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What does the New York Times mean when it reports on 'religious leaders' in Afghanistan?

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What does the New York Times mean when it reports on 'religious leaders' in Afghanistan?

Anyone who has read GetReligion for more than a month probably knows that I have always been concerned about the lack of press coverage of endangered religious minorities in large parts of the world — including nations such as Afghanistan.

It’s crucial to remember, when talking about religious freedom issues and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that it is tragically common for members of a major world religion to punish other members of their own faith because of strong disagreements about doctrine and tradition. It is common to see persecution of those who have no faith — think atheists and agnostics — as well as those who have converted to a new faith.

As a reminder, here is Article 18 of that landmark United Nations document:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

With all of that in mind, it’s easy to understand why I was interested in this headline atop a New York Times report: “The Taliban holds first meeting of religious leaders since taking Kabul.”

The key, of course, is the meaning of these two words — “religious leaders.”

If you follow news updates, you know that the ancient Jewish community in Afghanistan is long gone — unless merchant Zablon Simintov chose to attend this meeting. Was there a Catholic representative at the meeting? Were leaders of the growing underground church invited? Did they dare to come out of hiding? What about the Muslim leaders of progressive (for lack of a better word) mosques who cooperated with Western leaders during the past 20 years?

Who were these “religious leaders”?


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United Methodist prelude: Small denomination faces its own split over Bible and sex

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United Methodist prelude: Small denomination faces its own split over Bible and sex

The Reformed Church in America, one of those small denominations that usually get little ink despite rich history and accomplishments, is set to celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2028. But what will the RCA consist of by then?

At an October 14-19 General Synod meeting in Tucson, Arizona, this venerable church will decide whether to split up.

Reporters can think of this as a prelude to the formal divorce that the huge United Methodist Church (UMC) is expected to approve next year. In both churches, the central problem is the dispute over proper Bible interpretation, especially on sexual morality.

The goal of this Memo is to sketch out a few basics for journalists who'll cover the RCA showdown, which was postponed from 2020 because of COVID-19. The United Methodists have faced similar legal delays, of course.

Like the UMC, the RCA (www.rca.org) has spent nearly half a century discussing its traditional teachings on marriage and sexuality, which shaped rules on same-sex marriages and ordinations. All sides have reached a consensus that the divide is unbridgeable and the status quo untenable.

In 2018 the RCA commissioned a study team to consider future options that included "grace-filled separation." In July, the team issued its final recommendations with a proposed process for splitting.

The report offers a different and unusual path that avoids formal schism by reorganizing RCA regional units ("classes," singular "classis") on the basis of "affinity" in belief rather than the usual geography, in effect creating two churches within a church. In yet another proposal. those staying within the RCA and those leaving would still cooperate in a new, non-denominational foreign mission agency.

In the schism plan, the RCA would change an existing policy and let any unhappy local congregation leave and keep ownership of its building and other assets. A request to depart would need three-fourths approval by the congregation's governing board and then three-fourths of voting members (two-thirds margins are the more common Protestant practice).

Then there are other hoops to jump through.


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Afghanistan's Catholic 'hidden believers' and the underreported work of the church

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Afghanistan's Catholic 'hidden believers' and the underreported work of the church

The news cycle in recent weeks has been dominated by the pullout in Afghanistan and the fallout that has taken place as a result of such a decision — especially the choice to remove most U.S. troops before evacuating American citizens and Afghans who worked with Western groups.

Much of the coverage has centered around the Taliban’s takeover and the tragic events unfolding at the Kabul airport. Meanwhile, others who are in danger — including Christians and members of other religious minorities — are in hiding.

I covered the 9/11 attacks in New York City that day. I can’t help but recall that morning with the 20th anniversary of those attacks approaching. The desperate actions of those stuck in the World Trade Center that day resulted in people jumping off those burning buildings. The very same thing happened just last week when Afghans looking to flee the Taliban grabbed onto military planes as they took off, only to fall out of the sky.

Those images served as a bookend to the U.S.’s involvement in Afghanistan. Rod Dreher, who covered the 9/11 attacks and was my colleague at the New York Post at the time, recently noted the following regarding the U.S.’s time in Afghanistan and the nation-building fiasco that took place:

We are such an unserious nation. I am a practicing Christian who hates the way Christians are treated in many Islamic countries. But I have enough common sense to know that it does not advance America’s national interest to give host countries the finger by displaying a symbol of Christianity to defy their local norms.

This isn’t a post about the culture wars or what the U.S. did right and wrong in Afghanistan since 2002. I will let others do that. Instead, I want to place a spotlight on the important work of Christian groups across Afghanistan over the years, the little mention they have received by the secular press and how one recent story illustrates both the plight of Afghan refugees and how those who converted to Catholicism who now live outside the country have been crucial in helping people get out.

