, , , , , , , ,

Labor Day mix: Religion and presidential politics, Bobby's best and clashing images of protest

, , , , , , , ,

In addition to spending some social-distanced time around a grill, this is a good day for a bit of extra reading. Please consider this a kind of “think piece” package to mentally munch during a relaxing day.

Yes, I realize that some of the topics are a bit heavy. It’s #2020.

For starters, here is a heavyweight Commonweal essay from retired Newsweek religion-beat pro Kenneth Woodward: “Religion & Presidential Politics — From George Washington to Donald Trump.”

As is usually the case with Woodward, there is plenty to think about in this lengthy piece and a few things to argue about, as well. In other words, it’s must reading. Here is the lengthy overture.

Sen. Eugene McCarthy, one of the few theologically sophisticated men ever to seek either party’s presidential nomination, liked to say that only two kinds of religion are tolerated along the Potomac: “strong beliefs vaguely expressed and vague beliefs strongly affirmed.” McCarthy had two particular presidents in mind: Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. But he could have been describing most of the men who have occupied the White House. Franklin D. Roosevelt would have understood what McCarthy meant. When he decided to run for president in 1932, his press secretary asked him what he should tell the press about his religious convictions. Roosevelt could have justly claimed that he was a warden of his Episcopal parish, prayed often, and regularly attended Sunday services. But all he said was: “Tell them I am a Christian and a Democrat, and that is all they need to know.” And it was. And so, with rare exceptions, it has always been in presidential elections.

Having written about religion and its relationship to American culture and politics for more than half a century, I am not inclined to minimize the effects of religious belief, behavior, and belonging on American public life. But I think it’s abundantly clear that religion has rarely been a significant factor in our presidential politics, and isn’t likely to be in the upcoming election. On the contrary, to treat religious identity as an independent variable, as many journalists, academics, and pollsters do, inflates the influence of religion on our politics and masks the ways in which politics has come to shape American religion, rather than the reverse. Still, after the returns are in next November, the media will carry stories about how Catholics, liberal Protestants, and Evangelicals — especially “non-Hispanic white” Evangelicals — voted. Why do we insist on connecting presidential choices with religious identity?

Let me give my answer to that question: We connect the two because candidates and their political parties take stands on moral and cultural issues that directly connect — for SOME (I cannot emphasize “some” enough), certainly not a majority, of voters.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

What next for Liberty University? Press should watch future campus worship services

, , , , , , , , , , , ,
What next for Liberty University? Press should watch future campus worship services

Liberty University's decision to close its philosophy department didn't make big headlines in May 2020, at least not when compared with the its coronavirus policies and the latest comments from President Jerry Falwell, Jr.

After all, liberal arts programs were shrinking while Liberty's online education programs prospered, along with job-friendly undergraduate degrees. Christian colleges everywhere are wrestling with similar issues.

But the philosophy department was symbolic because it once was crucial to "what made Liberty unique" -- an emphasis on blending faith with core academic disciplines, said Karen Swallow Prior, who taught there for 20 years. This summer she moved to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., to teach English literature, as well as Christianity and culture.

"That department was top notch and produced students who went straight to the Ivy League and had great success," she said. "Philosophy was larger when I first got there, and it was clear this discipline was seen as part of Liberty's mission. Then things started changing."

Now, Liberty leaders are wrestling with the undeniable impact Falwell Jr. had as president, after the 2007 death of his father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Facing years of red ink, the founder's heir soon pushed for $500 million in campus updates and expansions, along with profitable online programs. The university now has 15,000 on-campus students and roughly 100,000 online. Liberty claims an endowment of $1.6 billion.

At the same time, Falwell Jr. developed a swashbuckling style that caused heat, especially when linked to race, guns, jets, politics, yachts and his specialty -- real estate. Controversies about his de facto partnership with President Donald Trump thrilled many Liberty donors, alumni, parents and students, while deeply troubling others.

Many Christian college presidents are super-pastors who provide ties that bind to denominations, churches and networks of believers. Falwell Jr. -- a lawyer -- turned into a dynamic entrepreneur who courted powerful conservative politicos.

On regular Christian campuses, there "are higher expectations for presidents than members of the faculty, and members of the faculty live with greater expectations than students," noted religious-liberty activist David French, writing at The Dispatch.

