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Updates in the journalism style bible: Appropriate 'cult' advice and other tweaks

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Updates in the journalism style bible: Appropriate 'cult' advice and other tweaks

If you know anything about the nuts and bolts of reporting and editing, then you know that the Associated Press Stylebook is the bible — that’s with a lower-case “b” — of journalism.

It’s also a great place to chart tensions inside the news business. Consider, for example, the decades of debate about “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” as opposed to “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion rights.” Will the next major revision of the AP manual need to include an updated definition for the suddenly controversial word “woman”?

Our GetReligion patriarch, Richard Ostling, recently sent me an interestingly list of some of the religion-beat terms in the latest revisions to this AP bible. He served as a consultant on that revision project and, thus, doesn’t want to make any comments about the results. Here is one of the updates that is sure to lead to newsroom discussions:

cult (new)

A loaded term to be used with caution.

Yes, indeed — proceed with caution. I totally agree that this is a “loaded term” that journalists should avoid whenever possible.

The problem, however, is that this is a term that religious leaders, activists and even scholars are going to use every now and then and it will be hard to avoid the term when it is used in important direct quotations. Thus, editors need to know the various ways that informed people use the word — the key is sociology vs. theology — so that these loaded quotes can be placed in context for readers. Then there are activists of various kinds who throw this term around like a verbal hand grenade.

Readers can tell, with a quick glance at the venerable Merriam-Webster dictionary, that this is a complicated subject. Here are several of the definitions:

cult

noun, often attributive …

Definition of cult

1: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious (see SPURIOUS sense 2) also : its body of adherents


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Plug-In: Nation's religion-beat pros gather -- in person this time -- for annual conference

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Plug-In: Nation's religion-beat pros gather -- in person this time -- for annual conference

BETHESDA, Md. — Let’s make this quick. I need sleep.

Seriously, I wrote this week’s post after an exhilarating — but exhausting — first day of the Religion News Association’s annual meeting.

Journalists who cover religion news — including ReligionUnplugged.com’s own Meagan Clark and Hamil Harris — convened Thursday at a hotel northwest of Washington, D.C.

It’s RNA’s first in-person conference in 2½ years.

Session topics range from expanding global religion coverage to when to label a religious group a cult. Follow the Twitter hashtag #RNA2022 to keep up with all the Godbeat discussions.

But be warned: The news doesn’t stop for any conference.

As attendees picked up their name tags Thursday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court “ruled 8-1 in favor of a death row inmate seeking to hear vocal prayers and feel his pastor’s touch as he dies,” as the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas reports.

“OF COURSE the Supreme Court is making me handle breaking news during my conference trip,” Dallas tweeted.

For more background on the case, see past coverage here and here.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Jackson invokes her Christian faith, stays mum on specifics: “Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has put her religious faith front, center — and vague.” I love that lede by The Associated Press’ Peter Smith.


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If the big goal is racial reconciliation, pastors may want to start by breaking bread

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If the big goal is racial reconciliation, pastors may want to start by breaking bread

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., faced a barrage of questions about race and politics during his landmark 1960 appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press," but one of the most memorable exchanges concerned a blunt question about church life.

"How many white people are members of your church in Atlanta?", asked a reporter from Nashville.

"I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that 11 o'clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour, in Christian America," King replied. Any church that has "a segregated body is standing against the spirit and the teachings of Jesus Christ, and it fails to be a true witness," he added.

Millions of Americans are still wrestling with this Sunday morning divide.

But another practical question emerged during a recent Southern Baptist Convention program entitled "Pursuing Unity: A Discussion of Racial Reconciliation Efforts and the SBC." Can Black and White church folks find gaps in their jammed schedules and start breaking bread together?

"It doesn't matter how many panel discussions you watch. It doesn't matter how many books you read, how many conferences you go to. None of that will do better than dinner table ministry," said the Rev. Jon Kelly of Chicago West Bible Church.

If people want progress, he said, they need to consider their circle of friends and ask "why everyone looks like me, votes like me, thinks like me. … When we talk about racial reconciliation, we want the fruit of reconciliation without the relationships. Until our dinner tables become diversified, … until we eat bread together and fellowship together, we won't make any progress."

Fellowship meals will not make headlines or ignite rhetorical fireworks in social media, and that's a good thing, said the Rev. Ed Litton, who recently said he wouldn't seek a second term as SBC president. He plans to focus on racial-reconciliation projects linked to his own church near Mobile, Ala.

Years ago, he said, Black and White pastors began sharing meals while discussing the "deep wounds" in that racially divided community. The key was focusing on faith and the ties that bind, until basic bonds of trust were in place.

"We hashed out why we were there," said Litton. "We weren't there to bring about some kind of social change.


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This is still a question that scholars debate: Why did early Christianity rise so rapidly?

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This is still a question that scholars debate: Why did early Christianity rise so rapidly?

