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With their annual meeting canceled, RNS (and others) try to assess Southern Baptist conflicts

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Typically, on the second or third week of June, the Southern Baptist Convention would be having its annual meeting. Had 2020 been a normal year, that meeting would be finishing up today.

Of course it was cancelled because of the coronavirus crisis. With the current riots going on in cities across America, I bet that SBC leaders are privately thanking God they’re not meeting.

Can you imagine what a draw that would be for some protestors; several thousand mostly white Southern Baptists congregating at the Orange County Convention Center?

Not only is there ferment on the streets, there’s also unrest within the denomination. Longtime RNS reporter Adelle Banks just gave us a thorough look at the pivot Baptists are having to make, due to current events. Her June 4 piece about the race conversation within the 14.5-million-member denomination concentrated on the rifts that remain from the Civil War era.

Please stay with me during the lengthy intro:

(RNS) — The Southern Baptist Convention will not hold its annual meeting as it regularly does each June. But issues its members have long grappled with — including race and the roles of women — continue to be points of controversy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

In December, Founders Ministries, a neo-Calvinist evangelical group made up primarily of Southern Baptists, premiered a documentary called “By What Standard?: God’s Word, God’s Rule.”

The film includes selective footage of discussions around last year’s meeting about whether women should preach, juxtaposed with Founders Ministries head Tom Ascol speaking of motherhood as “the highest calling.” Much of the almost two-hour film that has had some 60,000 views online chronicles the passage of resolutions at the 2019 meeting, from one on “the evil of sexual abuse” to another on “critical race theory and intersectionality.”

Two months after the film’s release, the Conservative Baptist Network was founded, calling itself an alternative for dissatisfied Southern Baptists who might otherwise leave the denomination or stay and remain silent.


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Journalism cancels its moral voice: What does this mean for Catholic news? For religion news?

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I have always been fascinated with the concept that journalism functions as a moral watchdog on our society. As someone who spent most of his career at two New York tabloids (15 years at the New York Post, two others at the rival Daily News), reportage and story selection revolved heavily around morality.

A lot of it mirrored traditional religious morality.

Editors and reporters never used that language to describe their work, of course.

They still reported both sides of the story and gave people who were the subject of said story the chance to rebuke accusations. Whether it was a news account about an unfaithful politician (former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and former Congressman Anthony Weiner spring to mind), a Wall Street executive who embezzled money or a regular guy who shot and killed a convenient store clerk over a few dollars, if you broke one of the Ten Commandments then you had a very good chance of being splashed all over page one.

ProPublica, one of my favorite investigative news sites, has a mission statement that sums up this philosophy very well:

To expose abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust by government, business, and other institutions, using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.

Where does this morality come from? It is rooted primarily in Judeo-Christian values, something that helped form American society during what is now called The Great Awakening.

News coverage — be it about politics, culture or religion — is largely made up of crimes (in the legal sense) or lapses in judgement (in a moral one). But the news media has changed in the Internet age, primarily because of social media. Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, to name just three, allows users — everyday people — to pump out content. That content can take many forms — from benign observations to what’s called hot takes — for all to read and see.

Truth, fact checking and context are not important. What matters are likes and followers. What we have now is something some have called “The Great Awokening” and it appears to have forever transformed our political discourse and the journalism that tries to report on it.

Mainstream news organizations, in their quest for clicks amid hope of figuring out a new business model, now mirror the content we all see on social media platforms.


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Plug-in: Seven pop-quiz questions about Donald Trump's photo op with a Bible

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What’s left to say about the week’s biggest religion story?

President Donald Trump’s now-famous walk from the White House to the nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church literally broke the internet. Or at least it overloaded the Religion News Service servers. Credit an explosive report by national correspondent Jack Jenkins for that.

Rather than rehash the details from all the stories about Trump’s photo op, let’s see who was paying close attention.

That’s right — it’s time for a pop quiz. I’ll share the answers at the bottom of this column:

1. Did police really use tear gas to break up a peaceful protest so Trump could cross the street and pose with a Bible?

2. Who did authorities expel from the church’s patio before the president’s arrival?

3. What version of the Bible did Trump hold up?

4. Did the Bible belong to Trump?

5. When did the tradition of St. John’s Episcopal Church as the “church of the presidents” begin?

6. What well-known religion writer, in analyzing the president’s visit, wrote that Trump brandished “a Bible like a salesman in a bad infomercial?”

7. Did Trump emerge from the photo op looking like a thug or a hero?

Bonus question: What religious site did Trump visit the day after the church photo op?

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Trump pushes churches to reopen, but black pastors in hard-hit St. Louis preach caution: Hey, remember when the coronavirus pandemic was all we were talking about?


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Weekend thinking about this complex reality: More and more Americans hate each other

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It’s impossible, at the moment, to follow political and religious threads on social media without running into lots and lots of hate. This is not something that started in the past two weeks or even during the 2016 race for the White House.

With that sobering thought in mind, I offer a Damon Linker essay at The Week as our weekend think piece. The headline: “Don't willfully ignore the complexity of what's happening in America right now.”