"Liberty flipped this script. The president lived life with greater freedom than his students or his faculty. The message sent was distinctly unbiblical -- that some Christian leaders can discard integrity provided their other qualifications, from family name to fund-raising prowess, provided sufficient additional benefit."

All of this led to a soap-opera collapse, after flashes of risqué social media


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

What is 'biblicism'? A mere academic term or something that affects the news?

, , , , , , , ,

THE QUESTION:

What is “biblicism”?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

This question is the title of an article this month on Patheos.com by Michael Bird, an Anglican priest who teaches theology at Australia’s Ridley College and is also a visiting professor at Houston Baptist University.

More on Bird in a bit, but first let’s lay some groundwork for the discussion and why it is newsworthy..

The dictionary definition of biblicism is adherence to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Merriam-Webster dates the first known use of this term to 1805. Note that this was a century before the rise of the literal-minded U.S. Protestant movement called “fundamentalism,” named after “The Fundamentals” of the faith, a series of conservative ecumenical booklets on the Bible and doctrine published from 1910 to 1915.

Literal interpretation is bound up with the belief that the entire Word of God is free from error. This was the first of the so-called “five points of fundamentalism” that originated as “essential” Christian beliefs defined by a U.S. Presbyterian General Assembly in 1910.

People sometimes distort literal interpretation. There’s a useful explanation in the “Chicago Statement” issued by 300 Protestants at a 1978 meeting of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. They stated that God used each human writer’s cultural milieu in inspiring the Scriptures, and that while “history must be treated as history,” Christians should also treat “poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are.”

That working principle, of course, does not settle all debates. Classic examples involve the creation of the world, which begins the Book of Genesis. Did the famous six “days” of the process last 24 hours, as some literalists contend, or are the “days” poetic or symbolic references to vast phases of time? Is the account meant to be historical and did the events occur in this precise order? On the discussions rage, frequently affecting public debates and, thus, news.

The “fundamentalist” label often carries negative connotations and should not be applied to people who reject and resent that label. Similarly, the conservative folks at gotquestions.org say, “biblicism” and “biblicist” are sometimes applied to cast aspersions against literalists.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Was Chadwick Boseman's faith a crucial part of his struggles and triumphs?

, , , , , , , ,

One of the most powerful roles that mass media play in modern life is the ability to determine who is “cool” and who is not.

During this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), host Todd Wilken and I discussed how this “cool” factor is not just a matter of style. In the modern world, “cool” tells us who is worthy and who is unworthy, who is smart and who is not, who is wise and who is ridiculous, who is a leader worthy of trust and who is not.

That was a key factor in my post this week about Baltimore Ravens superstar Lamar Jackson and the massive Sports Illustrated profile about his life and talent that didn’t seem very interested in his faith and the biblical reasons for the number on his jersey. Maybe his faith just isn’t “cool”? (Click here for “Hey SI: Is this an important fact? Why does Lamar Jackson wear the number 8 on his back?”)

With that in mind, let me do something that isn’t the norm here at GetReligion, which is turn to scripture. In this case, read the following from 1 Corinthians, chapter 3:

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the some of the coverage of the recent death of Hollywood superstar Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer at age 43. In particular, I want to praise a pair of stories at Religion News Service.

But, first, invest some time and watch the amazing commencement address Boseman delivered two years ago at his alma mater, Howard University (or scan this CNN transcript). As the speech builds, in a quiet but strong crescendo, watch Boseman’s eyes.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Hey SI: Is this an important fact? Why does Lamar Jackson wear the number 8 on his back?

, , , , , , ,

First things first: I’m a Ravens fan and have been since my first move to the Baltimore area in 1999.

Second, I find the team interesting for reasons linked to religion news. We are not just talking about the life and times of “God’s linebacker,” Hall of Famer Ray Lewis.

As long as I have followed this team, there have been fascinating Ravens storylines linked to religion, culture and even politics. When your team’s CENTER can make faith-based headlines — Matt Birk skipped the White House visit with the Super Bowl champs because of Barack Obama’s abortion stance — you know things are getting interesting.

Then there is head coach John “mighty men” Harbaugh, a Roman Catholic whose outspoken style would be right at home in many African-American pulpits.

Two years ago, Harbaugh and Raven executives made the stunning decision to build their team around a very unconventional quarterback — Lamar “not bad for a running back” Jackson. Then they started talking about his unique, very cool blend of humility and swagger, his commitment to teammates and to helping the city of Baltimore. The team embraced his “Big Truss” slogan, with his emphasis on having trust and faith in teammates and, well, other things.

