World Religions

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Another tragedy for Coptic Christians: Did the New York Times get the bigger picture?

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Another tragedy for Coptic Christians: Did the New York Times get the bigger picture?

Every now and then, your GetReligionistas receive emails from readers who are infuriated by the headline on a story, as opposed to the contents of the actual story. Why, they ask, do reporters write terrible headlines like that?

This provides another chance to let readers know a basic newsroom fact: Reporters rarely, if ever, write the headlines that go over their stories. They are written by copy editors.

(It’s possible that this fact has changed in the digital age. Maybe, as economic woes shrink news teams, reporters are asked to submit headlines. Young journalists can drop me notes telling me to get a clue.)

All of this is a set-up to discuss a double-decker New York Times headline that recently caused me to do a near spit take while drinking my morning cold-caffeine beverage. See if you can spot the offending phrase:

A Boom, a Fire and a Stampede: Dozens Die at a Coptic Church in Egypt

A blaze that killed at least 41 at a church in greater Cairo caused anguish among a religious minority that has long felt itself oppressed in Egypt

The key words, for this Orthodox believer, were these (with an added dose of italics — “a religious minority that has long felt itself oppressed.”

Whoa. The Copts feel that they are oppressed? This is a matter of emotions or their own opinions of what is happening to them?

In short, are there any experts who study global religious-freedom issues who do not accept, as a reality — demonstrated for centuries — that Coptic believers are persecuted or at least “oppressed” in Egypt? If readers question that statement, I would suggest a quick scan through this U.S. State Department report — “2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Egypt.”

Now, the good news is that the actual Times report eventually offers quite a bit of information about the plight of Coptic believers. But first, here is the overture that helps set up the implied question in this tragedy: When is a church fire more than a simple church fire?


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Plug-In: Fear, shock, questions follow fatal Albuquerque shootings of four Muslim men

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Plug-In: Fear, shock, questions follow fatal Albuquerque shootings of four Muslim men

First, fear. Then, shock.

Now, questions. Lots of questions.

The Muslim community in Albuquerque, New Mexico — and even nationwide — has dealt with a gamut of emotions since news broke this past weekend of the fatal shootings of four of their own.

“These hateful attacks have no place in America,” President Joe Biden said amid speculation the deaths might be tied to Islamophobia.

After the latest in the string of killings, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina characterized the shootings as “disturbing” and said police had reason to believe they were related.

“We’re in fear for the safety of our children, our families,” Ahmad Assed, the president of the Islamic Center of New Mexico, said Saturday, as reported by the Wall Street Journal’s Sara Randazzo. “This is a very troubling time for all of us.”

Relief then mixed with shock as the Albuquerque Journal’s Elise Kaplan explains: Authorities charged an Afghan refugee named Muhammad Syed — a Muslim himself — in the homicides of Aftab Hussein, 41, on July 26 and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, on Aug. 1. Also, police called the 51-year-old Syed a prime suspect in the Nov. 7 fatal shooting of Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, and the Aug. 5 fatal shooting of Naeem Hussain, 25. A later story by Kaplan notes:

Officials estimate there are between 5,000 and 10,000 Muslims living in Albuquerque, representing various races, ethnicities and nationalities. Assed guessed about 80% are Sunni and 20% are Shiite. He said it’s common for members of both groups to visit the Islamic Center of New Mexico.

Of the four Muslim men who were killed, three were practicing Shiite Islam. Syed was a Sunni Muslim, as was Muhammad Afzaal Hussain.

At The Associated Press, Stefanie Dazio and Mariam Fam report:

Investigators received a tip from the city’s Muslim community that pointed toward Syed, who has lived in the U.S. for about five years, police said.

Police were looking into possible motives, including an unspecified “interpersonal conflict.”


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Let the palace intrigue over at Disney+ palace begin

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Let the palace intrigue over at Disney+ palace begin

Screenwriter and director Tony Gilroy, showrunner off “Andor” in the Star Wars universe (premiers Sept. 21 on Disney+), spoke recently to a Television Critics Association event.

