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Hillbilly Thomists: Dominican brothers singing about the Americana ties that bind

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Hillbilly Thomists: Dominican brothers singing about the Americana ties that bind

With its sobering lyrics and a droning country-blues riff, "Holy Ghost Power" by the Hillbilly Thomists is a song with zero chance for Christian radio success.

The jilted protagonist has been "living off of grits, whiskey and Moon Pies." His man cave offers no refuge: "A hundred channels of nothing on the TV at 10. It's like Diet Coke and original sin. … Now it's a zombie town, there's a lot of undead. They wander around looking underfed."

But the chorus offers hope: "He makes a rich man poor; He makes a weak man strong. No more going wrong just to get along. I felt the force of the truth when they pierced His side. I saw the war eagle dive and I could not hide."

It wouldn't shock old-school country fans if this was a Johnny Cash song. But it was written by a banjo-playing Dominican from Georgia who has an Oxford theology doctorate and now leads the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Writing to the National Reso-Phonic Company, Father Thomas Joseph White said he likes to play this classic blues guitar "in my office looking out at the Roman Forum that's 2,700 years-old."

That makes sense in the Hillbilly Thomists, a "musical collective" of Dominicans, most of whom have Bible-belt roots. The band recently staged a concert in the Grand Ole Opry and, over the past decade, has recorded three albums of music that would sound at home at Appalachian fairs, but not in most church halls.

There's a vital tie linking these songs to the life and work of this band of priests and brothers, said Father Simon Teller (who plays fiddle). Whether singing Appalachian hymns or their own original songs, the Hillbilly Thomists -- dressed in the white habits of their order -- keep returning to images of suffering, sorrow, eternity, hope, grace and redemption.

"We're priests in the Dominican order and that kind of states our vision of the world and the faith and everything we do," he said. "In our day job, we're working a lot with people who are dealing with very concrete situations and have a lot of very concrete questions."

"Holy Ghost Power," for example, is "not sung from the voice of a clergyman. It's sung with the voice of a man who's living a very ordinary life that is going off the rails in a very ordinary way," said Teller. "There's a malaise there and he's unsatisfied by the things of this world."


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Bonus podcast: Clemente Lisi on news about 'good' Catholics, as opposed to 'bad' ones

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Bonus podcast: Clemente Lisi on news about 'good' Catholics, as opposed to 'bad' ones

Here is a question from the news, sort of, that cuts to the heart of this bonus GetReligion podcast by Clemente Lisi, taken from his on-air visit this week with Todd Wilken at Lutheran Public Radio (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

If Gov. Ron DeSantis started carrying a rosary, and talking about it quite a bit in the context of his Catholic faith (think President Joe Biden), would journalists in major newsrooms see this as a good thing or a bad thing? Possible answers: “Yes,” “No” and “You need to ask?”

Go ahead, if you want to, and think about it in the context of these recent posts: “Concerning the right-wing rosary attack — was that Atlantic feature really 'news'?” and “Tip for reporters — Don't assume what Catholics believe based on politics or Internet memes.”

In reality, the spark for this podcast came from Religion Dispatches piece the other day, by exevangelical trans scribe Chrissy Stroop, with this headline: “Media fail to acknowledge that 2024 hopeful Ron DeSantis is as Catholic as Biden.” Hold that thought.

The Religion Dispatches piece included commentary on a March 22 GetReligion post with this headline: “As Florida's DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn't news — unless it's used to attack him.” By the way, editors there failed to note that Lisi is Catholic, as opposed to evangelical, which seems relevant.

Here is the key passage from the Lisi post:

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. … 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.


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Podcast: Journalists should ask if faith-based schools clearly state their doctrines on sexuality

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Podcast: Journalists should ask if faith-based schools clearly state their doctrines on sexuality

I forget who originally came up with the term “Romeaphobia.”

This can be defined as the hatred or fear of all things that can be viewed as links to Roman Catholicism or the early church in general. Obviously, this affects issues linked to worship and church governance. However, in my experience (I grew up in Texas), many evangelicals (especially Baptists) have a fear of clear, authoritative doctrinal statements that, you know, might be interpreted as “Roman” creeds. All together now: We are “Bible Christians” and that’s that.

