Urban ministry

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New York Times asks what 'hardcore' New Yorkers miss during pandemic (hint: no steeples)

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It is one of the most famous covers in the long, rich history of The New Yorker.

“View of the World from 9th Avenue,” by illustrator Saul Steinberg, is one of the first images that come to mind when many New Yorkers of a certain age and, perhaps, social class, describe the alpha city they call home. The drawing is also known as “A Parochial New Yorker's View of the World.”

I am not a New Yorker, but I gained a little bit of experience in that world while teaching journalism, religion and mass media there for roughly two months a year over the past five years. This period of my life that is now, sadly, over, and the coronavirus had nothing to do with this departure.

I claim no great insights into New York, but I really enjoyed this experience.

Everything of substance that I learned during that time came from New Yorkers and that shaped what I saw happening around me. But here is one of the most important things I learned from the set of New Yorkers that I came to know — New York City contains some absolutely amazing churches and religious flocks of every size and shape. This website will tell you lots of what your need to know about that: “A Journey Through NYC Religions.”

Now, please notice that this statement undercuts a popular myth among New York haters in other parts of America. Yes, the Big Apple is a rather secular and liberal place, especially in Manhattan. But in reality, it’s hard to tell the story of Manhattan — past or present — without including religious faith in the mix.

Now, with that in mind, look again at the “View of the World from 9th Avenue.” What is missing from this iconic New York City image that is actually present in real life (other than, of course, the existence of the rest of the United States of America out in flyover country)? What is missing from this picture of New York City life that is so popular with a certain brand of New York insider?

Here’s a clue. It’s the same thing that is missing from a recent feature in The New York Times that ran with this double-decker headline:

What Hardcore New Yorkers Really Miss

Wistful words from the actor Alec Baldwin, the comedian Amber Ruffin, the Rev. Al Sharpton, the chef Amanda Cohen, the assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou and more.

Note the phrase “hardcore New Yorkers.”

What does that adjective mean? Apparently it refers to people who live in a city with no steeples, no cathedrals, no synagogues, etc.


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Next big pandemic news story: Missionaries brace for coronavirus in the Third World

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Next big pandemic news story: Missionaries brace for coronavirus in the Third World

While fighting the coronavirus, medical professionals have offered a strategy now seen everywhere in America, Europe and other First World cultures.

Here's the battle plan: Stock up on food and other essentials and then stay home. Wear masks when in public and practice safe social distancing. Everyone should wash their hands frequently for 20 seconds using soap and hot water. People with fevers or other symptoms should go into quarantine.

There's more. City and state lockdowns are essential to "flatten the curve" of new cases. Governments encourage waves of coronavirus tests. Hospitals collect ventilators to save critically ill patients. Mass transit is discouraged. Scientists rush to create a vaccine and develop new treatments, such as transfusions of antibody-rich blood serum from recovered COVID-19 patients.

Now, imagine selling those plans to the million-plus people jammed into the Kibera shantytown near Nairobi, Kenya -- Africa's largest urban slum.

“Our solutions are primarily for those who can afford it," said Dr. Mike Soderling, organizer of the Health for All Nations network for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. "To whose advantage? … The big question: What are we going to do -- what can be done -- in the slums of Kibera?"

In America, news coverage of the crisis continues to be dominated by infection rates and death statistics, while politicos focus on the New York Stock Exchange and political polling about the 2020 elections. The lockdown-weary public celebrates any signs of normality witnessed in restaurants, big-box stores and sports stadiums.

Missionary doctors and activists active in Third World lands have a different point of view. Thus, 200 or more took part in a recent Lausanne webinar focusing on strategies for the COVID-19 battles they know will eventually reach the people they serve. Participants in this discussion kept asking painful questions, such as:

* How do slum-dwellers practice "universal hand-washing hygiene" without running water?

* Is it possible to practice respiratory hygiene in cultures in which masks are a stigma -- signs that individuals are carrying a life-threatening disease?


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Faith played major role in life of New York ER doctor who took her own life: What was it?

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Back in my Charlotte News (RIP) and Charlotte Observer days, I sat across a desk from a truly fantastic general assignment and police and cops reporter — a kind, soft-spoken ex-U.S. Marine.

