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About Southern Baptist wars and the Merritt family: Here's some inside baseball worth covering

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About Southern Baptist wars and the Merritt family: Here's some inside baseball worth covering

I rarely write about Southern Baptist affairs unless one of their annual conventions is at hand, but I can’t resist commenting on a fascinating sideshow happening between the highly symbolic Merritt family and their fellow conservatives.

Jonathan Merritt is the openly gay (and I assume celibate, based on previous comments) son of the Rev. James Merritt, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s been a tough ride for the past 10 years as the younger Merritt has tried to reconcile his sexuality with his faith, while working as a news- columnist. His father has been under immense pressure as well.

The latest fracas, with a hat tip to JulieRoys.com, has to do with the elder Merritt walking away from his position as a visiting professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. The whole affair has gone unnoticed by many newsrooms, even though this is a topic that is newsworthy for a variety of reasons. Here is what Roys wrote:

Former Southern Baptist Convention President James Merritt resigned last week as a visiting professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary over controversy sparked by Merritt’s decision to share a sermon online by his son who’s gay. …

The decision came after Merritt, who’s also pastor of Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Georgia, tweeted a link to a sermon by his son, Jonathan Merritt. The younger Merritt is a graduate of Southeastern Baptist and an author, journalist, and popular speaker. In August, Jonathan Merritt announced on Instagram that he’s gay.

“I don’t agree with my loved son @JonathanMerritt on everything to be sure,” James Merritt tweeted November 22. “But I encourage you to listen to his message on Mark 13. It is both brilliant and faithful to the gospel and the coming of Jesus!”

After that, things got really interesting. Here is the chronology:

Nov. 22 — James Merritt publishes his tweet.

Nov. 23 — The Conservative Baptist Network, a group of some 6,000 members based in Memphis, issues a statement with the headline: “Promoting homosexual preachers is not loving, biblical or Baptist.” The elder Merritt responds that same day.


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Attention please: Two housekeeping items (both important) as GetReligion enters 2022

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Attention please: Two housekeeping items (both important) as GetReligion enters 2022

Believe it or not, GetReligion has been around since 2004.

Doug LeBlanc clicked a mouse and launched the earliest version of this weblog on February 1, to be precise. When you’ve been working that long in the craziness that is the World Wide Web, you end up with some inevitable housekeeping issues.

Please hang in there with me for a minute or two for updates on two pieces of in-house business.

First, we have had to change — once again — the format of our daily mini-newsletter for those who would rather read GetReligion via email. The current list will vanish in a day or so.

A bit of history: Long, long ago, we had more than 600 people signed up for this kind of service. Then we switched platforms (it’s a long story) and lots of email readers got lost in the process. It’s always a hassle when something changes what does, and what doesn’t, show up in your daily wave of emails.

Now, we are having to relaunch our Mailchimp list. This is yet another side effect of the 2014 death of our co-worker Arne Fjeldstad of the Media Project, who launched the current version and, thus, was the “owner” of that list. Yes, many people (around the world) still miss Arne.

Now this feature needs to be updated. However, signing up for this updated Mailchimp list isn’t rocket science. Just click here and fill in the blanks. That’s all there is to it.

Item No. 2 is linked to the end of 2021 — think taxes and end-of-the-year donations to nonprofit groups.

For many of you, GetReligion is in that list. To cut to the chase, we still need your help.


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Just how big is the Mississippi abortion case at U.S. Supreme Court? Well, THIS BIG

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Just how big is the Mississippi abortion case at U.S. Supreme Court? Well, THIS BIG

“The most important abortion case in decades” is how the New York Times’ Adam Liptak describes it.

“The most significant abortion case in a generation,” agree the Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin and Brent Kendall.

“The biggest challenge to abortion rights in decades,” echo The Associated Press’ Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko.