THE QUESTION:

Why did early Christianity rise so rapidly?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

New religions appear all the time, nowhere more than in the United States, but very few ever achieve prominence and permanence. Christianity is a rare and dramatic case of a faith that triumphed. The tale is told in Rodney Stark's classic "The Rise of Christianity" with this descriptive subtitle in the 1997 paperback edition (still on sale): "How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries."

Sociologist Stark is now retired as co-director of Baylor University's esteemed Institute for Studies of Religion. The book treats its subject as a puzzle to be explained by objective social science scholarship and does not consider whether Christian teachings are true.

Though we lack reliable census data, Stark's best estimate was that only 7,530 Christians existed at the close of the apostolic era in A.D. 100 [which conflicts with Acts 2:41]. He said the total exceeded 1 million by 250 when systemic persecution by the Roman empire was reaching its peak. The Edict of Milan in 313 allowed the faith to exist without harassment, and as of 350 there were 33.9 million Christians. Stark figured that was a 56.5% majority of the population. Inevitably, by 380 this became the empire's official creed.

What happened? Stark's scenario drew upon more than 300 works plus his own original research, and made heavy use of economic market theory. Let's skim some of what he concluded.

Stark thought Christianity's key advantages included the spread of Greek-speaking Jews across the Greco-Roman world who provided a base to build upon, the failures of rival paganism, attractive charitable efforts (especially during ruinous epidemics), innovative respect for women, high birth rates, good organization, close fellowship, demanding and respected moral standards, the inspiring example of martyrs willing to die rather than renounce their faith and positive doctrines that were attractive to new city dwellers coping with chaos and squalor.


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Podcast: What parents (and journalists) can learn from LGBTQ debates at Calvin

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Podcast: What parents (and journalists) can learn from LGBTQ debates at Calvin

Any list of the two or three most influential evangelical Protestant colleges and universities in America has to include Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Hang around at Council of Christian Colleges and Universities gatherings (I was a senior fellow and journalism professor for 20 years) and you’ll hear chatter about the “Calvin mafia” that has long provided intellectual clout shaping trends and programs nationwide. In other words, what happens at Calvin doesn’t stay at Calvin.

You could say that was the Big Idea in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on a Religion News Service story with this headline: “Fallout over LGBTQ spouses at Calvin University captures broader evangelical divide.” The second line: “A same-sex wedding led the university to split with its longtime research center over Christian teaching on sexuality.” Before we look at the overture, let’s jump down to a crucial passage in this story:

Provost Noah Toly did confirm that all faculty and staff, including those at the center, are required to follow the school’s employment policies, which bar sex outside of a marriage between a man and a woman. He also said that hiring managers and supervisors are required to enforce the policy.

“Employment policies” is a rather secular way of stating that Calvin has a doctrinal statement linked to its ties to the Christian Reformed Church. It’s safe to assume that, at some point, faculty and staff sign a copy of that statement or a “lifestyle covenant” that states the doctrines in practical terms. At some schools, faculty and staff reaffirm that doctrinal statement/covenant every year.

When we are talking about defining the boundaries of a voluntary association of this kind — an explicitly Christian liberal-arts university — “doctrines” are more important than “policies.” Keep that quote from the provost in mind as you read the top of this RNS story. This is long, but crucial:

For years, Calvin University, a leading evangelical school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has tried to walk a fine line of being welcoming to LGBTQ students while still enforcing traditional Christian Reformed Church views on sexuality.


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No longer a Ukraine news sidebar: Pope Francis asks if combat can ever be moral

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No longer a Ukraine news sidebar: Pope Francis asks if combat can ever be moral

As Russia's invasion sought to erase Ukraine from the map, Moscow's Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a key ally of dictator Vladimir Putin, met via video last week with Pope Francis.

The Religion Guy had planned to propose a wartime sidebar about the theological justifications for combat that could run any time, but suddenly the theme has gained timely mainbar status.

That's because an official Vatican release reported that Francis stated this at the meeting: "There was a time, even in our churches, when people spoke of a holy war or just war. Today we cannot speak in this manner. A Christian awareness of the importance of peace has developed. Wars are always unjust, since it is the people of God who pay."

Francis' 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti declared similarly that "it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a 'just war'."

Francis deplores the bloodshed in Ukraine, but did not publicly castigate Putin or Russia by name, presumably in case a neutral papacy could help negotiate an end to the conflict. (That argument is used to explain Pope Pius XII's silence during Nazi Germany's Holocaust against European Jewry.)

Journalists can, at this point, ask several logical questions:

* Is Francis declaring dead the church's "just war" teaching, first formulated in the 5th Century by St. Augustine?

* Should 1.36 billion Catholics shift to pacifism, which excludes support for all wars?

* Is Ukraine wrong to take up arms to defend its existence as a sovereign and democratic nation?

Nearly all Christian commentators agree that Russia's aggression is evil and Ukraine's military defense against it is justified.


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No need for balance? Washington Post offers sermon on behalf of Alabama trans activists

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No need for balance? Washington Post offers sermon on behalf of Alabama trans activists

Before we get to the Washington Post story at the heart of this post, please allow me to share a journalism parable from my years at the Rocky Mountain News (RIP), back in the 1980s.

