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Yo, Nashville Tennessean: What does 'people of faith' mean in a political argument?

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Yo, Nashville Tennessean: What does 'people of faith' mean in a political argument?

When I arrived at the Rocky Mountain News (RIP) long ago — think early ‘80s — I quickly learned that the city-desk team had an informal way of checking the Colorado pulse on religious issues.

Basically, they were interviewing clergy at the churches in downtown Denver. That was pretty much it. They would also call the Denver Catholic archdiocese (rather progressive at that time) and the “local seminary,” as in the already “woke” Iliff School of Theology, nationally known as an edgy United Methodist campus. It appeared no one knew about the larger Denver Seminary (evangelical) only a few blocks from Iliff.

What kind of churches were downtown? Almost all of them were mainline Protestant congregations and very few of them were showing any sign of life, in terms of attendance and growth. But they were nearby and most were progressive, so that was that. Why talk to folks at the region’s growing megachurches?

Hang in there with me. I am working toward a recent Nashville Tennessean article that ran with this headline: “Hundreds of people of faith call on Tennessee's Republican congressional delegation to repudiate lies about election fraud.” The key question: Define “people of faith”?

Back to Denver, for one more comment. Early on, I attended a press conference linked to the Colorado Council of Churches. Here is how I described what happened in a post back in 2013:

The key was that the organization … was claiming that it spoke for the vast majority of the state's churches. The problem was that, by the 1980s, the conversion of the Colorado Front Range into an evangelical hotbed (including evangelicals in many oldline Protestant bodies) was well on its way. Also, a more doctrinally conservative Catholic archbishop had arrived in town, one anxious to advocate for Catholic teachings on public issues on both sides of the political spectrum. …

Still, it was an important press conference that helped document one side of a religious debate in the state.

Near the end of the session, I asked what I thought was a logical question: Other than the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, did any of the CCC leaders present represent a church that had more members at that moment than during any of the previous two or three decades?

Well, hey, I thought it was a fair question.


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Polls apart: Pew Research switching methodologies with its much-used U.S. religious surveys

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Polls apart: Pew Research switching methodologies with its much-used U.S. religious surveys

Political journalists give lavish attention to polls and often slide past those footnotes about a "95 percent level of confidence" and "margin of error plus or minus 4 percentage points."

Thus, numbers are never exact and a three-point edge could actually be seven points ahead or one point behind. Not to mention that even the best poll is merely a time-bound snapshot of reality (and it always pays to check how questions are worded).

After Election Day 2020, complaints about misleading political polls were as loud as usual, perhaps even louder. Take the bizarre Maine Senate race data. Polls consistently showed incumbent Susan Collins would lose, and she was behind 6% in the one closest to Election Day. She won easily by an 8.6% margin.

Or consider recent surveys about whether Americans plan to get COVID-19 shots. The Wall Street Journal notes that "yes" answers have ranged from 20% to 63% depending on the methodology, the wording and, especially, whether respondents were offered more than two options.

These days the "response rates" among those in randomly selected samples are so low it's tough to tell how representative the people are.

That's among the major problems raised by eminent Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow in his 2015 book "Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith.”

Gallup data about U.S. religion are important because the firm has asked consistent questions across so many decades. But 21st Century religion writers rely heavily upon the Pew Research Center (where Alan Cooperman, a former Washington Post colleague, is director of religion research). Pew's expertise often provides all-important distinctions between white "mainline" and white "evangelical" Protestants, and between white and Hispanic Catholics.

Pew is changing the way it surveys religious behavior and attitudes, so the media will want to be aware of why and how.

Of major importance is how this affects writing about trend lines over time that uses past surveys.


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Embracing LGBTQ adoptive parents: Was Bethany's change of heart (and doctrine) a surprise?

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Embracing LGBTQ adoptive parents: Was Bethany's change of heart (and doctrine) a surprise?

Ever since she joined the New York Times last summer, Ruth Graham has been breaking stories left and right. Yesterday’s revelation of a revered Christian adoption agency agreeing to allow in gay parents is the latest of many.

Judging by her piece — and those of several other outlets — the decision must have been known for several days but was embargoed until that all-important email went out to the ministry’s staff.

