scarce donors: Religious colleges could be facing tough years ahead

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Lawsuits and scarce donors: Religious colleges could be facing tough years ahead

A narrowly-framed Supreme Court victory — the Fulton v. Philadelphia case — will allow Catholic Charities (at least for now) to preserve religious conscience and avoid placing foster children and children available for adoption with same-sex couples, despite the city's non-discrimination statute.

However, this does not settle the many similar legal disputes the media will be covering the next few years.

In particular, reporters will want to carefully monitor Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education, a potentially huge lawsuit filed in Oregon federal court March 29. This is a class action with 33 plaintiffs represented by Portland attorney Paul Southwick, director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project or REAP (paul@paulsouthwick.com and 503-806-9517). Alliance Defending Freedom, a familiar participant in such matters, has filed a bid to defend the religious schools (media@adflegal.org or 480-444-0020). There are questions about the degree to which the current Justice Department will help in this defense.

The suit charges that LGBTQ students suffer "abuses and unsafe conditions" at "hundreds" of U.S. religious colleges with traditional doctrinal covenants so government should cut off their financial aid. Except for Brigham Young University and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, REAP's targets are Protestant, led off by Oregon's George Fox University, a venerable Quaker campus attended by Herbert Hoover when it was a mere secondary school. George Fox's mission statement declares that "we desire the presence of Christ to be at the core of all we do."

Others include the likes of Azusa Pacific University, Baylor University, Bob Jones University, Dordt University, Eastern University, Fuller Theological Seminary, Liberty University, Messiah University, Moody Bible Institute, Seattle Pacific University, Union University and Westmont College. (Notably missing: Calvin, Gordon, Wheaton.)

Loss of aid for students would be a severe competitive blow in coming years when all colleges and especially private and religious ones expect to suffer declines in the student-age population and thus in applications, this on top of the institutional damage wrought by COVID-19. There are also prospective attacks on such schools' tax exemption and academic accreditation over sexuality. The status of athletic programs is also a hot-button issue.


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ESPN's paean to Layshia Clarendon offers few details about basketball star's faith claims

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ESPN's paean to Layshia Clarendon offers few details about basketball star's faith claims

Several years ago, I was hiking in the woods on a mountain just outside of Seattle when I ran into two women hiking with an infant. The child was dressed in such a way that you couldn't tell whether it was a boy or girl and when I commented on the cuteness of the child, the women addressed the child as “they.”

Apparently, they’ll let their kid decide on its own which gender it is, an idea that struck me as harmful to the child. A kid needs to know who they are. That’s where I stand on that issue.

But this is, of course, one of the hottest topics in American journalism, and, thus, American life, today. Is gender simply a matter of choice, not DNA or destiny? Could you decide to be male or female simply by lopping off a few body parts or adding them?

Such thoughts came up when I read ESPN’s profile of transgender activist Layshia Clarendon, written by an ESPN staff writer who has posted “they/them” pronouns. As the writer enthused on Twitter: “I've never had the opportunity to write a story about an athlete with whom I share so many identities.” Um, OK. I’m trying to imagine a similar statement from an ESPN reporter covering a traditional religious believer.

I usually don’t go after the motivations of the reporter, but this story went beyond respect and dignity to pure advocacy and the non-subtle hint that those who question this woman’s journey are transphobic haters.

Here is the key for GetReligion readers. This feature also made a real effort to work Clarendon’s faith into the mix, including captions that referred to the basketball player’s belief in God, which is not something you find in most ESPN cover stories.

What exactly is that faith? The story tries to shed some light on that, while skipping over many details.

Getting through this feature is quite convoluted part because the writer’s determination to mix gender pronouns so thoroughly that the reader often could not determine to whom the reporter was referring. I know the article was trying to be sensitive to how Clarendon talks about herself, but what resulted was a jumble. The confusion was, we can assume, part of the message in this sermon.


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A World Series MVP's marriage crashes and his pastor is more than a role player in the drama

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A World Series MVP's marriage crashes and his pastor is more than a role player in the drama

Celebrity divorces are rarely tidy and uncomplicated. This is especially true when one of the people in the marriage is alleged to have been sleeping with the couple’s marriage counselor.

Two more details: The marriage counselor was (1) both the couple’s pastor and (2) the leader of a charitable foundation funded by the jilted husband. Now, throw in the fact that the husband was, at the time, a Major League Baseball star — the 2016 World Series MVP — with the Chicago Cubs.

This is not, alas, your usual upbeat Bobby Ross, Jr., story about God and baseball. Several news operations have reported on this sad affair, but the key report ran, logically enough, at The Chicago Tribune. The headline: “Ben Zobrist lawsuit alleges his pastor had an affair with his wife Julianna and defrauded the former Chicago Cubs player’s charity.”