It’s not hyperbole: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide, faces its biggest test yet. The Washington Post’s Robert Barnes explains:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday signaled it is on the verge of a major curtailment of abortion rights in the United States, and appeared likely to uphold a Mississippi law that violates one of the essential holdings of Roe v. Wade established nearly 50 years ago.

Whether the court would eventually overrule Roe and its finding that women have a fundamental right to end their pregnancies was unclear.

But none of the six conservatives who make up the court’s majority expressed support for maintaining its rule that states may not prohibit abortion before the point of fetal viability, which is generally estimated to be between 22 and 24 weeks of pregnancy.

At Christianity Today, Kate Shellnutt reports that “pro-life evangelicals who had rallied for the cause for decades were encouraged that the conservative-leaning court appeared willing to uphold a contentious Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks.”

Other helpful religion coverage:

• How faith groups feel about this major abortion case (by Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News)

• Before there was Roe: Religious debate before high court’s historic ruling on abortion (by Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service)

• Religion abortion rights supporters fight for access (by Holly Meyer, The Associated Press)


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Progress for American Jews? Tis the season for lots and lots of Hanukkah junk

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Progress for American Jews? Tis the season for lots and lots of Hanukkah junk

It's hard to do justice to ancient holy days in throw-pillow slogans.

Consider the Zazzle item offering a menorah with an un-orthodox number of candles, along with: "Imagine if your cellphone was at 10% but lasted 8 days. Now you understand Hanukkah."

Maybe not. Or how about the Bed, Bath & Beyond pillow stating: "Why is this night different from all other nights? Happy Hanukkah."

Actually, that's the most famous question from rites during a Passover Seder dinner.

"There's no quality control with any of this stuff. No one's being careful with decisions about what's good and what's bad," said journalist Mira Fox of the Forward, a progressive Jewish website. "The point is to sell stuff. It doesn't need to be good stuff. It's just stuff.

"Basically, it's a lot of people saying, 'We can find a way to sell stuff to Jews during the holidays, along with selling lots of stuff to everybody else.' "

Hanukkah began rather early this year, starting at sundown this past Sunday (November 28) and extending for eight days. This placed the "Festival of Lights" closer to Thanksgiving -- near the start of the merchandizing frenzy known as The Holidays.

The story at the heart of this home-centered season dates to 165 B.C., when Jews, led by the Maccabee family, defeated Greek and Syrian oppressors. When the victors reentered their temple, only one container of ritually pure oil could be found for its eternal flame. Tradition says this one-day supply burned for eight days. Thus, Jews light menorah candles during Hanukkah, one on the first night, increasing to eight.

"It's not a biblical holiday. Hanukkah is not in the Hebrew Bible. … God is not a huge part of this story," said Fox. "Honestly, I don't think a lot of people understand what this holiday is about."

That's certainly true in the American marketplace.


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Emerging split inside old mainline: Is U.S. Christianity becoming two different religions?

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Emerging split inside old mainline: Is U.S. Christianity becoming two different religions?

THE QUESTION:

Is Christianity in the United States becoming two different religions?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

If the question above seems off the wall, at least look why it has arisen.

Two years ago, The Guy wrote that he was quite astonished by some survey research reported in "The Twentysomething Soul" (Oxford University Press) by Tim Clydesdale of the College of New Jersey and Kathleen Garces-Foley of Marymount University.

Young Americans age 30 and under, quizzed about religion, were asked how they think of God.

One option was "a personal being, involved in the lives of people today." It doesn't get any simpler or more basic than that, whether you're Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Other choices were some impersonal "cosmic life force," or a deistic creator who is "not involved in the world now," or that God does not exist.

Not surprisingly, the evangelical Protestants were virtually unanimous in embracing the first definition. But remarkably, only half of those in the predominantly white, theologically pluralistic "mainline" Protestant church bodies made that choice, while 40 percent favored the vague "life force." Young adult Catholics fell in between the two Protestant groups. (In this random sample, 30 percent were evangelicals, 18 percent Catholic, 14 percent "mainline" Protestant, and 29 percent with no religious affiliation.)