If even one member of the Religion News Association had been present, we might have an encyclical to discuss.

But let’s give credit where it’s due to Lance Gose of CBR.com (Comic Book Resources). Gose captured a few sound bites from Gilroy, who compared the guardians of Star Wars canon with the Vatican.

“If you think about Star Wars as the Roman Catholic Church, if you think about it as a religion, it has all kinds of factions, groups, and within it, there are all kinds of canon,” Gilroy said.

“We are constantly in touch with the Vatican about what we do, we are constantly checking everything we do,” he added. “We have a very complicated relationship with how we deal with everything that exists. We’re telling a story that we want to tell, and we are not violating the grand canon, let’s put it that way.”

Gilroy’s comparison prompts a few immediate questions for me. These are just for fun, but there may be some perfectly valid religion-beat hooks in here. As people frequently say here at GetReligion: Hold that thought.


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Latter-day Saints' incremental changes on doctrine add up to a solid religion story

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Latter-day Saints' incremental changes on doctrine add up to a solid religion story

It’s commendable — and all too infrequent — when pundits admit mistakes.

So let’s send a hosanna or two toward Religion News Service columnist Jana Riess, who specializes in her own faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (long nicknamed “Mormons”). Her column reviewing the four years under renowned heart surgeon Russell M. Nelson as LDS president admitted that “if I was guilty of expecting little from a nonagenarian company man, I’ve had cause to repent.” (Everybody else was saying the same.) She’s now “very glad to have been wrong.”

Riess’s latest look — “Oh, now I get it: Purging the word ‘Mormon’ is a bid for the mainstream” — does complain about one move (see below). But she hails 10 developments under Nelson, who turns 96 today. Taken together they form a solid story theme others could pursue. Given the faith’s 21st Century growth alongside setbacks elsewhere in American religion, national and regional media could combine the changes with how the LDS empire has fared during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

A summary of the top 10 items in this change-resistant faith, interpreted in terms of Riess’s policy preferences:

* Though she says “mountains of work” remain, 2019 reversal of a 2015 policy ended automatic excommunication of same-sex couples and allows baptisms and blessings for their children.

* Also in 2019, there was “a little progress” on women. The status of biblical Eve was elevated in the central secret “endowment” ritual, in which wives no longer vow to “hearken” to their husbands. Also, girls and women are now allowed as official witnesses to ordinances.

* Though white Americans continue to dominate global leadership, for the first time in LDS history Nelson’s two newly named apostles were from neither North America nor Europe. Choices for lower ranks are also more diverse.

* Young adult missionaries can contact families weekly rather than twice a year, and their access to mental health services has improved.

* With the demise of Boy Scout ties, the church’s overhauled youth program has equal spending on girls.


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This is sooooo New York Times? Cannibalism is hip, which raises zero religious questions

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This is sooooo New York Times? Cannibalism is hip, which raises zero religious questions

While it isn’t conventional grammar, there are times when people use “New York Times” as descriptive phrase, rather than as a noun. Here’s a common example: “He is a New York Times Republican.” A variation would be, “He is a New York Times conservative columnist.”

From time to time, I have also received emails from readers pointing me toward a story with a description that reads something like this: “There are New York Times stories and there are New York Times stories, but this is a perfect NEW YORK TIMES story.” In other words, this particular story is a symbolic example of the worldview commonly found in America’s most influential newsroom.

If you follow social media, you know that quite a few people had that kind of reaction to a feature that ran the other day with this eye-grabbing double-decker headline:

A Taste for Cannibalism?

A spate of recent stomach-churning books, TV shows and films suggests we’ve never looked so delicious — to one another

As veteran GetReligionista Clemente Lisi put it, via email: “This story wouldn't pass what we at the NY Post used to call the ‘Cheerios test.’ That is, people don't want to read about this as they have breakfast, especially on a Sunday!”

