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Coach Joe Kennedy goes to the Supreme Court and the media coverage gets a B+

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Coach Joe Kennedy goes to the Supreme Court and the media coverage gets a B+

God and football. Angry school officials and Satanists. That’s a combo that gets a lot of readers.

In the fall of 2015, soon after I moved to Seattle, a conflict arose across Puget Sound about a football coach who prayed on the 50-yard line after games and a school district that forbade him to do so. Here’s what I wrote back then about the coverage.

On Monday, Coach Joe Kennedy’s case went before the U.S. Supreme Court, the first time in decades that a school-prayer case has been heard by the justices. This time I was covering it for Newsweek, starting at 7 a.m. my time, which is when the debate went live on the East Coast.

Usually, the justices race through their hearings in only one hour. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District took nearly two. (You can listen to these debates on a live audio feed.)

You heard justices ask about Young Life clubs. They pondered the significance of whether a teacher who goes to an Ash Wednesday service and arrives at school with a smudge on her forehead is doing anything illegal. Would a coach have been disciplined by the school district if he planted a Ukrainian flag on the 50-yard line instead of praying?

In short, it was fascinating, and I thought most of the stories on the hearing were quite good with a few bad apples. Many of the headlines said the majority-conservative court “appeared sympathetic” to the coach, which I disagree with. The justices appeared more confused by the conflicting narratives. As Justice Stephen Breyer plaintively noted at one point: "One of my problems in this case, is that the parties seem to have different views of the facts."

The Supreme Court had turned down the case a few years ago because the facts weren’t clear and apparently, they still weren’t as of Monday. For instance, the defense said that students felt coerced into joining the coach in his prayers, and they included an amicus brief from one unnamed former player who said he felt coerced. Yet, when the Seattle Times pigeonholed three local football players about the issue back in 2015, none of them said they felt forced to go along.


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In terms of church history, should the United Methodist break-up be called a 'schism'?

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In terms of church history, should the United Methodist break-up be called a 'schism'?

When I moved to Denver in 1984, Rocky Mountain News (RIP) my work plunged me into the ongoing United Methodist Church battles over creed-level doctrines, the Bible and, of course, homosexuality.

The region’s defining institution was the Iliff School of Theology, a UMC authorized seminary that a former professor there once told me was “the single most liberal school in America that still bothers to call itself ‘Christian.’ “ In the late ‘80s, an Iliff student said he had encountered one professor who believed that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened, as an event in real time. I would doubt this seminary has become more small-o “orthodox” in the past third of a century.

If you were in Denver back then it was clear that the United Methodists were in the midst of a very slow train wreck and that a parting of the ways was inevitable. The question: Who would leave and who would control the assets of this large, but shrinking, denomination?

This brings us to a recent story in The Nashville Tennessean with this dramatic double-decker headline (behind a fierce paywall):

Methodists focus on Easter amid denominational schism and the tough decisions ahead

A new, more conservative Methodist denomination is set to launch May 1 after a years-long debate centered largely over LGBTQ rights.

People have been using the word “schism” for decades, when describing this conflict. I would like to argue that this technical term is problematic, in this case, and that recent events — especially the proposed “Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation” protocol — have made it even more so. I propose using the word “divorce,” in this case. Hold that thought.

There is much to praise in this Tennessean story, especially the many quotes from regional church leaders on both sides of this battle. However, the “schism” lens is easy to see. I think that with two or three extra sentences, readers would have a better idea what is going on in this conflict. It’s also important to know that the Southeast is a crucial region in this conflict (along with the core Midwest), in which there are many doctrinally conservative churches paired with bishops who are more progressive.

But let’s start with the term “schism.” Here is a helpful Britannica reference:

schism, in Christianity, a break in the unity of the church.


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Plug-In: Déjà Vu all over again, as religion plays big role in fight over Disney and sex ed

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Plug-In: Déjà Vu all over again, as religion plays big role in fight over Disney and sex ed

I’ve never visited Walt Disney World, but I did make it to Disney church one Sunday.

Mickey, Minnie and friends are, as you might have noticed, key actors in the nation’s latest culture war skirmish.

Over the last week, the fight over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill — or, as critics call it, the “Don’t Say Gay” law — has made front-page headlines in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.