The Guy therefore posed the question whether Protestants' long-running two-party rivalry "could be evolving toward a future with two starkly different belief systems."

Now a more radical version of that scenario is explored at book length in "One Faith No Longer" (New York University Press) by Baylor University sociologist George Yancey and Ashlee Quosigk, a visiting scholar of religion at the University of Georgia. More info here.


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New podcast: Are news reports 'dunking' on the late religious broadcaster Marcus Lamb?

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New podcast: Are news reports 'dunking' on the late religious broadcaster Marcus Lamb?

If you search for the word “posterized” in up-to-date online dictionaries, this is what you find: “A slang term depicting a play in basketball. In said play, a player dunks the ball over top or in front of another player, making a play so picturesque that it may appear on a poster, hence the term, posterized.”

Clearly, this is linked to another term frequently used in the nasty verbal wars that are common on social-media sites, with Twitter — dominated by liberal and conservative voices in elite zip codes — being the best example.

That term is “dunking.”

“Dunking” is relevant to the main topic discussed in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) about media coverage of the death of religious broadcaster Marcus Lamb, who died of COVID-19 after using his Daystar Television Network to criticize vaccine mandates and other anti-pandemic rules and guidelines, while advocating alternative treatments.

“Dunking” is defined, sort of, in this Slate article: “ ‘Dunking’ Is Delicious Sport — But it might be making Twitter even more terrible.” Here is a relevant passage:

Since Twitter rolled out the feature a couple of years ago, the quote-tweet has evolved into something like a pair of magic high-tops dispensed to every user on the service: Anyone can botch a tweet, and anyone can leap over him or her to score a couple of points—or a couple thousand likes and retweets.

The basketball term is apt: In a Twitter dunking, someone has made his point or said her piece, and instead of responding to it with a direct reply, perhaps in the spirit of equal-footed debate, the dunker seizes it like an alley-oop on his or her way to the basket. Maybe another player gets the unwitting assist, but the point is yours to be liked and retweeted not just as a reply but as a worthier tweet in its own right.

What does this look like in practice? Consider this example from the blitz of tweets about Lamb’s death. This dunk comes from the creator of the “America’s Best Christian” brand:


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Finally, another Overby Center program: Why religion was one big factor in vaccine wars

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Finally, another Overby Center program: Why religion was one big factor in vaccine wars

I have strong memories, to say the least, of the first Overby Center program in which I was able to participate, as a senior fellow for the center and as editor of GetReligion.

The topic was the role that religion would play in the 2020 presidential election. Religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling was there and both of us stressed that, while journalists were pouring oceans of ink into coverage of (#TriggerWarning) white evangelicals, Catholic voters would play the pivotal role in swing states. I also noted the little-covered 2016 impact of Latino evangelicals and, especially, Pentecostal believers in Florida. I didn’t think to predict a starring 2020 role these Latino voters in Texas.

When was that program? Here’s a clue. As I drove home, I stopped for lunch in Jackson, Tenn. As I pulled back onto the interstate headed east, I heard a radio report noting that the mysterious virus that was causing havoc in Wuhan, China, had now been detected in Europe and, perhaps, in New York City.

Days later, the whole world turned upside down.

With social-distancing, masks and vaccines in mind, we recently gathered in Oxford for a forum addressing a logical topic — why religion was a key factor (but not the only one or even the dominant one) in America’s wars over COVID-19 vaccines. Click here to watch the event on YouTube.

In addition to Center founder Charles Overby, I was joined by three logical voices on this subject.

First, political scientist (and GetReligion contributor) Ryan Burge Zoomed in with several crucial charts full of relevant info. Take this post, for example: “Thinking about white evangelicals, COVID-19 vaccines and VERY popular headlines.” Then there was Marquita Smith of the University of Mississippi faculty, a journalist I came to know while she was teaching at John Brown University on the edge of the Ozarks. She is now the assistant dean of graduate programs at the Ole Miss J-school.

