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Plug-in: History Repeats itself as Little Rock Central hero's great-grandson shows courage

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In 1957, the white mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas, showed courage by standing up for nine black students trying to integrate Central High School.

Defying segregationist Gov. Orval Faubus and an angry white mob, Mayor Woodrow Wilson Mann urged President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send U.S. soldiers to quell the violence.

“Situation is out of control and police cannot disperse the mob,” Mann said in a telegram to Eisenhower. “I am pleading to you as president of the United States in the interest of humanity, law and order and because of democracy worldwide to provide the necessary federal troops within several hours.”

To enforce the school’s desegregation, Eisenhower sent 1,200 members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division and federalized the Arkansas National Guard.

But Mann paid a steep price.

He endured hate mail and death threats. White supremacists burned crosses on his family’s lawn. He lost his insurance business and any hope of a political future in Arkansas.

Sean Richardson, youth minister for the Bammel Church of Christ in Houston, recalled Mann’s experience as he preached on the Sunday after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.

“See, typically in history when people have chosen to side with those who are oppressed, they themselves get treated as those who have been oppressed,” Richardson said in the video sermon, which came amid national outrage over Floyd’s death and coast-to-coast protests against racial injustice.

The black youth minister’s mention of Mann, who moved to Houston in 1961 and lived there until his death in 2002 at age 85, was no mere historical footnote.

Richardson traced the late mayor’s lineage to the present day — to an 18-year-old Bammel youth group member named Trevor Mann.

No doubt, Trevor’s place in American history — at least at this point in his life — pales in comparison to that of his great-grandfather, whom he met as a baby.

But Trevor, too, showed courage in the face of racial prejudice.

Read the rest of the story.


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Evangelicals know better: President Trump just doesn't know how to 'Billy Graham' a Bible

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Evangelicals know better: President Trump just doesn't know how to 'Billy Graham' a Bible

For generations, young Christians have learned how to hold and respect their Bibles during competitions known as "Sword drills."

The sword image comes from a New Testament affirmation that the "word of God is … sharper than any two-edged sword."

Drill leaders say, "Attention!" Competitors stand straight, hands at their sides.

"Draw swords!" They raise their Bibles to waist level, hands flat on the front and back covers. The leader challenges participants to find a specific passage or a hero or theme in scripture.

"Charge!" Competitors have 20 seconds to complete their task and step forward. For some, four or five seconds will be enough.

The key is knowing how to open the Bible, as well as hold it.

It's safe to say the young Donald Trump didn't take part in many Bible drills while preparing to be confirmed, at age 13 or thereabouts, as a Presbyterian in Queens, New York City. His mother gave him a Revised Standard Version -- embraced by mainline Protestants, shunned by evangelicals -- several years earlier.

President Trump was holding a Revised Standard Version during his iconic visit to the historic St. John's Episcopal Church, after police and security personnel drove protesters from Lafayette Square, next to the White House. To this day, evangelicals favor other Bible translations, while liberal Protestants have embraced the more gender-neutral New Revised Standard Version.

A reporter asked: "Is that your Bible?"

The president responded: "It's a Bible."

"Trump is a mainline Protestant. That's what is in his bones -- not evangelicalism. It's clear that he's not at home with evangelicals. That's not his culture, unless he's talking about politics," said historian Thomas S. Kidd of Baylor University, author of "Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis."


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Thinking with Ryan Burge: Religious faith, moral convictions and obeying the law

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You can learn a lot about protest and civil disobedience by studying this history of religious movements in America and around the world. I did that in college and grad school.

I also learned quite a bit these topics while, as a reporter, hiking out into the vast expanses of northeastern Colorado in the mid 1980s with some Catholic peace activists who planned to stage a protest at the gate surrounding a set of nuclear missile silos. I saw one of the same nuns get arrest at an abortion facility.

At some point, of course, protesters face a choice — will they break the law. That sounds like a simple line in the legal sand, but it isn’t.

Here is what I remember from that experience long ago. I offer this imperfect and simple typology as a way of introducing another interesting set of statistics — in a chart, of course — from social scientist Ryan Burge of the ReligionInPublic blog, who is also a GetReligion contributor.

This particular set of numbers looks at various religious traditions and the degree to which these various believers say they obey laws, without exception. You can see how that might affect questions linked to protest, civil disobedience and even the use of violence in protests.

But back to the very high plains of Colorado. We discussed several different levels of protest.

* Protesters can, of course, apply for parade permits and, when they have received one, they can strictly cooperate with public officials.

* It is possible to hold protests in public places where assemblies of various kinds are legal — period.

* Then again, protesters can obstruct city streets for as long as possible and, when confronted by police, they can disburse without a major confrontation.

* Or not. At some point, protesters can peacefully violate a law and refuse to leave — whether that’s a major road crossing, the whites only rows of a city bus, the front gates of an abortion facility or the security zone outside a nuclear missile silo. Hanging protest banners — or similar actions — is another option here. In civil disobedience, protesters accept that they will be arrested.