Call it Disney déjà vu.

The Los Angeles Times’ Ryan Faughnder asserts:

It’s a battle that, to people who have followed Disney’s history, has a familiar ring. The current conflict is just the latest clash to reveal underlying tensions that have existed between Disney and religious conservatives for decades as the company has increasingly embraced the LGBTQ community.

It has strong echoes of the anti-Disney protests of the late 1990s, when religious leaders criticized the extension of health benefits to the partners of LGBTQ Disney employees, the coming out of Ellen DeGeneres on her sitcom on Disney-owned ABC and unofficial “Gay Day” celebrations at the theme parks.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, host of “The 700 Club,” warned the city of Orlando that it risked hurricanes by tolerating Gay Days. The Southern Baptist Convention in 1997 called for a Disney boycott after the nondenominational American Family Assn. campaigned against the Burbank entertainment giant by sending thousands of protest packets to pastors. The difference now is that, instead of brochures, there’s Fox News and Twitter.

A major development in the current brawl came Thursday, as the Wall Street Journal’s Arian Campo-Flores and Robbie Whelan report:

Florida lawmakers gave final approval to a bill that would end a special tax district that allows Walt Disney Co. DIS 0.07% ▲ to govern the land housing its theme parks, escalating a weekslong dispute with Disney over its public opposition to a Florida bill that limits classroom instruction on gender and sexuality.

The measure now goes to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made clear he would sign it.

In a twist, Southern Baptists have been “offering discounted Disneyland tickets for families traveling to Anaheim this June for the denomination's big annual meeting,” as the Tennessean’s Liam Adams reported earlier this month.


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Father Joseph Ratzinger's sobering 1969 vision of the future and the new German reality

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Father Joseph Ratzinger's sobering 1969 vision of the future and the new German reality

The 1960s were turbulent times and, in Europe, Catholics faced storms of radical change that left many weary or even cynical.

In 1969, one of Germany's rising theologians -- a liberal priest at Vatican II who then became a conservative -- was asked what he saw in the future.

"What St. Augustine said is still true -- man is an abyss; what will rise out of these depths, no one can see in advance," said Father Joseph Ratzinger, on German radio. "Whoever believes that the church is not only determined by the abyss that is man, but reaches down into the greater, infinite abyss that is God, will be the first to hesitate with his predictions."

Ratzinger's words grew in importance in 1977 when he became Archbishop of Munich and quickly became a cardinal. Then Pope John Paul II made him prefect of the Vatican's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where his orthodoxy led liberals to call him "God's Rottweiler." In 2005, he became Pope Benedict XVI.

Catholics continue to ponder his 1969 words: "From the crisis of today the church of tomorrow will emerge -- a church that has lost much. … As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members."

The future pope predicted a "crystallization" process creating a "more spiritual church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the left as with the right. … It will make her poor and cause her to become the church of the meek."

The retired pope celebrated his 95th birthday on April 16th -- Holy Saturday. During an earlier meeting with Jesuits, Pope Francis called his predecessor "a prophet" and cited Benedict's predictions of a "poorer" and "more spiritual" church..


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Podcast: The New York Times misses some key voices as Ukraine prepares for Pascha

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Podcast: The New York Times misses some key voices as Ukraine prepares for Pascha

I have said it before and I will say it again: If I could pick a major event from my life and live it over again — knowing what I know now — it would probably be the trip that I took to Moscow in 1991, arriving the week after the events that ended the Soviet Union.

There were still flowers on the sidewalks (near our hotel) where protesters were killed by Soviet tanks. There were Orthodox icons, as well. I was an evangelical Anglican, at that time, and really didn’t grasp the importance of many of the Orthodox people and places I encountered during that stay. I was there as part of the Moscow Project, an effort to help the emerging Russian Bible Society print 4 million Bibles.

One moment, in particular, was relevant to our discussion during this week’s belated “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on a New York Times report about Ukraine and tensions in global Eastern Orthodoxy heading into this weekend and the holiest day on the Christian calendar — Pascha (Easter in the West).