As that headline suggests, this is one of those oh-so New York Times trend pieces about the sophisticated cultural tastes of sophisticated people living in sophisticated zip codes. The only question, with this kind of topic, is whether it appears first in the Times or on National Public Radio. Here is the overture:

An image came to Chelsea G. Summers: a boyfriend, accidentally on purpose hit by a car, some quick work with a corkscrew and his liver served Tuscan style, on toast.

That figment of her twisted imagination is what prompted Ms. Summers to write her novel, “A Certain Hunger,” about a restaurant critic with a taste for (male) human flesh.

Turns out, cannibalism has a time and a place. In the pages of some recent stomach-churning books, and on television and film screens, Ms. Summers and others suggest that that time is now.

The contents of this feature — think issues of omission, as well as commission — led me to a logical question, at least one that would be logical here at GetReligion: What does this influential cultural trend have to do with religion?

Very little, and that surprised me, since cannibalism and religion are often served on the same platter in certain cultures.


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Podcast: Experts call the Unification Church a 'cult,' and that word requires explanation

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Podcast: Experts call the Unification Church a 'cult,' and that word requires explanation

It has been a long time since I have done a podcast post about a developing news story only one day after I wrote the original post on that topic.

However, yesterday’s post — “New York Times report says the Unification Church is a 'church' and it's as simple as that” — turned out to have some old issues connected to it that, when discussed in this week’s “Crossroads” episode, took us back into a familiar journalism minefield. (To get to the actual podcast, JUST CLICK HERE.) Can you say “cult”?

Before we get to the old issue of journalists (and academics) struggling to define “cult,” let’s look at some of the ways and religious and political language are woven into the story of the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan — primarily through the family history of Tetsuya Yamagami, who was arrested after the shooting. This is from The Guardian:

Tetsuya Yamagami has confessed to killing the former Japanese prime minister during a campaign speech on Friday. He blamed the global religious movement — whose members are often referred to as Moonies — for bankrupting his family, and believed that Abe had championed its activities in Japan.

The Japan branch of the church has confirmed that Yamagami’s mother is a member, but declined to comment on the suspect’s claims that she had made a “huge donation” more than 20 years ago that left the family struggling financially.

The branch’s president, Tomihiro Tanaka, told a press conference that Yamagami’s mother became a follower in the late 1990s, adding that the family had suffered financial ruin around 2002.

As I mentioned in the first post, it’s normal to call the Unification Church a “church” on first reference, since that is it’s primary name — as opposed to the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity or the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

The journalism issue here is how reporters describe this religious movement in follow-up references and how much material news reports include about the messianic claims of its founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Let’s return to the Guardian report:

Moon, who died in 2012, said he had had a vision aged 15 in which he was told by Jesus to complete his unfulfilled mission to restore humanity to a state of “sinless” purity.


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New York Times report says the Unification Church is a 'church' and it's as simple as that

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New York Times report says the Unification Church is a 'church' and it's as simple as that

I have received several texts and emails about a recent New York Times story that ran with this headline: “Suspect in Abe Shooting Held a ‘Grudge.’ Scrutiny Falls on a Church.”

If you run a quick search for “church” in this report, you will find the term used 25 times. That’s quite a few uses of what appears to be, for the Times team, a word with no specific meaning.

Thus, we need to do that GetReligion thing that we do. Let’s look at some online dictionaries and see what the word “church” means. This Dictionary.com reference is typical and we need to see several of its secondary definitions:

church:

* a building for public Christian worship.

* public worship of God or a religious service in such a building: to attend church regularly.

* (sometimes initial capital letter) the whole body of Christian believers; Christendom.

* (sometimes initial capital letter) any division of this body professing the same creed and acknowledging the same ecclesiastical authority; a Christian denomination: the Methodist Church.

What’s the basic issue here? As one veteran journalist put it, in a text about this Times report: “I didn’t know the Unification Church was a Christian church.”

Once again we need to talk about how journalists use, or don’t use, tricky words such as “sect” or even “cult” — which may affect how news publications use a word like “church.” When dealing with the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity and the work of the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon, we also need to pay attention to the word “messiah.”