Ever since the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015, it was only a matter of time before these newly legalized couples wanted to adopt kids.

This time around, state officials could be supporting them and any agency not complying would stand to lose financially big time. The story begins:

One of the country’s largest adoption and foster care agencies, Bethany Christian Services, announced on Monday that it would begin providing services to L.G.B.T.Q. parents nationwide effective immediately, a major inflection point in the fraught battle over many faith-based agencies’ longstanding opposition to working with same-sex couples.

Bethany, a Michigan-based evangelical organization, announced the change in an email to about 1,500 staff members that was signed by Chris Palusky, the organization’s president and chief executive. “We will now offer services with the love and compassion of Jesus to the many types of families who exist in our world today,” Mr. Palusky wrote. “We’re taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach where all are welcome.”

What that means is that the amount of orphans is so great and the number of available parents are so few, that anyone available –- even if gay, single, older, etc. –- is needed to adopt these kids.

The announcement is a significant departure for the 77-year-old organization, which is the largest Protestant adoption and foster agency in the United States. Bethany facilitated 3,406 foster placements and 1,123 adoptions in 2019, and has offices in 32 states. (The organization also works in refugee placement, and offers other services related to child and family welfare.) Previously, openly gay prospective foster and adoptive parents in most states were referred to other agencies.

The decision comes amid a high-stakes cultural and legal battle that features questions about sexuality, religious freedom, parenthood, family structure and theology.


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Puzzle: Many reporters ignoring Equality Act's impact on this crucial Schumer-Kennedy legislation

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Puzzle: Many reporters ignoring Equality Act's impact on this crucial Schumer-Kennedy legislation

I have been following the Equality Act coverage and, so far, a crucial piece in this puzzle has been missing.

Thus, here is a one-question pop test. That question: Name the piece of stunningly bipartisan legislation — vote was 97-3 in U.S. Senate — from the Bill Clinton era that will be gutted by passage of the Equality Act? Hint: It was introduced in the House by Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993, and in the Senate on the same day by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA).

We are, of course, talking about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). In today’s advocacy-media age that would, of course, be the “Religious Freedom” Restoration Act, complete with “scare quotes.”

The key is the impact the Equality Act would have on religious parachurch groups, social ministries, hospitals and educational institutions, from preschools to universities.

Now, does everyone agree on how the Equality Act would impact the First Amendment rights of religious believers and their doctrine-defined ministries?

Of course not. There are strong, credible voices on both sides of that debate that deserve serious, accurate, informed coverage by the mainstream press. However, this process — let’s call it “journalism” — would require newsroom managers to admit that this issue exists.

That’s why Andrew Sullivan — one of the world’s best-known gay public intellectuals — called the introductory Washington Post Equality Act story a “press release” (think PR) for the Human Rights Campaign. Here is that story’s description of the legislation’s impact:

The Equality Act would amend existing civil rights laws, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act, to explicitly ban LGBTQ discrimination in the workforce, housing, education, credit, jury service and other areas of American life.

If passed, the legislation would provide the most comprehensive LGBTQ civil rights protections in U.S. history, advocates say, significantly altering the legal landscape in a country where more than half of states lack explicit legal protections on the basis of sexuality or gender identity. …


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Keep the Bible in one hand, a newspaper in the other: Tips for stressed-out preachers

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Keep the Bible in one hand, a newspaper in the other: Tips for stressed-out preachers

“You preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”

That’s what Bishop Timothy Clarke, an Ohio senior pastor, said in a recent front-page feature by Danae King, the Columbus Dispatch’s religion writer.

It’s an idea that originated with the late Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. Barth put it this way: “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”

Barth’s concept was a prominent theme of a Facebook Live panel discussion organized this week by the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry at Abilene Christian University in Texas.

“We used to think the hard part was interpreting the Bible, but now we've decided the hard part is interpreting the newspaper,” quipped Randy Harris, one of the co-hosts, along with Carson Reed, of the discussion on “Light, Truth and Fake News.”

The panel — on which I was honored to speak — aimed to help stressed-out ministers make sense of the news in a time of polarization and conspiracy theories.