Over and over, I heard him make difficult calls to people involved in tragedies, including the families of people who died in all kinds of accidents, crimes or acts of nature. This has to be one of the hardest jobs in journalism, for a reporter who needs information but doesn’t want to inflict emotional pain.

The goal, he once told me, was to avoid pushy questions about feelings and emotions. Instead, he tried to ask calm, factual questions they only a parent, spouse of sibling would know. The goal was not to waste their time or hurt them — but to find other voices (at specific institutions or networks of people) to interview. So he would ask if a young person had a favorite teacher or was active in a sports team or musical ensemble. Frequently, in Charlotte, he asked about friends and pastors at a religious congregation.

I thought of this reporter, and this issue, when reading a stunningly tragic New York Times coronavirus crisis story that ran with this headline: “Top E.R. Doctor Who Treated Virus Patients Dies by Suicide.” Let me stress that I want to praise this story, while also noting that — at a key moment — the Times team mentioned a strong religion angle, and then dropped the topic. First, here is some of the overture:

A top emergency room doctor at a Manhattan hospital that treated many coronavirus patients died by suicide on Sunday, her father and the police said.

Dr. Lorna M. Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, died in Charlottesville, Va., where she was staying with family, her father said in an interview. …

Dr. Breen’s father, Dr. Philip C. Breen, said she had described devastating scenes of the toll the coronavirus took on patients.

“She tried to do her job, and it killed her,” he said.


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Covering 'mainline' faith: Why do the old Protestant churches get so much news ink?

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Soon after I left the newsroom of the Rocky Mountain News to teach at Denver Seminary, in the early 1990s, a general-assignment reporter was asked to do a story about a trend in religion. It was something to do with prayer, if I recall, and editors wanted to run it on Easter.

The reporter went to three or four nearby churches in downtown. As you would expect, these were old flocks linked to Mainline Protestantism and one Catholic parish. All were, to one degree or another, both historic and struggling, in terms of attendance and membership. The city’s biggest churches were in the suburbs, especially in the booming territory between Denver and Colorado Springs — already a nationally known evangelical power base. The state included at least five internationally known centers on spirituality and prayer, one evangelical, one charismatic Episcopal, one Buddhist and two Roman Catholic.

The story ended up with voices from the dominant flocks of Denver’s past, when liberal Protestant voices were the statistical norm.

Many times, through the years, religious leaders have asked me: Why do the oldline Protestant churches receive so much news coverage? During my Denver years, Episcopalians and United Methodists did make lots of national news — as doctrinal wars escalated about sex and marriage.

These were subjects that editors considered news. Evangelical Presbyterian churches growing to 6,000-plus members in their first five years of existence? That might be worth a column. It’s not big news.

I thought of these discussions the other day when I read a Religion News Service — a long feature with lots of valid material — that ran with this headline: “As a pandemic peaks at Christianity’s Easter climax, churches adapt online.” Here’s the opening anecdote:

On Palm Sunday (April 5), the Rev. Ted Gabrielli, a bespectacled Jesuit with a bushy beard, stood in the bed of a roving pickup truck that traveled through Boyle Heights, a mostly Latino neighborhood on Los Angeles’ east side.

Gabrielli, a pastor at Dolores Mission Church, greeted neighbors from the truck and blessed the homes, alleys and streets he passed. He greeted many by name. One neighbor, caught on a Facebook livestream of the procession, stood from her home waving palms, the symbol of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem in the week before he was crucified.


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Oh no! 'New Yorkers' upset about Franklin Graham's hospital tents near Central Park angel

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That didn’t take long.

Just yesterday, I wrote a post — “All megachurches are not alike: NYTimes noted Howard-Browne arrest, but didn't leave it at that” — that opened with a plea for reporters to be more careful when making sweeping, simplistic statements about niche groups in the public square.

I was discussing the wave of news about the small number of megachurch pastors who are rebelling against “shelter in place” orders — by continuing to hold face-to-face gatherings instead of asking their members to stay off and watch digital, streaming versions of the services. This important and valid topic was yet another chance for reporters to be tempted to say that “evangelicals” (or even megachurch evangelicals) were doing this or that horrible thing, instead of attempting to get inside this complex phenomenon and report hard, nuanced facts. Then I added:

You also see this equation play out with “Catholic voters,” “Jews and Israel,” “New Yorkers,” “Democrats” (and “Republicans”) and lots of other niches in public life. … Making blanket statements of that kind — about evangelicals, Jews, journalists or any other group — requires either (a) massive amounts of solid reporting or some combination of (b) ego and/or (c) hatred.