I am not saying this to take a shot at my heritage (I am very thankful for the deep faith and examples of my family and my father was a Southern Baptist pastor). The reason I mention this up is because, in my opinion, this anti-creedal Romeaphobia is playing a major role in an important news story all over America. This was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Does this USA Today headline sound familiar? It should, for readers from sea to shining sea: “Christian Florida school tells parents gay and transgender students must 'leave immediately'.”

My goal here is to offer advice to reporters who want to do accurate, fair-minded coverage of these church-state skirmishes (let’s hope there are some out there). I’m also offering press-relations advice to terrified leaders of Christian schools at all levels, from kindergartens to colleges. The Romeaphobia angle? That takes us into legal nuts-and-bolts questions about these conflicts.

Let’s start with the rather familiar USA Today overture:

A Florida-based Christian school sent out an email informing parents that LGBTQ-identifying students "will be asked to leave the school immediately."

According to the email obtained by NBC News, the top administrator of Grace Christian School in Valrico, Florida, Barry McKeen, sent the email to the families for the kindergarten-grade 12 school on June 6. He later confirmed and doubled down on the policy in an Aug. 18 video on the school's official Facebook page.

The June email read: "We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender identity/lifestyle, self-identification, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful in the sight of God and the church. Students who are found participating in these lifestyles will be asked to leave the school immediately."

For starters, private schools — liberal and conservative — have First Amendment rights, including the right to clearly state their foundational doctrines and, thus, disciplines that apply to staff, faculty and students. Tip No. 1 for reporters and church leaders: Get to know the details of the UNANIMOUS 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision commonly referred to as the Hosanna Tabor case.

But we need to figure out what actually happened in this Florida case.


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Relevant fact? The great broadcaster Vince Scully had a rosary and he knew how to use it

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Relevant fact? The great broadcaster Vince Scully had a rosary and he knew how to use it

OK, here we go again. Sports and God. God and sports, and that old question: Why do many journalists ignore the faith component in the lives of some sports heroes and celebrities?

If you read GetReligion, you know that Vin Scully — the greatest sports broadcaster ever (click here for a collection of his greatest hits) — was a faithful Catholic and that this was a big part of his life, that is if you paid attention to the actions of the man himself. Bobby Ross, Jr. — one of several baseball fanatics who have written for GetReligion — has written about Scully’s faith several times (click here and then here).

It also helps to click on this YouTube link and then close your eyes as you listen to that famous Scully voice speak these words, probably from memory:

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

I don’t know about you, but I think that the whole “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death” thing might have been relevant when writing a mainstream media obituary for Scully.

Sure enough, readers who dig into the lengthy New York Times obit for the legendary Dodgers broadcaster — Brooklyn before Los Angeles, of course — will learn that Scully went to a Catholic prep school, played for a Catholic baseball team and graduated from a Catholic University. All of that, without a single mention of the word “Catholic.” How did the Gray Lady pull that off? Here’s a hint:

For all the Dodgers’ marquee players since World War II, Mr. Scully was the enduring face of the franchise. He was a national sports treasure as well, broadcasting for CBS and NBC. He called baseball’s Game of the Week, All-Star Games, the playoffs and more than two dozen World Series. In 2009, the American Sportscasters Association voted him No. 1 on its list of the “Top 50 Sportscasters of All Time.”

Mr. Scully began broadcasting at Ebbets Field in 1950, when he was a slender, red-haired 22-year-old graduate of Fordham University and a protégé of Red Barber.

Ah, the word “Fordham” stands in for “Catholic,” in several crucial references. That’s the ticket.


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What if mass media can't get rid of misinformation (or agree on what the term means)?

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What if mass media can't get rid of misinformation (or agree on what the term means)?

Panelists on the final episode of the media-analysis show “Reliable Sources,” axed after three decades by CNN’s incoming management, gave voice to widespread angst about America’s news and information environment.

Rampant misinformation is among the top concerns these days. Social media have blocked COVID discussions regarded as misleading. The Biden Administration launched an Orwellian-sounding Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Homeland Security, but quickly shelved the effort.

By the way, “misinformation” means incorrect knowledge of any sort, whereas “disinformation” is false knowledge that’s spread deliberately.

One commentator recommends that we all chill.