I was visiting with a veteran Orthodox priest who was active in the Moscow Project. We were talking about the future of Russian Orthodox Church and the realities that would shape the next few decades. This is from an “On Religion” column on the topic. He said:

It’s impossible to understand the modern Russian church … without grasping that it has four different kinds of leaders. A few Soviet-era bishops are not even Christian believers. Some are flawed believers who were lured into compromise by the KGB, but have never publicly confessed this. Some are believers who cooperated with the KGB, but have repented to groups of priests or believers. Finally, some never had to compromise.

“We have all four kinds,” this priest said. “That is our reality. We must live with it until God heals our church.”

I bring this up, of course, because of the firestorm surrounding the words and actions of Patriarch Kirill, the current leader of the Russian Orthodox Church. In KGB documents, it appears that his codename was “Mikhailov” during the years before the 1991 coup.

How would Kirill be classified, using this priest’s typology?


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Thinking about 'bothsidesism' and sad changes in American politics and journalism

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Thinking about 'bothsidesism' and sad changes in American politics and journalism

This is Holy Week for those of us in the ancient churches of the East. Thus, I am spending lots of time at my local parish as we march through many hours of ancient prayers, scriptures and liturgy. Yes, we are hearing more than a few prayers for peace in Ukraine and for the victims of that hellish fratricidal conflict. Will there, at the very least, be a ceasefire for Pascha (Easter)?

At the same time, my “Crossroads” partner — Todd Wilken of Lutheran Public Radio — was on the road to attend a funeral, so we didn’t record the podcast at our usual time. That should go live here at GetReligion tomorrow (mid-day Saturday).

Thus, I would like to point readers to a “think piece” that I have had in the hopper for some time now. It’s an opinion essay by Damon Linker that ran at The Week with this headline: “The noble and needful philosophical tradition of bothsidesism (no, really) — A call for equanimity in a polarized time.”

The term in question — “bothsideism” — is closely linked with another hot-button word that is frequently used as a semi-curse in social media. That would be “whataboutism.” Click here to read Merriam-Webster on that.

My interest in “bothsideism” is rooted in journalism theory, as opposed to pure political science.

During my days leading the Washington Journalism Center, two of the key lectures focused on four models of the press that dominate journalism debates in religious circles. For some people these days, discussions of balance, fairness and even accuracy — think the “American model of the press” — are one jump away from “bothsideism.” Here is a bite of an essay based on those lectures (.pdf here):

The American Model fit well with other American values — promoting a lively public square in which citizens could believe that their views would be treated with respect. It was possible, reading coverage over a period of time, to see which newsrooms were striving to be accurate and fair-minded. This approach meshed with a liberal approach to the First Amendment, as well.

Yes, this is a challenge for journalists as they do their work. I’ll be blunt. I think the most important skill in journalism is the ability to accurately report the views of a person with whom you disagree. Journalists are supposed to strive to show respect to people on both sides of hot- button debates.

This brings us to Linker.


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Could Hispanic-Americans, Protestants especially, shape the '22 and '24 elections?

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Could Hispanic-Americans, Protestants especially, shape the '22 and '24 elections?

Something is afoot when two New York Times columnists, Charles Blow on the left and Ross Douthat on the right, both make the identical observation in Monday's edition.

Blow, who fears a "Biden blood bath" in the November midterms, underscored that Quinnipiac polling shows President Joe Biden's approval rating is even lower among Hispanics than whites, partly because "Hispanics hew conservative on some social issues." Douthat wrote that to win, Democrats need to do better with two groups from the Barack Obama coalition that have drifted rightward since, "culturally conservative Latinos and working class whites."

The 2020 election was a landmark for this community with an estimated 16.6 million voters, a record proportion of the electorate. There are a number of good analyses of the 2020 Hispanic vote online to consider. A Bloomberg piece reminds us "the Latinos of the United States have no single identity, no shared world view."

This article notes that Donald Trump won 53.5% in majority Hispanic precincts in Miami-Dade County on the way to carrying all-important Florida with its 29 electoral votes. Understandable aversion to any hint of "socialism" by those from Cuba, as well as Nicaragua and Venezuela, no doubt helped. In Arizona's populous Maricopa County, Trump improved his showing over 2016 in 61% of Hispanic-majority precincts. Exit polling said Trump improved over 2016 in Nevada by 8%. Other reports cited similar shifts in southern border areas of Texas. In 2004, George W. Bush proved Republicans can obtain a handsome number of Hispanic-Americans.