The bottom line: Moon’s movement called itself a “church” and identified it’s leader as either (lines tend to blur) a messiah or “the” new messiah. The problem with the Times report is that readers are told that this is a “church” and that is that — no additional information is needed.


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Reality on bloody ground: That Pentecost massacre in Nigeria wasn't all that unusual

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Reality on bloody ground: That Pentecost massacre in Nigeria wasn't all that unusual

The massacre occurred during a Sunday Mass, but it wasn't an ordinary Sunday -- this was the great feast of Pentecost, which marks the end of the Easter season.

What's more, the gunmen didn't strike in tense northern Nigeria, where Christian communities are isolated in a majority-Muslim region. This 30-minute attack was inside St. Francis Catholic Church, located in the safer southwestern state of Ondo.

While 40 worshippers were confirmed dead, including five children, the number was almost certainly higher since many families buried their dead privately. Another 100 were wounded.

The scope of this attack was "unique," especially in southern Nigeria, but "this violence … was not unique in its occurrence," stressed Stephen Rasche, senior fellow at the independent Religious Freedom Institute in Washington, D.C. "These types of murders are taking place weekly, almost daily, in Nigeria -- murders of innocent Christians, being gunned down, slaughtered indiscriminately, throughout the north and, increasingly, into the central part of Nigeria and into the south."

Human-rights activists are trying to document the bloodshed. According to the nondenominational watchdog group Open Doors, the 4,650 Christians killed in Nigeria during 2021 accounted for 80% of such deaths worldwide -- nearly 13 per day. Nigeria's Christian death toll has topped 60,000 over the past two decades.

Nevertheless, this year's International Religious Freedom Report from the U.S. State Department said the "Secretary of State determined that Nigeria did not meet the criteria to be designated as a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in or tolerating particularly severe violations of religious freedom or as a Special Watch List country for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom."

It's understandable that news reports about Nigeria have faded, in part because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and pressing global economic issues, said Rasche, who visited Nigerian churches during this Holy Week and Easter.

Also, many Western leaders view atrocities in Nigeria as clashes between Christian farmers and Muslim cattle herders, with climate-change issues erasing safety zones between these groups.


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What's news? Attacks on Christians in Nigeria provide an important case study

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What's news? Attacks on Christians in Nigeria provide an important case study

As an undergrad, The Religion Guy took a valuable course titled “Evaluation and Display of News,” an elemental skill for journalists who cope with difficult choices.

Take the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trash-a-thon. Please. Just as car crashes produce rubbernecking, “human interest” justified vast voyeurism that fed the market and stole print space and air time from more substantive stories.

Editors’ tendentious coverage decisions continually erode public trust in the media. Liberal outlets give scant play to the assassination plot against Brett Kavanaugh, harassment of other Supreme Court justices and their families and related attacks on a couple dozen pro-life agencies. Meanwhile, conservatives downplay the near-miss danger to Vice President Mike Pence and other high officials amid the January 6 attempt to block the Constitution’s election process.

The Guy could list other examples from both sides, and so could you.

Let’s leap across the Atlantic to assess neglectful news judgment regarding the important plight facing Christians in Nigeria. Their continual conflict with Muslim jihadi factions has left an estimated 37,500 dead since 2011, says the latest annual report (.pdf here) from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (www.uscirf.gov; contact media@uscirf.gov or 202–523–3240).

The nondenominational watchdog group Open Doors USA says that in 2021“more Christians were murdered for their faith in Nigeria than in any other country,” making up nearly 80% of Christian deaths worldwide. Nigeria is the “most dangerous place to be a Christian” in the world, says the Intersociety for Civil Liberty and Rule of Law, a Nigerian human rights monitor. Christian observers speak openly of “genocide.”

In addition to the deaths, it’s all but impossible to count up the maimed victims who’ve survived, the kidnapped schoolchildren and clergy, forced child marriages and forced conversions or the widespread destruction of Christians' churches, homes, shops and even whole villages.

Sounds like compelling news from here.


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