It was obvious that, sooner or later, Operation Rescue protesters would come to the Boulder Abortion Clinic, which was nationally known for its work in third-trimester abortions and other controversial procedures. I urged my editors to commit time and resources to a pair of profiles of important activists on both sides. One was a former abortionist who had joined the pro-life cause. The other was a liberal Christian who was pouring her life into the defense of abortion rights.

These profiles would be the same length and would run side-by-side, with similar art and headlines. There would be no need to include balance and dissent in each of the profiles since they represented competing voices on both sides of an important debate in public life. In the end, we heard praise and criticism from readers on both sides of this event.

Now, let’s look at the Post story that ran under this double-decker headline:

Activists face an avalanche of anti-transgender bills

‘If this bill don’t pass, it’s coming back next year,’ says an ardent advocate in Alabama

That sub-headline is, for all practical purposes, the only time that “conservative” cultural voices are heard in this long, long feature story. Every single sentence in this story is written using the precise terms, images and themes of the activists opposed to these “anti-transgender” bills in Alabama and across America.

In effect, this story — a totally valid profile of an important activist — is one half of a package covering these debates deep in the Bible Belt.

The problem is that there is no second profile. There is no feature of equal length addressing, let’s say, the views of a Black church leader who works with young people who are making efforts to “detransition” after declaring themselves trans.


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As Florida's DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn't news -- unless it's used to attack him

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As Florida's DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn't news -- unless it's used to attack him

The two things that lots of people don’t want to read about these days is the coronavirus pandemic and Donald Trump, part of a larger trend regarding news fatigue in this country. Unfortunately, this post will mention both and only because it is about Ron DeSantis.

The Florida governor has been in the news the past few years because of his connection to the former president and a virus that paralyzed the planet for two years. A hero to the right and bogeyman to the left, DeSantis has received plenty of mainstream news coverage — much of it one-sided — because of his use of so-called culture war issues to push legislation.

DeSantis, who is running for re-election and among the favorites to run for the White House in 2024, has been a lightning rod for Democrats and a focus of criticism from the mainstream press for the last two years. His actions regarding COVID-19 were at odds with how blue states handled the virus, often catapulting him to national attention.

While the coverage has predictably focused on politics, the religion-news hooks in these stories have largely been ignored — unless they were highlighted to be used against him. The bottom line: DeSantis is not the kind of Catholic who draws cheers from journalists who admire progressive Catholics.

Those angles were once again set aside by the press coverage of the recent debate about the state’s sex-education bill.

As political conservatives and liberals battled it out over the merits of this bill, the press ignored DeSantis’ Catholic faith throughout the past few weeks of coverage.

The legislation — which the press insisted on calling the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — was, as the Associated Press recently noted, the following:

Since its inception, the measure has drawn intense opposition from LGBTQ advocates, students, national Democrats, the White House and the entertainment industry, amid increased attention on Florida as Republicans push culture war legislation and DeSantis ascends in the GOP as a potential 2024 presidential candidate.

There’s a lot to unpack in that paragraph, but mostly for what’s not mentioned.


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'God bless those who weep': Brilliant OSU lineman leaves football, after fighting suicidal thoughts

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'God bless those who weep': Brilliant OSU lineman leaves football, after fighting suicidal thoughts

Athletes of all ages say all kinds of wild things on Twitter that make headlines.

It’s the digital age in which we live. Every now and then, these snarky quips and social-media pronouncements are actually newsworthy.

But that painful and haunting letter that Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller posted on Twitter was something else altogether. It was an appeal for public awareness of box-cutter scars and mental health issues that, far too often, can be hidden with muscles, bandages and layers of athletic gear. Here is the top of a Bleacher Report story — “Ohio State OL Harry Miller Retires From Football; Details Mental Health Struggles” — about this 5-star level football prospect:

Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller announced his medical retirement from football. … In a message posted to Twitter, Miller said that he had suicidal thoughts and went to Ohio State head coach Ryan Day to seek help.

"Prior to the season last year, I told Coach Day of my intention to kill myself," Miller wrote. "He immediately had me in touch with Dr. Candice [Williams] and Dr. [Joshua] Norman, and I received the support I needed."

Miller played for Ohio State from 2019-21. He was named an OSU Scholar-Athlete in 2019 and 2020. Miller also started seven games at left guard for the 2020 team, which won the Big Ten and the Sugar Bowl. He played two games in 2021. OSU recruited Miller, a 5-star recruit, out of Buford High School in Georgia.

"A person like me, who supposedly has the entire world in front of them, can be fully prepared to give up the world entire," Miller wrote. "This is not an issue reserved for the far and away. It is in our homes. It is in our conversations. It is in the people we love."

Miller is an unusual young man for several reasons. A long-time GetReligion reader (a professional writer with decades of experience) put it this way in an email to me this weekend:

He is straight A student in engineering and got a 1600 on the SAT. His mom was physically abused by her first husband and abandoned by Miller's father.

Yet, he has lived for others while becoming a five-star recruit. Now, the guts to do this.

So many religion ghosts, so little time.


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