GetReligion's own tmatt has more than once proposed that the news media have neglected the religion aspect of recent Republican inroads and, in particular the growth of Hispanic Protestant churches. This is a big religion beat story in its own right. Or it could provide a strategic political analysis leading up to November 8 focusing either on politics nationally or on a specific regional audience.

The essential starting point for background is religion data from Pew Research Center's major survey of 5,103 U.S. Hispanic adults, in a report compiled in 2014.


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Some 'Father Stu' coverage misses real-life redemptive message while shooting at actors

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Some 'Father Stu' coverage misses real-life redemptive message while shooting at actors

Easter weekend has become secular enough over the past few decades where many Americans use the holiday weekend to go to the movies.

It’s a trend that started with the summer blockbuster during the Fourth of July holiday and subsequently by Hollywood with premieres on Christmas Day. While COVID-19 put some of that on hold as audiences streamed movies at home, it seems to be making a comeback with the easing of the pandemic.

The gently gay-friendly Fantastic Beasts: The Secret of Dumbledore won the box office this past weekend, while the religiously-inspired film Father Stu finished a respectable fifth. It wasn’t a bad finish for a film that doesn’t feature a Marvel superhero and may find an audience in Western-rite Christians who were otherwise at church and with family this past Sunday.

Of course, this is a film that features a superhero of a different kind.

Father Stu is the true story of Stuart Long, an amateur boxer who eventually moves to Los Angeles in order to pursue an acting career and along that journey he becomes a Catholic priest. That’s the simplest way to put it without giving away too much of the plot for those who are planning to see it in the coming days.

The two-hour film, featuring Mark Wahlberg as the main character, gets a Rotten Tomatoes score of 45% based on 75 reviews by critics, but a 95% from verified users from the general audience. It shouldn’t surprise me that there is a divergence between media-market critics and the audience when it comes to movies that glorify faith. I found the story compelling, despite the vulgar language, but it is worth seeing.

I get that reviewers are entitled to their opinions. After all, that’s the job of a critic. But the coverage around the film, however, has been framed in a certain way, offering up lopsided and negative takes among many mainstream news sites.

This isn’t a traditional news-coverage question, but it’s appropriate to ask: What’s going on here?


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Liberal religion's sharp decline closes Reform Jewish seminary. How about some elite news ink?

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Liberal religion's sharp decline closes Reform Jewish seminary. How about some elite news ink?

Organized American Judaism — not unlike other American faith traditions — is in the midst of a shakeup. The latest evidence of this was the recent announcement that Reform Judaism’s first rabbinic seminary, in Cincinnati, will soon cease ordinations at the end of the 2026 academic year.

Nothing about this strikes me as shocking or even unusual. I view religious bodies as bureaucratic extensions of living traditions in which evolutionary change is both normal and inevitable. They’re shapeshifters and those institutions that do not accommodate changes in worship style are bound to calcify over time.

This is not to deny that change can be wrenching. We tend to become deeply attached to the familiar. As a species, we anchor our livelihoods, identities and emotional equilibrium in what we like to think of as comforting routine. We want to know what’s expected of us so we may reap the rewards we think our efforts should bring.

The devil we know is preferable to the devil we do not know.

So as one might expect, the recent news from Hebrew Union College’s board of governors that its Ohio campus, opened in 1875, will cease ordaining new rabbis did not go down easy for those whose religious and professional lives are most directly impacted by the decision.

But what of ordinary North American Reform Jews (Canada is jurisdictionally connected to Reform’s U.S. institutions)? My sense is that most individual Reform congregants, if they’re even aware of the closing, are far less troubled.

Why? Because declining rabbinic student applications coupled with shrinking congregational memberships have been cited as the twin reasons for the HUC decision. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz explained this as follows:

The plan’s backers said it would help the school reorient itself amid its ongoing financial and enrollment crisis. Over the past 15 years, enrollment at HUC’s three American campuses fell by 37 percent, with the largest drop, 60 percent, coming in Cincinnati.


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