The story was written by a reporter who covers “sports pop culture with a Chicago focus as well as a range of other topics from the White Sox to fantasy football.” As you would expect, this story misses one or two religion details that many readers would have liked to have known. Here’s some crucial material right up top:

The lawsuit against Byron Yawn, CEO of the Nashville-area counseling firm Forrest Crain and Co., seeks $6 million in punitive and compensatory damages through a jury trial.

According to the complaint filed May 6 in Nashville Circuit Court, Yawn, while acting as the Zobrists’ marital counselor and executive director of Ben Zobrist’s charity, “usurped the ministerial-counselor role, violated and betrayed the confidence entrusted to him by the plaintiff, breached his fiduciary duty owed to the plaintiff and deceitfully used his access as counselor to engage in an inappropriate sexual relationship with the plaintiff’s wife.”

Yawn’s attorney, Christopher Bellamy of Nashville-based Neal and Harwell, told the Tribune …: “At the end of the day, a woman has the right to choose who she wants to be with. We’re in the middle of litigation, so I can’t really comment further at this point, but that’s what it boils down to.”

Yes, that certainly raises moral questions, in terms of the actions of high-profile conservative Christians. But that is not the stuff of journalism discussions.

I did, however, want to know more about this pastor and the church at the heart of this drama.


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Beyond Potiphar's wife: Leaked letters yank SBC debates about sexual abuse into the open

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Beyond Potiphar's wife: Leaked letters yank SBC debates about sexual abuse into the open

It's hard to follow warfare inside the Southern Baptist Convention without a working knowledge of biblical symbolism.

Consider this passage in a May 31 letter (.pdf here) from the Rev. Russell Moore to SBC President J.D. Greear, which described key events leading to his recent resignation as head of the denomination's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

"You and I both heard, in closed door meetings, sexual abuse survivors spoken of in terms of 'Potiphar's wife' and other spurious biblical analogies," wrote Moore, in a letter posted at the Baptist Blogger website. "The conversations in these closed door meetings were far worse than anything Southern Baptists knew. … And as you know, this comes on the heels of a track-record of the Executive Committee staff and others referring to victims as 'crazy' and, at least in one case, as worse than the sexual predators themselves."

Who was "Potiphar's wife"? She was known for her efforts to manipulate Joseph during his enslavement in Egypt. The Genesis narrative notes: "Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time, his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, 'Lie with me.' " When Joseph refused, the seductress accused him of assault and had him jailed.

It's easy to see how "Potiphar's wife" insults would fit into attempts to discredit Moore and activists who want America's largest Protestant flock to change how its agencies, seminaries and nearly 48,000 autonomous congregations deal with sexual abuse.

Moore's resignation, after years of attacks by critics, has pushed sexual abuse to the top of the agenda at the SBC's June 15-16 national meetings in Nashville -- along with the election of a new president.


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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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'On Religion' flashback to 1998: Ten years of reporting on a church-state fault line

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'On Religion' flashback to 1998: Ten years of reporting on a church-state fault line

Back in the 1980s, I began to experience deja vu while covering event after event on the religion beat in Charlotte, Denver and then at the national level.

I kept seeing a fascinating cast of characters at events centering on faith, politics and morality. A pro-life rally, for example, would feature a Baptist, a Catholic priest, an Orthodox rabbi and a cluster of conservative Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans. Then, the pro-choice counter-rally would feature a "moderate" Baptist, a Catholic activist or two, a Reform rabbi and mainline Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans.

Similar line-ups would appear at many rallies linked to gay rights, sex-education programs and controversies in media, the arts and even science. Along with other journalists, I kept reporting that today's social issues were creating bizarre coalitions that defied historic and doctrinal boundaries. After several years of writing about "strange bedfellows," it became obvious that what was once unique was now commonplace.

Then, in 1986, a sociologist of religion had an epiphany while serving as a witness in a church-state case in Mobile, Ala. The question was whether "secular humanism" had evolved into a state-mandated religion, leading to discrimination against traditional "Judeo-Christian" believers. Once more, two seemingly bizarre coalitions faced off in the public square.

"I realized something there in that courtroom. We were witnessing a fundamental realignment in American religious pluralism," said James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia. "Divisions that were deeply rooted in our civilization were disappearing, divisions that had for generations caused religious animosity, prejudice and even warfare. It was mind- blowing. The ground was moving."

The old dividing lines centered on issues such as the person of Jesus Christ, church tradition and the Protestant Reformation. But these new interfaith coalitions were fighting about something even more basic – the nature of truth and moral authority.


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Still thinking about (trigger alert) a scary Twitter topic -- Elizabeth Bruenig and motherhood

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Still thinking about (trigger alert) a scary Twitter topic -- Elizabeth Bruenig and motherhood

At this point, I am a bit confused. What is the latest Twitter firestorm about Elizabeth Bruenig, the latest New York Times talent to hit the exit door for one reason or another? I may have missed a controversy or two in recent weeks.