Frequently, journalists need to carefully look at the evidence and add words such as “most,” “some” or even “a few.” They may need to limit their judgmental statements to certain zip codes or subgroups of a larger whole. …

Yes, take New Yorkers, for example.

There are many different kinds of New Yorkers (at least, that has been my experience). New York isn’t Dallas, for sure, but it is a very different place than the simplistic New York City that dwells in the fever dreams of way too many right-wingers.

This brings me to a hot topic on Twitter, as summarized by a new Religion News Service report with this headline: “Franklin Graham on his Central Park field hospital: ‘We don’t discriminate. Period.’ “

It’s a good thing — as you can see in that headline — that the RNS team let Graham speak his peace about the controversy that is swirling about those emergency hospital tents that his Samaritan’s Purse relief agency has brought to one of New York City’s most iconic locations. Nevertheless, read this overture carefully:


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Thinker from David French: Does it matter if media elites don't 'get' Pentecostalism?

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Thinker from David French: Does it matter if media elites don't 'get' Pentecostalism?

The other day I praised Religion News Service for jumping into the Twitter tornado caused by the Rev. Paula White’s wild sermon thundering about the powers of the “marine kingdom” and the miscarriage of “satanic pregnancies” and lots of other stuff.

It was just another day in America’s shattered and splintered public discourse.

Here’s the New York Times summary of what that Right Wing Watch clip unleashed:

The video shows part of a nearly three-hour-long service at the City of Destiny church in Apopka, Fla., on Jan. 5. In it, Ms. White can be seen talking about fighting witchcraft and demonic manipulation. She called for any “strange winds that have been sent to hurt the church, sent against this nation, sent against our president, sent against myself” to be broken.

“In the name of Jesus, we command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now,” Ms. White said. “We declare that anything that’s been conceived in satanic wombs, that it’ll miscarry. It will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm.”

As of Monday, the video had been watched more than eight million times.

It appeared that no one in this shouting match had the slightest interest in promoting understanding. Some commentators weren’t even interested in accurate, honest disagreements.

However, Adelle Banks and Bob Smietana wrote a short explainer that provided crucial information about what White was saying and, most importantly, what she was not saying. Click here to see my piece on that: “RNS pros offered crucial context for 'Satanic pregnancies' sound bite.”

Now I would like to do something that I rarely do: I want to point mainstream journalists and concerned readers to another explainer digging deeper into this topic. This one is by David French, a Harvard Law graduate and First Amendment expert who is one of the most quoted #NeverTrump conservatives in American political life.

In recent weeks, the former National Review star has been doing some brilliant religion-news analysis for his new publication — The Dispatch. His new piece (“Satanic Pregnancies, Explained”) is not an attempt — obviously — to support Paula White or her political master, President Donald Trump. However, it is an attempt to explain why White’s critics, especially scribes in the mainstream press, need to slow down and try to grasp what charismatic and Pentecostal Christians believe on the topic of fierce prayer and “spiritual warfare.”


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Shane Claiborne finally gets his day in the media sun in the Washington Post Magazine

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Although evangelicals have been the flavor of the month for some time in the mainstream media, it’s rare that you see a thoughtful profile on one of them. Conservative evangelicals are distasteful to much of the media on the Eastern seaboard, so the search has been on to find someone who is more palatable to mainstream media tastes.

And thus Shane Claiborne, one of the more interesting Gen X thinkers out there, was a perfect choice for a recent Washington Post Magazine piece.

He’s spent more than two decades living in inner-city Philly; he got some serious cred traveling to Iraq during the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and doing time in Calcutta helping Mother Teresa. He has hung out with the unglamorous poor and stayed on message for a long time.