This brings me to a long, long Sports Illustrated cover story about Jackson and the future of the quarterback position in professional football. The headline: “Lamar Jackson: Quarterback, Redefined.”

It’s a great feature if you want to know about Jackson, the football player. No complaints, there. However, SI finally spotted the strong religion “ghost” in this story and devoted all of two paragraphs to it — several thousand words into the text. Hold that thought and, as you read the piece, note the many references to the number “8” that Jackson wears on his back.

Here’s a solid chunk of the text focusing on Jackson and his impact on those around him.

… Coach John Harbaugh had shown up at a press conference wearing a hoodie from Jackson’s Era 8 apparel line, emblazoned — like many of their items — with an African wild dog. A donut chain sold pastries printed with the “Big Truss” team motto based on a Jackson catchphrase, loosely defined as mutual trust (and since changed to “Big Truzz,” to avoid a trademark dispute).


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Newsweek: Core doctrine of Christianity is something 'evangelists' may or may not believe

, , , , , , , , ,

In recent years, your GetReligionistas have had quite a few discussions of the following question: Should today’s Newsweek continue to be treated as the important newsmagazine that it once was?

Hear me out. I know that Newsweek contains some interesting and provocative commentary pieces and, every now and then, the magazine publishes an interesting essay on a news topic that appears to have been written by someone in the newsroom.

The day-by-day norm, however, appears to consist of quick-hit pieces based on the work of others, often showing signs of work by inexperienced interns. Some of these online pieces can be considered “aggregation” pointing readers to other sources of news and information.

Please don’t read that as an automatic put-down. GetReligion publishes its share of “think pieces” that introduce readers to articles we have seen linked to religion news. The goal is to write a worthy intro and then show readers bites of the article — clearly identifying the source — that lets them see key insights or information. At the end, we encourage folks to “read it all,” with a URL to the source.

The problem, to be blunt, is when there is evidence that the journalists doing this work have little or no understanding of the material they are “writing about.” Consider this overture in a Newsweek piece with this headline: “52 Percent of Americans Say Jesus Isn't God but Was a Great Teacher, Survey Says.”

A slight majority of American adults say Jesus was a great teacher and nothing more during his lifetime, which several Christian leaders say is evidence today's faithful are "drifting away" from traditional evangelist teachings.

As earlier reported by The Christian Post, the 2020 survey conducted by Ligonier Ministries, a Florida-based Reform Church nonprofit, found 52 percent of U.S. adults say they believe Jesus Christ is not God — a belief that contradicts traditional teachings of the Bible through the Christian church, which state Jesus was both man and God.

Nearly one-third of evangelicals in the survey agreed that Jesus isn't God, compared to 65 percent who said "Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God."

Where to begin?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

It's more 'Dog Bites Man' as religion-haunted 2020 campaign lurches into the fall

, , , , , , , , ,
It's more 'Dog Bites Man' as religion-haunted 2020 campaign lurches into the fall

GetReligion regulars will know that “Man Bites Dog” is news and “Dog Bites Man” is not.

This hoary journalism incantation came to mind at the close of the Democratic National Convention when 353 clergy and lay believers announced that they “choose hope over fear” and will mobilize religious voters so the Biden-Harris ticket can “lead us in restoring our nation’s values.”

Reporters will assess this for themselves, but to The Guy the Trump-biting endorsers of “Faith2020” (contact 657–333– 5391) look pretty much as predictable as the religious lineup boosting Trump-Pence. Faith2020 draws hallelujahs from former presidential nominee Al Gore, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Signers include workers for past Democratic candidates, abortion choice, LGBTQ concerns and various liberal causes.

In other words, it’s a familiar Religious Left all-star team.

Signer Jack Moline co-chaired Rabbis for Obama and is president of the Interfaith Alliance, founded in 1994 to counter the “Religious Right.” Despite continual hopes, building a politically potent Religious Left has proven elusive in an era when the big news (calling scholar John C. Green) is the emergence of non-religious Americans as a massive chunk of the Democrats’ constituency.

One sort-of surprise endorser is John Phelan, former president of the Evangelical Covenant Church’s North Park Theological Seminary. He joins alongside Faith2020 Executive Director Adam Phillips, whose former Portland, Oregon, church was forced out of that denomination in 2015 over LGBTQ inclusion in church leadership.