You see, I am still stuck on the furor that greeting that essay published (May 7) just before she left the Gray Lady, the one with that terrifying headline: “I Became a Mother at 25, and I’m not Sorry I Didn’t Wait.”

I’ve been thinking about that one ever since and, thus, I have decided to treat it as a weekend think piece. But part of me still wants to argue that there was some kind of news feature that could have been written about that whole affair.

Yes, it was another example of folks in the blue-checkmark tribe losing their cool because someone triggered the urban, coastal principalities and powers. Can you say “fecundophobia”? However, this essay was also linked to some huge trends in postmodern America, especially crashing fertility rates and declines in the number of people getting married. There was news here, of some kind.

First, here is the Bruenig overture:

If someone had asked on the day of my college graduation whether I imagined I would still be, in five years’ time, a reliable wallflower at any given party, I would have guessed so. Some things just don’t change. What I would not have predicted at the time is that five years hence I would be lurking along the fringes of a 3-year-old’s birthday party, a bewildered and bleary-eyed 27-year-old mom among a cordial flock of Tory Burch bedecked mothers in their late 30s and early 40s who had a much better idea of what they were doing than I ever have.


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When covering Moore's exit from SBC power, scribes should ponder what made him 'liberal'

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When covering Moore's exit from SBC power, scribes should ponder what made him 'liberal'

This may be a strange place to start when discussing early news coverage of the Rev. Russell Moore moving from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission — the crucial Southern Baptist camp in Beltway land — to what looks like a Christianity Today think tank on theology and public life.

So be it. This is where we will start — with the whole Moore is “too liberal” thing.

What does “liberal” mean in that curse that has been tossed about in Baptist social media?

Remember that one of Moore’s primary duties in Washington, D.C., has been to help Southern Baptists defend against attacks on religious liberty and the First Amendment in general. With that in mind, let me return to a question that I have been asking here at GetReligion — while focusing on the role that labels play in American journalism — for a decade or so. This is from a 2015 post:

What do you call people who are weak in their defense of free speech, weak in their defense of freedom of association and weak in their defense of religious liberty (in other words, basic First Amendment rights)?

The answer: I don't know, but it would be totally inaccurate — considering the history of American political thought — to call these people "liberals."

So what do you call someone, like Moore, who has been defending free speech, defending the freedom of association and defending religious liberty?

Wait. For. It. You can accurately call him a “liberal” in that context. In this framework, the New York Times editorial pages and, in many cases, the American Civil Liberties Union, are now — what? What is the accurate term, these days?

Note that this struggle to define “liberal” was at the heart of the celebrated clash between Bari Weiss and the Times. I would argue that it was part of the newsroom warfare that led to the ousting of Liz Spayd as the Times public editor (when she dared to ask if the newspaper was committed to fair, accurate coverage of half of America). It’s at the heart of the growing tensions between gay-rights icon Andrew Sullivan and the LGBTQ establishment. I could go on and on.

But back to another cluster of issues linked to Moore.


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New podcast: Yes, election of first trans/queer/gender fluid ELCA bishop was a big story

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New podcast: Yes, election of first trans/queer/gender fluid ELCA bishop was a big story

Imagine that you are a pastor or a layperson in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod or one of the other conservative Lutheran bodies in the United States.

So you sit down with your morning coffee and pop open your email and you see that friends and family have sent you emails enquiring about a headline that they saw on Twitter or somewhere else in today’s complicated news marketplace.

In this case, the headline is from the New York Times and it states: “U.S. Lutheran Church Elects Its First Openly Transgender Bishop.”

The problem, of course, is that the “U.S. Lutheran Church” doesn’t exist There is no one denomination that fits that description. Or perhaps the person sending you the email saw, somewhere, the Religion News Service headline that ran with this headline: “Lutherans elect Megan Rohrer first transgender bishop.” Second verse, same as the first.

When it comes to Lutheranism, many journalists continue to struggle when describing who is who and what is what. This brand-name problem was the first layer of the complex issues — in terms of church doctrine and journalism style — that we explored in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here to tune that in.

The denomination that elected Bishop-elect Rohrer was, of course, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, one of the “Seven Sisters” — we may need to make that “Seven Siblings” — of liberal Protestantism.

But what happens if you put that denominational brand name in a headline (besides the fact that it’s way too long for most newspaper layouts)? If you do that, you have to explain the presence of “evangelical,” which has become a near curse word in a news context. And, hey, “Lutheran” by itself sounds more important. Damn the accuracy, full speed ahead.

This brings us to the key hook for this podcast: There was little or nothing surprising about the progressive ELCA electing a trans (if that is the best term, in this case) bishop.


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