However, before we go there, let me share some sobering observations from an “On Religion” column I wrote in 2004 about the work of political scientists Gerald De Maio, a Catholic, and Louis Bolce, an Episcopalian, who teach at Baruch College in the City University of New York. The headline: “Stalking the anti-fundamentalist voter.”

This was one of the first times when I realized that “hate” was becoming a strong factor in public life — especially when driven by a loaded religious term like “fundamentalist.”

First we need some background. Bolce and De Maio:

… have focused much of their work on the "thermometer scale" used in the 2000 American National Election Study and those that preceded it. Low temperatures indicate distrust or hatred while high numbers show trust and respect. Thus, "anti-fundamentalist voters" are those who gave fundamentalists a rating of 25 degrees or colder. By contrast, the rating that "strong liberals" gave to "strong conservatives" was a moderate 47 degrees.

Yet 89 percent of white delegates to the 1992 Democratic National Convention qualified as "anti-fundamentalist voters," along with 57 percent of Jewish voters, 51 percent of "moral liberals," 48 percent of school-prayer opponents, 44 percent of secularists and 31 percent of "pro-choice" voters. In 1992, 53 percent of those white Democratic delegates gave Christian fundamentalists a thermometer rating of zero.

"Anti-fundamentalist voter" patterns are not seen among black voters, noted De Maio. Researchers are now paying closer attention to trends among Hispanics.

What about the prejudices of the fundamentalists? Their average thermometer rating toward Catholics was a friendly 62 degrees, toward blacks 66 degrees and Jews 68 degrees.

This brings us to a complex set of remarks by Linker. Here is the overture:


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Getting ready for July 4th: What enduring values unite Americans of all religious outlooks?

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Getting ready for July 4th: What enduring values unite Americans of all religious outlooks?

THE QUESTION:

What enduring values unite Americans of all religious outlooks?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The Fourth of July 2020 will be a sober, as well as socially-distanced, observance amid the COVID-19 scourge, resulting economic devastation and racial unrest in cities nationwide.

Nonetheless, it provides an opportunity to reflect not only on the nation’s sins and sufferings but permanent values these United States have upheld through it all.

The American Revolution was first and foremost about ending dictatorial rule so that government is based upon “the consent of the governed.” Freedom of religion and conscience over against government compulsion reinforced this principle and was an equally extraordinary innovation in the 18th Century. Admittedly, courts and politicians continually joust over what this means in particular cases.

Today’s Americans should consider how many regimes have not caught up with either of these concepts 244 years later.

Those principles have united the citizenry across old religious lines. Religious liberty – including freedom to doubt — could only have arisen with broad support from conventional Christian believers in the colonial population and among the Founders. (A “Loyalist” faction among Anglicans still obeyed king and crown, and Quakers desired independence but opposed taking up arms to achieve it.)

Why did orthodox Christians unite on freedom of conscience with, for instance, the three skeptical Founders who are especially interesting figures: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine? Many Christians embraced this freedom in principle, while others saw that government control over religion was essential to the monarchy they spurned.


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Podcast: Looking for progress after George Floyd killing? Look in pews, not political fights

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In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, news consumers have been reading all kinds of reaction quotes from all kinds of important people, including religious leaders, on the left and right sides of American public life.

During this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), host Todd Wilken and I tried to look past the recent headlines and focus on where coverage of this national tragedy could be going in the weeks ahead, especially in terms of religion-beat news.

With that in mind, let me start with the following question. Who said this, in reaction to the hellish video and subsequent revelations about Floyd’s death?

This makes me sick to my stomach. … To watch a police officer kill an unarmed black man — with no concern on his face, his hand in his pocket, indifferent to the bystanders begging for something to be done to help the man — is so disturbing. He and the other officers on the scene refused to listen and refused to respond. I hope they have deep regret and remorse for their actions. Police are not the judge and jury. These officers will have to stand before God and the authorities on this earth for what they have done.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson? The Rev. Martin Luther King III? That final line about divine judgment is strong enough for both of those preachers.

Actually, the answer is the Rev. Franklin Graham.

Yes, I also saw Graham’s statement bashing liberal clergy for their harsh reactions to President Donald Trump’s photo op with the Bible. But let’s try, try, try to stay focused on the racism discussions, for a moment. Graham’s Floyd statement could have been endorsed by others.

I asked Wilken some questions about America’s discussions of institutional racism and the potential for reform in police departments.

I asked if Wilken expected progress in talks between:

(1) Trump and Democrat Joe Biden? The answer is obviously “no,” said Wilken. I agreed.

(2) Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill? Wilken gave the same answer. Me too.

(3) African-American and white cops and the organizations in which they are involved?


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Howard County, Maryland, officials tried to ban Mass: Why wasn't that a news story?

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Does anyone remember the coronavirus pandemic?

Think back a week or even two. You may remember headlines about tensions between people who wanted to “open up” the economy at the local level and others who wanted to continue with lockdowns or other “shelter at home” policies for citizens as a whole (as opposed to those uniquely at risk). This was not strictly a left vs. right thing, but the further one went to the extremes — extended lockdowns vs. strong attempts to “return to normal” — the more political things became.