What has largely been viewed as a military operation until now is quickly turning into a humanitarian mission, one that may yet require some military support. Nonetheless, the major newspapers and cable channels in this country still largely cover the Afghan crisis through a political lens — like they do most subjects — and have largely underreported the work of the church.


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What a minute: What do New York Times editors think Pope Francis believes about Grindr?

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What a minute: What do New York Times editors think Pope Francis believes about Grindr?

Yes, faithful readers, I saw the New York TImes story that ran under this headline: “Catholic Officials on Edge After Reports of Priests Using Grindr.” Why didn’t I write — pronto — about this story?

I guess because it seemed like an echo of an echo of an echo, fitting neatly into the template established by numerous articles in progressive Catholic media. It was an investigation of the methods and motives of a conservative Catholic blog — The Pillar, of course. TheTimes was not (#DUH) all that interested in the phenomenon that concerned The Pilliar, as in evidence that some Catholic priests have been using Grindr, that smartphone ap that a Vanity Fair feature once called “The World’s Biggest, Scariest Gay Bar.”

In a way, this Times story was yet another example of an old truth: Conservatives are wrong — simplistic, at the very least — when they claim that elite mainstream news publications are “anti-religion.”

In this Times piece, it’s clear that there are good Catholics and bad Catholics and that the Gray Lady gets to tell readers who is who. This is not the same as saying that there are Catholics who want to defend church doctrines and those who want key doctrines to evolve and we (the editors) will offer coverage in which readers read accurate, fair-minded discussions about why people on each side believe what they believe.

So yes, for Times editors this is clearly a story about bad Catholic journalists. But it’s clear that the Times is not an anti-Catholic newspaper; it totally approves of the Catholic left. It’s using the same basic doctrinal lens as progressive Catholic newspapers. Click here for a famous Times op-ed explaining the basics on this: “Is the Pope Catholic?”

There are, however, two things I would like to note in this Times feature. First, read the following carefully:

The reports by the blog, The Pillar, have unnerved the leadership of the American Catholic Church and have introduced a potentially powerful new weapon into the culture war between supporters of Pope Francis and his conservative critics: cellphone data, which many users assume to be unavailable to the general public.


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What collapse of the Afghan gov't means for Christians and other religious minorities

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What collapse of the Afghan gov't means for Christians and other religious minorities

On Oct. 19, 2001, as I drove to a prayer breakfast in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, the radio crackled with news of U.S. special forces on the ground in Afghanistan.

This was not a particularly shocking development since air and missile strikes in retaliation for 9/11 had started 12 days earlier.

Then religion editor for The Oklahoman, I quoted the breakfast’s keynote speaker — Steve Largent, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member then serving in Congress — in the story I wrote.

“We have been sent a very important wake-up call," Largent said that Friday morning. "Let's not go back to sleep."

All of us — at that point — felt an urgency about the war in Afghanistan and the effort to destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

Nearly 20 years later, my attention had diverted elsewhere until Afghanistan burst back into the headlines — in a major way — this past week.

It’s impossible to keep up with all the rapid-fire developments, but these stories delve into compelling religion angles:

• Young Afghans speak out about rapidly changing life under the Taliban (by Meagan Clark, ReligionUnplugged)

• Refugee aid groups criticize Biden for stumbles in evacuating ‘desperate’ Afghans (by Emily McFarlan Miller and Jack Jenkins, Religion News Service)

• Taliban begins targeting Christians while cementing control over desperate Afghans (by Mindy Belz, World)

• Afghan-American scholar agonizes over homeland, lashes out at Taliban, U.S. (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)

• Afghanistan’s Christians, small in number, have gone underground, expert says (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)


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Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, aliens and the quest for an alternative creator

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Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, aliens and the quest for an alternative creator

The first episode of the "Ancient Aliens" cable-TV series promised to show that the growth of intelligent life on this planet had help that came from the stars.

The Prometheus Entertainment summary in 2010 asked: "If ancient aliens visited Earth, what was their legacy, and did they leave behind clues" that still exist?

The bigger question, nearly 200 episodes later, is whether aliens provided the building blocks of life itself. That's the kind of subject -- both theological and scientific -- that surfaces whenever there are debates about whether extraterrestrial life exists.

It's one thing for a recent U.S. national intelligence report -- "Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena"-- to discuss incomplete technical data and the possibility of hostile spy drones. It was something else to say that experts had no scientific explanations for 140-plus reported "UAP" episodes.

The summary noted that 18 mysterious objects "appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion."

This raised familiar questions for those who have followed decades, even centuries, of debates about these mysteries: Who created these objects? Who created the beings who created them? Should this planet's religious leaders worry?

"The logic is that many people assume life is special, that human beings are uniquely purposed and created in God's image and that this life -- life made in God's image -- cannot exist anywhere else," said Stephen C. Meyer, who has a doctorate in the philosophy of science from Cambridge University.