“Read broadly. Value truth,” urged Cheryl Mann Bacon, a Christian Chronicle correspondent and retired journalism chair at Abilene Christian. “Be compassionate when you share it, but be courageous when you share it.”

Co-host Harris is a longtime preacher and spiritual director who works with the Siburt Institute.

He advised: “Pay attention to local news. We can get caught up with what's happening in Washington, but there's stuff that's happening in your town that needs a response. The second thing is, to ministers: You've made a commitment to read the news through a certain lens, and that's the lens of a crucified and risen Messiah.”


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Farewell to 'reindeer rules'? Indiana nativity scene case could have been turning point

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Farewell to 'reindeer rules'? Indiana nativity scene case could have been turning point

Year after year, the Lion's Club sets up wire-frame Christmas decorations on the lawn of the historic Jackson County courthouse, facing Main Street in Brownstown, Ind.

The display, which belongs to the local ministerial alliance, glows from dusk to dawn from Thanksgiving until New Year's Day, with the county providing the electricity.

This led to yet another "Christmas Wars" dispute, with the recent Woodring v. Jackson County court decision offering a precise description of this tableau.

There is a "waving Santa Claus with his sleigh, a reindeer, seven large candy-striped poles, the nativity scene … and four carolers standing in front of a lamp post," noted Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Joan St. Eve. "Santa Claus and the reindeer are on the left. …To their right are three gift-bearing kings (Magi) and a camel, who look upon the nativity. On the right side of the sidewalk, Mary, Joseph, and infant Jesus in the stable are flanked on each side by trumpet-playing angels. To their right are several animals facing the nativity. The carolers stand in front of the animals, closer to Main Street."

Before the 2018 lawsuit, the Freedom From Religion Foundation warned that the nativity scene needed to come down. County officials responded by moving Santa and other secular symbols closer to the telltale manger.

That move was clearly linked to what activists call the "reindeer rules," in which secular and sacred symbols are mixed to honor guidelines from the Supreme Court's Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971. The "Lemon test" asks if a government action's primary effect advanced religion, as opposed to a secular purpose, thus entangling church and state.

But the majority in the new 2-1 decision in Indiana argued that the "nativity scene is constitutional because it fits within a long national tradition of using the nativity scene in broader holiday displays to celebrate the origins of Christmas."

This post-Christmas decision in the heartland may have been a turning point.

"To the degree that the reindeer rules were based on Lemon, this decision said that we now have a new Supreme Court precedent. The reindeer rules appear to be gone," said Diana Verm, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed a brief in the case.


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Ask any church-state lawyer and you'll hear that this is a hard question: What is religion?

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Ask any church-state lawyer and you'll hear that this is a hard question: What is religion?

THE QUESTION:

What is religion?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Oddly, “Religion Q&A” entered its ninth year online before getting around to this question.

It’s not an easy one.

During the tax season, we may not feel particularly fond toward the IRS but can pity the staffers who spent years on a long-running dispute that ended in 1993 when the godless Scientology system was finally defined as a “religion” and thus eligible for the tax exemption benefit.

Then there are the federal and state disputes — beloved of journalists and too numerous to summarize here — over tax exemption for the “Universal Life Church,” and whether marriages performed by its clergy are legit. The ULC provides instant internet ordinations, sometimes for the likes of comedian Conan O’Brien, with no questions asked and no requirements of training, creed, or church. The ordination itself is free but the group sells such paraphernalia as a “Doctor of Divinity” certificate, a bargain at $20, and a $59.99 kit for performing weddings.

Let’s back up for the basics. Whatever the IRS might think, here are definitions of “religion” from the authoritative Merriam-Webster folks :

* “The service and worship of God or the supernatural.”

* “Commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance” (which is certainly a circular definition. Religion is religious.).

* “A personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” (Again, religion is religious.)

* “A cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.” (This means devoutly embraced atheism or Communism can be deemed a de facto religion although, as “Religion Q & A” has learned over the years, this terminology can provoke atheists’ fury.)

Another definition, labeled “archaic,” is “scrupulous conformity” to something.