That seems so long ago. Still, I would like to flash back to something that happened recently in Maryland, the state I called home for more than a decade. Here at GetReligion, we have been spending quite a bit of time focusing on coverage of the overwhelming majority of religious flocks that are trying to return to some form of corporate worship — while stressing safety and social-distancing principles.

Here’s the Catholic News Agency headline: “Maryland county lifts ban on Communion.”

My question: Did you see any mainstream news coverage of this story? The overture:

Howard County, Maryland, has reversed a policy that banned consumption of any food or drink during religious services, effectively preventing the licit celebration of Mass.

A county spokesman told CNA May 28 the prohibition will be removed, and faith leaders will be consulted on future guidelines for church reopenings amid the coronavirus pandemic.

On Tuesday, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball issued an executive order delineating reopening regulations and conditions for houses of worship and other entities deemed “non-essential” by the state of Maryland.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” that order said.

Ever since seeing that news item, I have been running online searches — of news sources and then the Internet as a whole — for mainstream news coverage of this amazing example of a clash between government officials and worship in mainstream religious institutions.

Please click here and scan the results of a new search for the terms “Howard County,” “Communion” and “Maryland.”

What do you see in these results?


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Got news? Some members of Class Of COVID-19 heard faith talk at commencement

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The late spring is typically marked by graduation ceremonies, with schools across North America handing out their undergraduate degrees to students after four years of college. Like everything else in society that involves large gatherings, the global pandemic has forced many schools to either hold their ceremonies online or postpone them to a future date.

For the colleges and universities that did decide to hold ceremonies this month, the topic of God wasn’t far from the minds of some commencement speakers. It’s not surprising given how the contagion has led to the death of thousands of people around the world, forcing stores to shutter and in the process destroying economies.

Many institutions of higher education — especially Protestant and Catholic ones — have decided to postpone in-person graduation ceremonies to later this year in the hopes that coronavirus infections have either subsided or that a vaccine makes social distancing measures obsolete. Like classes that went online this spring, so did many commencement exercises. While it wasn’t the graduation ceremony many had expected, these remote ceremonies to honor seniors were seen as a necessary sendoff.

God and graduation isn’t a new thing, a topic highlighted by several speakers last year.

The son of a Pentecostal minister, Hollywood superstar Denzel Washington — speaking at Dillard University’s commencement in New Orleans in 2015 — famously said: “Number one: Put. God. First. Put God first in everything you do. Everything that you think you see in me. Everything that I’ve accomplished, everything that you think I have — and I have a few things. Everything that I have is by the grace of God. Understand that. It’s a gift.”

Below is a roundup of notable virtual commencement addresses that featured faith:

TOM HANKS (WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY)

Hollywood star Tom Hanks delivered a virtual commencement speech on May 2 during a surprise message to graduates of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

The actor, who famously played the iconic Mister Rogers in the movie A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood, was raised in Roman Catholic and Mormon household, and described himself as a “Bible-toting evangelical” during his teen-age years. Hanks, who became Greek Orthodox as an adult and attends church regularly, wasn’t afraid to use religious language in his message.


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Home, home on the rage: And seldom was heard an unpredictable word in Trump Bible wars

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Let me just shout a quick “Amen!” in response to the sentiments offered on Twitter by my colleague Bobby Ross Jr.

Here’s the quote: “Too. Much. News.”

For the past three decades or so, Tuesday has been the work day when I try to hide away and write my “On Religion” column, which I ship to the Universal syndicate on Wednesday morning (this week: black preachers, Old Testament prophets and centuries of pain).

Nevertheless, during the past day or so I have been following the Trumpian Bible battles on Twitter. I saw, of course, quite a few people — including conservative Christians — addressing President Donald Trump’s Bible-aloft photo op. I wondered, frankly, whether we would hear from many of those people in the mainstream press coverage that would follow. Uh. That would be “no.”

So raise your hands if you were surprised that the Episcopal Church leadership in Washington, D.C., was outraged? Their comments were essential, of course, because the story unfolded in front of the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House (site of a fire a day earlier). So you knew religious progressives would get lots of hot ink, as in the Washington Post piece that opened with the Right Rev. Mariann Budde, Episcopal bishop of Washington:

“I am the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and was not given even a courtesy call, that they would be clearing [the area] with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop,” Budde said.

She excoriated the president for standing in front of the church — its windows boarded up with plywood — holding up a Bible, which Budde said “declares that God is love.”

“Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence,” Budde of the president. “We need moral leadership, and he’s done everything to divide us.”

Let’s keep reading. Raise your hand if you are surprised that predictable evangelicals said predictable things — which is also a valid part of the story:

Johnnie Moore, a spokesman for several of Trump’s evangelical religious advisers, tweeted favorably about the incident as well.

“I will never forget seeing @POTUS @realDonaldTrump slowly & in-total-command walk from the @WhiteHouse across Lafayette Square to St. John’s Church defying those who aim to derail our national healing by spreading fear, hate & anarchy,” he wrote. “After just saying, ‘I will keep you safe.’ ”


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