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Podcast: Jump in GetReligion WABAC machine and explore roots of @NYTimes revolt

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When I was a kid in the 1960s — soon after the cooling of the Earth’s crust — I was a big fan of the The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. My favorite feature was the show within the show entitled “Peabody's Improbable History," in which the WABAC machine transported the brilliant Mr. Peabody (a dog, actually) and his boy Sherman (an actual boy) into the past to have wonderful adventures.

At two points in my life I have been a fan of the BBC Doctor Who series — especially Tom Baker as Doctor No. 4 and Peter Capaldi as No. 12.

So this time travel thing is a useful concept, methinks, even when dealing with trends in postmodern journalism. You’ll see that (or hear it) during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). In this particular post we will be making four stops, although we could make a dozen.

Turn on the WABAC machine and tell me — as a reflection on the latest editorial explosion in the New York Times newsroom — who said or wrote the following (don’t click the link yet) after debates about fair and accurate coverage of what event?

As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you. It is also to hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.

That, of course, was part of a letter from New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and executive editor Dean Baquet — responding to complaints that their newspaper had botched coverage of the 2016 White House race and the rise of Donald Trump.

How do those words hold up right now?

The key issue, according to Times public editor Liz Spayd, was whether America’s most influential newsroom was interested in doing accurate, informed, fair-minded coverage of roughly half of the American population. See this column, in particular: “Want to Know What America’s Thinking? Try Asking.” Here is a key chunk of that:


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Be honest: After journalism earthquakes of the past week or so, wouldn't you head for the hills?

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Where are you, right now, on your end-of-the-world bingo board?

Has anything happened that really pushed you over the edge?

Maybe it was the whole Murder Hornet thing.

How about the large asteroid that is scheduled to pass somewhat close to earth?

I’ll admit that the anti-racism rioters defacing the Abraham Lincoln statue in London was a body blow.

But that wasn’t as bad as the retired African-American police officer being killed while defending a store from looters. I’m not sure that had anything to do with #BlackLivesMatter.

Maybe I’m forgetting something? Oh, right, the coronavirus. How about Donald Trump, pepper spray, rubber bullets and that strange Bible drill? Talk about efforts to cancel “Paw Patrol”? And no baseball (right, Bobby Ross, Jr.?). All that and a large chunk of the New York Times newsroom doing its best to kick off a red-state vs. blue-state journalism war. Basically, the advocacy press doctrines of Kellerism (click here for origin of this GetReligion term) are now being applied by Times people to a wider array of news topics.

It all kinds of adds up, especially for old journalists like me. So I am heading to the hills. Actually, I already live in the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains outside of Knoxville, Tenn., but my family is going to make one of its regular escapes deep into the mountains of North Carolina.

Forget WiFi. We’re talking about a blue-collar valley where cell signals are so weak that the wind pretty much needs to be blowing from the right direction to send a text message. But, as I have said before, the rocking chairs work fine and so does the gravel road next to the river. And barbecue.

GetReligion will stay open, sort of. This week’s podcast will go up tomorrow. There will be a think piece of two over the weekend and I’ll come back down to “normality” early next week. And if you want to read a fine mood piece on the journalism side of this craziness, let me point readers back to this Clemente Lisi piece: “Journalism cancels its moral voice: What does this mean for Catholic news? For religion news?”

Lisi — as a New Yorker’s New Yorker — basically opened a vein and said what he needed to say. He told me, via email, that he started this piece over and over and finally wrote something he could live with.

So here is a crucial chunk of that. Let us attend:


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What explains Donald Trump's unusual and controversial brandishing of the Bible?

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Observers are still scratching heads over President Trump’s unusual June 1 walk alongside top administration officials to the arson-damaged and boarded-up St. John’s Episcopal Church, not to pray or speak to an anxious nation but simply to brandish a Bible for the cameras. Politically risky removal of nearby demonstrators preceded the walk, which provoked a media / military / political uproar.

What’s going on here? Much of the following will be familiar for religion specialists. But amid all the 2020 discussion of, say, suburban women or the race of Joe Biden’s running mate, political reporters should be alert to religious dynamics. A related event June 2 said much and deserved more attention as the President and First Lady paid a ceremonial visit to the St. John Paul II National Shrine, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.

Simply put, Trump cannot win unless he maintains Republicans’ customary lopsided support from white evangelical Protestants. He also needs a smaller but solid majority of non-Hispanic Catholics, the more devout the better. Think Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.

Politico’s Gabby Orr nailed things in a May 22 analysis after the president prodded governors to reopen churches. “A sudden shift in support for Donald Trump among religious conservatives is triggering alarm bells inside his re-election campaign,” because a downward slide in their enthusiasm “could sink” his prospects.

The White House no doubt reacted to its own internal polls, but Orr especially cited data from the Pew Research Center (media contact Anna Schiller, aschiller@pewresearch.org, 202–419-4514) and the Public Religion Research Institute or PRRI www.prri.org (contact Jordun Lawrence, press@prri.org, 202–688-3259). These two organizations are important because their polls usually distinguish white evangelicals from other Protestants, and white from Hispanic Catholics.