Other Faith2020 names of note: Frederick Davie (Faith2020 chair and executive vice president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary), David Beckman (former president of Bread for the World), Amos Brown (Kamala Harris’s San Francisco Baptist pastor), Amy Butler (removed last year as pastor of New York’s prominent Riverside Church), Joshua DuBois (who ran President Barack Obama’s “Faith-Based” partnerships office), Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (retired general secretary of the Reformed Church in America), Gene Robinson (whose elevation as a partnered gay bishop further split the global Anglican Communion), Brian McLaren (godfather of the “emerging church” movement), Talib Shareef (D.C. imam who leads what’s called “The Nation’s Mosque”), Ron Sider (Evangelicals for Social Action chair and Hillary Clinton endorser) and Simran Jeet Singh (Sikh chaplain at New York University).


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

BuzzFeed plumbs satellite photos for exhaustive report on China's persecuted Muslims

, , , , ,

I knew that BuzzFeed News was trying to expand its reach, but I didn’t think it would take on as complex a project as in-depth reporting on China’s insane genocide of its Uighur Muslims.

Then last week, the site dropped two stories that emerged after Megha Rajagopalan, their Middle East correspondent, spent major time in neighboring Kazakhstan interviewing those Muslims who had managed to get out of China.

The first of a two-part expose starts off with satellite photos of the prison camps of western China and this statement: “China rounded up so many Muslims in Xinjiang that there wasn’t enough space to hold them.” And then:

In the most extensive investigation of China’s internment camp system ever done using publicly available satellite images, coupled with dozens of interviews with former detainees, BuzzFeed News identified more than 260 structures built since 2017 and bearing the hallmarks of fortified detention compounds. There is at least one in nearly every county in the far-west region of Xinjiang. During that time, the investigation shows, China has established a sprawling system to detain and incarcerate hundreds of thousands of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities, in what is already the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II.

How was this done?

BuzzFeed News identified 268 newly built compounds by cross-referencing blanked-out areas on Baidu Maps — a Google Maps–like tool that’s widely used in China — with images from external satellite data providers. These compounds often contained multiple detention facilities.

Adding that it had employed Alison Killing, a licensed architect as one of the reporters on the story, BuzzFeed was able to figure out that these were buildings that could easily hold 10,000 inmates each. This story even went into what these places looked like inside.

Unlike early sites, the new facilities appear more permanent and prisonlike, similar in construction to high-security prisons in other parts of China. The most highly fortified compounds offer little space between buildings, tiny concrete-walled yards, heavy masonry construction, and long networks of corridors with cells down either side.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Washington Post shows (again) how to cover both Liberty University and Jerry Falwell, Jr.

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Did you read the very interesting comments that the Rev. Jonathan Falwell made in this fall’s first campus-wide convocation last week at Liberty University?

This was, of course, the first symbolic gathering of this kind after the scandalous fall of Jerry Falwell Jr., as Liberty’s president. So this was a logical event for reporters to stream online. Well, it was a logical reporting decision for journalists who are interested in Liberty’s future, as well as the Jerry Jr. scandal and its potential impact on Donald Trump.

If you want to read the Jonathan Falwell comments, just about the only place to find them is The Washington Post, which continues to cover the scandal’s higher education angle — specifically Christian higher-education — with a strong team of religion-beat pros and an education-beat specialist. The contents of their latest must-read story — “After Jerry Falwell Jr.’s departure, Liberty University faces questions about faith, power, accountability” — show the journalistic wisdom of this approach.

After noting a short plug for Jerry Falwell Jr., and his role as the builder of the current campus, the acting president — the Rev. Jerry Prevo of Alaska — pledged that Liberty’s remaining leaders are committed to the school’s spiritual and academic mission. That set up this:

Then Jonathan Falwell, pastor of the Liberty-affiliated Thomas Road Baptist Church, spoke. He did not mention his brother by name. But he told his audience, in Lynchburg, Va., and around the globe: “So many times we see Christians that are more focused on building their own brand than they are about building the kingdom of God.”

There are a lot of universities out there, Jonathan Falwell said, but Liberty is different: It was built to change the world with the gospel. He urged students to be faithful, trust God and avoid temptation.

Some students who heard the two men said the convocation highlighted a key tension at their school. They felt that Prevo was elevating the former president because of his transformation of the university and that Jonathan Falwell was elevating the Christian values they shared.


Please respect our Commenting Policy