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Thinking about the practical impact of shaming messages aimed at vaccine-resistant believers

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Thinking about the practical impact of shaming messages aimed at vaccine-resistant believers

During my decades in religion-beat work, I have heard many an evangelical leader make the following sardonic observation.

Wait, I’ve also heard traditional Catholics offer variations on this theme. And there may be partisan political versions of this, as well. But that’s not my turf.

OK, here is the message: The quickest way for an evangelical to receive glowing elite press coverage and commentary (add social-media praise, after about 2000+) is to attack other evangelicals.

Now, that is not what this think piece is about. I say that, even though some vaccine-resistant religious leaders may have thought that’s what Daniel Darling, senior vice president for Communications at the NRB (think National Religious Broadcasters) was doing in his recent USA Today op-ed entitled, “Why, as a Christian and an American, I got the COVID vaccine.”

But careful readers could see that his message was way more complicated than that. If you weren’t sure about his intent, check out the lengthy interview with Darling that followed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program (click here or see the YouTube at the top of the full copy of this post). The veteran evangelical leader — former head of communications for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — was clearly sending two messages.

Yes, one was to religious leaders who have doubts about the COVID-19 vaccines. But he also had sobering words for their critics, whose attacks have caused anger and conflict, instead of changing minds.

Thus, what we have here is a piece of op-ed work, and the MSNBC appearance that followed, that people on both sides of this warfare need to parse carefully. This includes journalists who are covering this story — which is so not over yet.


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New podcast: When the Taliban cracks down, will all the victims be worthy of news coverage?

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New podcast: When the Taliban cracks down, will all the victims be worthy of news coverage?

There’s no question that the botched U.S. efforts to evacuate at-risk people in Afghanistan is the big story of the hour, the day, the week and for the foreseeable future — especially if this turns into a grand-scale hostage nightmare.

But who is at risk? What kinds of people are trapped inside the new kingdom of the Taliban?

That was the subject that dominated this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). And as you would expect, host Todd Wilken and I were especially interested in the role that religion has been playing in this story — if journalists are willing to cover that angle.

So who is at risk? Here is a typical wording, care of an Associated Press update:

The Kabul airport has been the focus of intense international efforts to get out foreigners, Afghan allies and other Afghans most at risk of reprisal from the Taliban insurgents.

With the Taliban controlling the Afghan capital, including the airport’s outer perimeter, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that U.S. citizens are able to reach the airport, but were often met by large crowds at the airport gates.

But, wait. What about the news reports that U.S. forces cannot help U.S. citizens avoid Taliban checkpoints in order to reach the airport, while British and French military personnel are doing precisely that for their own people? That’s a very hot story right now, with U.S. diplomats and the White House saying that the can work with the Taliban to ensure safety.

So let’s pause and flesh out some of the details in that AP phrase about who is at risk, as in “foreigners, Afghan allies and other Afghans most at risk.” Who is most at risk, right now?

* Obviously, American journalists have every right to focus on risks to American citizens.

* In particular, we can assume that Taliban activists are tracing Americans who have led or worked with NGOs, religious aid groups, churches. Then there are the Western-style think tanks, schools, medical groups, etc.

* Obviously, there are the thousands of Afghans who cooperated with and even worked for the U.S. government, U.S.-backed Afghan military units and the kinds of “foreign” organizations mentioned in the previous item.


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For Albania's 'sworn virgins,' the West's culture war over gender roles is a non-starter

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For Albania's 'sworn virgins,' the West's culture war over gender roles is a non-starter

Few issues are more contentious in today’s culture wars than those involving gender and sexuality, which is why they attract a substantial amount of hot-button media attention. That includes religion-beat coverage, of course.

Those labeled traditionalists generally feel one way on the issue and so-called progressives tend to feel just the opposite way. It’s a divide that cuts across virtually every faith group, leading to schisms and a great deal of congregational and individual pain.

Nor, I should point out, is there across-the-board agreement on these issues in secular circles.

On occasion a story turns up that seems to turn the issue on its head, scrambling our easy use of the traditionalist and progressive labels. The New York Times recently ran one such piece out of Albania. I found it fascinating. The headline: “With More Freedom, Young Women in Albania Shun Tradition of ‘Sworn Virgins’.”

Reading between the lines, one unstated point I take from the story is that today’s growing acceptance, by some, of more fluid gender roles predates the post-modern influences that today’s cable TV news polemists, and others — including politicians — argue are causative.

On the other hand, I’d be remiss to not also note that this Albanian cultural quirk is an isolated and rapidly disappearing practice as the small Balkan nation’s rigid gender roles loosen in the age of globalization. So be careful not to draw too many broad generalizations from it.

In short, gender roles, like everything else in life worth serious attention, are complicated concepts and have been across human history. Here’s the story’s top, which is long, but essential:

LEPUSHE, Albania — As a teenager locked in a patriarchal and tradition-bound mountain village in the far north of Albania, Gjystina Grishaj made a drastic decision: She would live the rest of her life as a man.


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