Turn to the PRRI report on “favorable” opinion toward Trump’s performance — not respondents’ voting intentions — as of March, April, and the latest survey May 26-31.

Looking at Trump’s two pivotal religious categories, with white evangelicals his favoribility in the three surveys went from 77 to 66 to 62%, down 15 points. With white Catholics, the decline went from 60 to 48 to 37%, a heart-stopping 23-point change.


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Dramatic funeral service for George Floyd: Was there Gospel in it, or only politics?

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I do not know if Donald Trump watched the George Floyd funeral. After all, that was a very long service, even by black-church standards.

But if the president did watch this event — which unfolded on several cable channels — I am sure that his take on the rite’s contents would have been remarkably similar to that of the elite journalists who attended.

I am sure that Trump watched the funeral and said to himself: “That was all about politics.”

After reading several of the national-media reports, I think it’s clear that the principalities and powers of the establishment press watched the funeral and said to themselves: “That was all about politics.”

Was there a hefty dose of politics during the funeral? Of course there was.

Did this political content deserve news coverage? Of course it did.

But if you read the mainstream coverage of the service, you would never know that Christian faith played a key role in the trouble life of George Floyd and of the mother who fought so hard to raise him right.

You would never know that references to Jesus and “the Lord” were heard during this service just as much, or more, than the names of major political figures or even Floyd himself. You wouldn’t know that Floyd — during some crucial years when he fought to pull his life together — was a major player in urban ministry projects in Houston’s Third Ward. He wasn’t just a “mentor” in sports programs.

Of course, we all know that African-American churches only deserve news coverage to the degree that their activities impact local and national politics. Right?

To get a taste of what I am talking about, check out this large chunk of reporting at the top of the USAToday coverage:

About 500 friends, family, politicians and entertainers streamed into The Fountain of Praise church in Houston for what co-pastor Mia Wright called, "a home-going celebration of brother George Floyd's life.''


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Hong Kong's religious freedom crisis takes backseat to basic journalistic norms in USA

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It’s been quite a time in America — arguably unprecedented — with massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations erupting across the nation following the death in police custody of George Floyd. And all of it in the midst of a killer pandemic, economic upheaval and a frightening, and for many psychologically debilitating, uncertainty over what will happen next.

Importantly, the BLM protests have also popped up in many smaller cities in America’s hinterlands, communities not generally thought of as activist hot spots. Click here for a sampling of the coverage of how widespread this has been, care of USA Today, or here for The Washington Post.

There are many offshoots to this monumental story, the core of which is the state of race relations, policing injustices and the Donald Trump administration’s response to this national reckoning.

One sidebar (from The Washington Post, again) is the absurdly hypocritical response of some authoritarian nations — perhaps China above all — to America’s turmoil.

That’s the nature of international political maneuvering, isn’t it? Never miss an opportunity to blame your adversaries when they display problems — no matter how unequal the comparison —that they’ve pestered you about for years.

I’m reminded of the quote attributed to G.K. Chesterton: “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with — that is when he picks up a boomerang.”

I will pick on China — you would not be wrong to think, “What, again?” — because of its Hong Kong problem that has, understandably, largely been absent from American press coverage of late.

Why understandably? Because, as should be obvious, the first responsibility of American mainstream journalism is to cover important domestic stories. Moreover, I’d wager that few Americans currently give a hoot about Hong Kong’s concern, given what’s going on in their own lives and streets.

So even normally well-read GetReligion readers may have fallen behind on the crucial human-rights angles in the Hong Kong story.


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The big idea: Black and white preachers, together, need to sound prophetic note on race

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The big idea: Black and white preachers, together, need to sound prophetic note on race

In times of turmoil, brutality, fire and rage, black preachers have always turned to the Old Testament prophets.

Hear Jeremiah addressing the king and his court: "Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan and the widow, or shed innocent blood. … (If) you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation."

There's plenty more where that came from. No one is shocked when black pastors take biblical texts about sin, justice, repentance and mercy and weave them into images and headlines from the news, said the Rev. Terriel Byrd, urban ministry professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University. This is a crucial role they have always played in their communities and as bridgebuilders to others.

"Even when they know that what they're going to say will be rejected, they dare to speak as prophets," he said. "They aren't afraid to preach what they need to preach. If you go to church during times like these, you know a black preacher will not be silent."

After decades of studying the art of preaching -- he is the former president of the African American Caucus of the Academy of Homiletics -- Byrd knows that traditions are different in white sanctuaries. But he is convinced America needs to hear from all kinds of preachers after the killing of George Floyd, his neck under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer.

On the streets, some white police are kneeling -- this is powerful symbolism on many levels -- with protestors in prayer. Unity across racial lines in churches will be just as important.

Black church leaders will be on the scene during peaceful protests. When it's time to heal and clean up, all kinds of religious believers will take part -- black, white, whatever. But will they be able to speak together?

"It's crucial for white-church leaders to step forward and take a leadership role at this moment," said Byrd, reached by telephone. "If we have some true partnerships form, with a real sense of honesty and equality, we could see a way forward and make real progress fighting this injustice."

This is not, of course, the first time that clergy have faced this challenge.


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