On a gloomy Tuesday morning in April, the Christian activist Shane Claiborne was in the studio of WCPN, Cleveland’s NPR affiliate, waiting to go on air. The overhead lights glinted off his thick-rimmed glasses. The 43-year-old had spent the past five weeks on a national tour, living on a retrofitted school bus, speaking at community centers and churches every night, trying to accelerate regional movements against gun violence. His collaborator, Mike Martin, a Mennonite blacksmith from Colorado, was sitting to his left…

The story then refers to the verse from Isaiah 2:4: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”

Claiborne and Martin had been enacting the verse on tour. They were promoting a book they had written — “Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence” — and at every stop, they were using Martin’s forge to convert a rifle into a garden tool. The point was to give communities a chance to grieve, but also to convince them that change was possible. It all reflected the broader project that has made up Claiborne’s career: promoting what might be called an alternative version of evangelical Christianity, one more concerned with social justice than with personal salvation. Or, as he would put it to me later, a bit wryly: “Getting Christians to connect their faith to issues that I think matter to God and are affecting our neighbors.”…


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NBC News toasts Pete Buttigieg in a hit piece aimed (#Surprise) at the Salvation Army

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Here we go again. No doubt about it, one of the key stories of the day offers a fiery mix of politics, money, sexuality, social justice and, yes, religion.

I’m talking about this NBCNews.com headline: “Pete Buttigieg criticized for volunteering with Salvation Army.”

Stay tuned for upcoming debates featuring Democrats seeking the White House. Will this issue have legs in the news? Maybe. Maybe not. I think it depends on whether candidates on the woke side of the party decide that it is good or bad for their prospects for an openly gay candidate to even hint at a willingness for dialogue and tolerance on religious-liberty issues.

Meanwhile, there is this journalism question: Does anyone at NBC News realize that the Salvation Army is a CHURCH as well as a major provider of help to the poor? Hold that thought. First, here is the overture:

Pete Buttigieg is drawing criticism after pictures of him volunteering for the Salvation Army, which has historically opposed gay rights, recently resurfaced on social media.

In the photos, Buttigieg is seen standing outside Peggs restaurant in South Bend, Indiana, where he is the mayor, for the Red Kettle Ring Off, an annual charity initiative during which public officials compete to raise money for the Salvation Army. While the photos were from 2017, Buttigieg, who has surged to the top of many polls of Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa, has been participating in the event since at least 2015, according to local news reports. He also held an event at the Salvation Army in South Bend last year. 

“I know the photos are two years old, but still, I can't help but wonder if Mayor Pete just looks at what LGBTQ activists have been working on for years and then chooses to spite it,” tweeted Zach Ford, press secretary of the Alliance for Justice, a progressive judicial advocacy organization.


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Debate continues, after AP report on Catholic church's apparent blessing of assisted suicide

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t looked like an innocuous religion story and the kind we often get here in the Pacific Northwest: A positive feature on a dying man who decided to end his life through euthanasia –- and about a Catholic church that played a role in it all.

Until complaints started to pour in, asking why a Catholic priest and parish appeared to be giving their blessing to assisted suicide. What followed was a comedy of errors on the part of an archdiocese caught flatfooted by the event.

Yes, this is an old story. But the debates are going on and on and on.

Dated Aug. 25 (yes, I am a few weeks late on this), the Associated Press story began thus:

The day he picked to die, Robert Fuller had the party of a lifetime.

In the morning, he dressed in a blue Hawaiian shirt and married his partner while sitting on a couch in their senior housing apartment. He then took the elevator down three floors to the building’s common room, decorated with balloons and flowers.

With an elaborately carved walking stick, he shuffled around to greet dozens of well-wishers and friends from across the decades, fellow church parishioners and social-work volunteers. The crowd spilled into a sunny courtyard on a beautiful spring day.

A gospel choir sang. A violinist and soprano performed “Ave Maria.” A Seattle poet recited an original piece imagining Fuller as a tree, with birds perched on his thoughts.

A year ago, he got cancer of the tongue and decided against chemo, saying he’d go the assisted suicide route. His decision was understandable. The cancer was causing him slowly to choke to death. His throat was so blocked up, he had to take food through a gastric tube. Radiation would just prolong the agony.

Fuller began returning more often to the Catholic church he had long attended. His spiritual views were hardly orthodox — he considered himself a shaman, and described his impending death as a state of “perpetual meditation” — but Seattle’s St. Therese Parish was known for accommodating a range of beliefs.


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