The final panelist was the Rev. Daniel Darling, who was recently named director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Then again, Darling may be better known in religion-beat circles because of this New York Times headline: “Fired After Endorsing Vaccines, Evangelical Insider Takes a Leadership Role.”


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Modernized New Revised Standard Bible is surefire news, landing amid today's language wars

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Modernized New Revised Standard Bible is surefire news, landing amid today's language wars

As religion writers (and historians) know, the 1611 King James Version of the Bible begat the 1952 Revised Standard Version, which begat the 1989 New Revised Standard Version which now begets the new "Updated Edition" of the NRSV.

It’s the "NRSVue" — a surefire news topic. This Bible will be available in ebook format by Christmas and in print around next May 1.

Media might issue advance articles about this production or wait for reactions to the complete text from reviewers or local clergy and parishioners. A 36-page media memo provides an advance look, accessible here. For further queries contact Friendship Press at info@friendshippress.org or CEO Joseph Crockett at joseph@frienshippress.org.

The NRSV copyright is held by the National Council of Churches, a cooperative body of the “Mainline” Protestant and Orthodox denominations. It assigned this rewrite to the Society of Biblical Literature, a professional guild of university and seminary scholars, whose 63-member team made approximately 12,000 "substantive" changes and thousands more that are trivial. The team consulted African-American church leaders, a group said to be "historically excluded" from prior Bible translation projects.

The result "improves" upon the original NRSV policy "to eliminate masculine-oriented language when it can be done without altering passages that reflect the historical situation of ancient patriarchal culture." The church council says both of its versions seek to be "as free as possible from the gender bias inherent in the English language."

A typical example is saying "brothers and sisters" when the original Greek literally said only "brothers" but was referring generally to people of both genders. The update omits footnotes that specify what the Greek said. Plural pronouns will abound, which depending on the translation can occasionally make the antecedent unclear or miss the direct force of a singular pronoun. In the rewrite, the Bethlehem "wise men" are now "magi."

Both the 1989 and 2021 renditions leave language about God undisturbed. "He" is still permitted and He remains the "Lord" and "Father."


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As Mississippi abortion case arrives, key religion stories vote views of Jews, evangelicals

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As Mississippi abortion case arrives, key religion stories vote views of Jews, evangelicals

Let’s start with the basics, for those who have not been following weeks of heated commentary in the mainstream press.

On today’s docket at the U.S. Supreme Court is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case out of Mississippi some say is designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case that legalized abortion.

It involves a 2018 Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, with few exceptions. If decided favorably, states with more restrictive laws (i.e. Texas) would be able to enforce them. Abortion would not be outlawed, but it would be greatly limited — which is why it’s annoying to hear broadcasts, such as the Fox TV item featured at the top of this post, saying the case could “end Roe v. Wade.”

Well, not quite. Because of its new “heartbeat” law, abortions in Texas are down 50% from what they were this time last year, to give you an idea of what may lie ahead.

As for me, I’d like to think that SCOTUS would actually make a decisive ruling on something that has divided the American public for 48 years and resulted in 60 million abortions. These justices have dithered a lot in similar cases and I’m guessing they will bail on this case as well — as they did with Masterpiece Cakeshop case in 2017 in refusing to rule on the merits of the case. I do realize the makeup of the high court has shifted since then. I’m guessing they’ll refuse to give Dobbs a definitive ruling and base their decision on some technicality.

So yes, I’m a pessimist. Key members of this court appear to shun clarity. But at least abortion is on the table again in terms of public discussion, with religion as one of its many permutations, which makes covering this case important for religion reporters.

On the left, this Slate piece argues that abortion rights are in dire peril:

On the eve of Dobbs — before a tsunami of protesters descend upon the court, before nerve-racking oral arguments before a partly empty courtroom, before months of tense deliberations behind the velvet curtains — the smart money counts five votes to gut Roe. …


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