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Which issue drew more ink? SBC on Trump-era rifts, race, #ChurchToo abuse, gay marriage

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Which issue drew more ink? SBC on Trump-era rifts, race, #ChurchToo abuse, gay marriage

Here’s a question for GetReligion readers, including journalists: Are you surprised that the Southern Baptist Convention still believes sex outside of marriage is sin and, yes, that marriage is defined — by two millennia of Christian teaching — as the union of man and woman?

All of you who are surprised, please raise your hands.

There shouldn’t be many hands in the air on that one.

Now, would you say that SBC action on that question is, well, sexier than the decision by the national convention’s executive committee to oust two congregations for violating guidelines on sexual abuse, following in the wake of many #ChurchTwo revelations (especially in major Texas newspapers)?

Meanwhile, SBC President J.D. Greear offered up a blistering speech to the executive committee in which he addressed what he called demonic attacks on SBC unity, attacks centering on two hot-button topics — racism and (to be blunt) Donald Trump-era politics.

Of these four issues, want to guess which drew mainstream-press headlines? That’s the question that host Todd Wilken and I discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here to tune that in or head over to iTunes to subscribe.

According to the Associated Press, the biggest news was that totally predictable decision linked to marriage and sex. Meanwhile, I am happy to report that The New York Times produced a story that, while the headline was predictable (“Southern Baptists Expel 2 Churches Over Sex Abuse and 2 for L.G.B.T.Q. Inclusion”), was updated to become a solid look at the tensions surrounding Greear and some of these issues. We will come back to both of those stories.

But first, I think GetReligion readers need to read a large chunk of the (edited) text from the Greear broadside. (Click here for Baptist Press coverage and, most of all, here for a file that includes the full video.)

The key: Greear sets out to affirm the 1980s SBC move to the right on issues of biblical authority, while repudiating what he calls the “leaven of the Pharisees” emerging on the SBC’s right flank. The following is long, I know, but essential to understanding what is happening right now in America’s largest Protestant flock:


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'Follow the science': Is there room for Catholic voices in COVID-19 news coverage?

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'Follow the science': Is there room for Catholic voices in COVID-19 news coverage?

The phrase “follow the science” may very well be one of the most annoying to emerge from this pandemic. It’s proudly used by politicians, often to talk down to the rest of us when they are trying to chide political conservatives or religious people (not always the same thing) on an array of issues.

Was New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo “following the science” when his executive order last year forced elderly patients with COVID-19 be returned to nursing homes rather than kept in hospitals? He eventually reversed the order — but his administration remains in hot water after admitting they covered up the number of nursing home deaths. At least he didn’t fly to Cancun in the middle of all of it.

While he received wave after wave of positive press coverage, Cuomo’s actions last year were anti-science, since understanding how the virus was spreading at the time was critical to stopping it nationwide. The U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI are now investigating the matter.

“Follow the science” is a phrase that has been used by politicians and mimicked by the mainstream press. A Google News search of the phrase yields 203,000 mentions. In mainstream news outlets, particularly last year when Donald Trump was president, the phrase became an attack on the administration’s handling of the virus. Post-Trump, the phrase continues to be one that journalists, especially in newsrooms like The New York Times are eager to quote.

This piece — “Studies Examine Variant Surging in California, and the News Isn’t Good” — began like this:

A variant first discovered in California in December is more contagious than earlier forms of the coronavirus, two new studies have shown, fueling concerns that emerging mutants like this one could hamper the sharp decline in cases over all in the state and perhaps elsewhere. …

“I wish I had better news to give you — that this variant is not significant at all,” said Dr. Charles Chiu, a virologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “But unfortunately, we just follow the science.”

This pandemic may have led to the wide use of this feel-good phrase, allowing government officials (copying what they hear from scientists) to exert enormous powers. However, other politically polarizing issues — such as abortion, transgender rights and climate change — have also led to its overuse. For many journalists, it means something like this: We have the truth on our side, while the rest of you believe in conspiracy theories. It’s a way to stifle debate, while offering lopsided news coverage.

What does it mean for journalism and particularly the impact of Catholic voices in news stories?


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