Only sheer “arrogance” could create “confidence that we can accurately and productively root out misinformation,” contends Isaac Saul, who heads up www.ReadTangle.com, an online newsletter that offers non-partisan summaries of the best arguments from various sides of political issues. (Check it out.) He titled a July article “Misinformation Is Here To Stay (And That’s OK).”

The Guy does not necessarily embrace all of Saul but considers his contentions important for media toilers, critics and consumers to ponder. Thus this Memo condenses the essence as follows.

For starters, Saul cleverly notes that many things each of us believes right will prove “utterly wrong” and history proves it. As recently as a century ago, doctors believed in bloodletting cures using leeches or scalpels. U.S. women had just obtained the vote over against the common belief they were too emotional. The Milky Way was the outer limit of the universe.

Only two decades ago, experts were telling us mass opioid prescriptions were safe and that switching from paper to plastic bags would save trees and thus help the environment. More recently, Twitter and Facebook barred accurate New York Post reportage on Hunter Biden’s loaded (in several senses of that word) laptop, and established sources branded as a conspiracy theory COVID’s origin in a China lab leak, now regarded as possible or even likely. Add your own examples.


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Tip for reporters: Don't assume what Catholics believe based on politics or Internet memes

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Tip for reporters: Don't assume what Catholics believe based on politics or Internet memes

There are moments in journalism that stand out more than others. One of those moments is when a certain piece — whether it’s a news story, analysis or opinion — gets a lot of attention by a large group of people for good and/or for bad reasons.

For a set of bad reasons, The Atlantic piece on the weaponization of the rosary was that piece for many Catholics and those who keep a watchful eye on media coverage of matters pertaining to the largest Christian denomination in the United States.

The piece — not necessarily a news story, but it was not labeled as commentary or even analysis — became a viral conversation topic among many family and friends over the last week. While the issue of Christian nationalism is important to understand, the bigger discussion — and questions I had to field — was more like this: What’s wrong with journalism these days?

That’s the central preoccupation of many — especially those of us who have been doing this for decades. (For more on that, please check out tmatt’s post and podcast from this past Friday. This view of what was going on in this piece may shock you.)

There were many lines from the Atlantic piece that stood out, but one that did most was this one:

The theologian and historian Massimo Faggioli has described a network of conservative Catholic bloggers and commentary organizations as a “Catholic cyber-militia” that actively campaigns against LGBTQ acceptance in the Church. These rad-trad rosary-as-weapon memes represent a social-media diffusion of such messaging, and they work to integrate ultraconservative Catholicism with other aspects of online far-right culture. The phenomenon might be tempting to dismiss as mere trolling or merchandising, and ironical provocations based on traditionalist Catholic symbols do exist, but the far right’s constellations of violent, racist, and homophobic online milieus are well documented for providing a pathway to radicalization and real-world terrorist attacks.

There’s the thesis of the piece, the connect-the-dots language linking strange behavior to current tensions in Catholic life in America.

There’s plenty to unpack here, but the reality is that citing a few political websites claiming to represent Catholic thought and then adding a smattering of social media memes is no way to gauge for what anyone really thinks and believes.


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Look at a United Methodist timeline: Why are conservatives going nuclear with lawsuits?

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Look at a United Methodist timeline: Why are conservatives going nuclear with lawsuits?

The slowly evolving trainwreck that is the disunited United Methodist Church is an unbelievably complicated story and I have lots of sympathy for journalists who are being asked to cover it — week after week — in normal-length news reports.

I have some right to say this, since I have been covering this story since 1984 or earlier.

For starters, there is no one United Methodist Church and there hasn’t been one for decades. See this flashback column that I wrote a few years ago: “Old fault lines can be seen in the ‘seven churches’ of divided Methodism,” which was followed by “Doctrinal debates that define the divided United Methodists.”

The bottom line, once again: This war has always been about biblical authority and a host of other doctrinal clashes, with battles about homosexuality grabbing the headlines.

Anyway, I was reading another update from The Nashville Tennessean the other day — “United Methodists grapple with schism as 300-plus churches leave across U.S.” (high paywall) — and something hit me (other than the fact that “schism” still isn’t an accurate word for what is happening here). The key was looking at several key events on a timeline.

First, let’s plug in a key fact from a recent Religion News Service report about the doctrinally conservative UMC congregations who are trying to hit the denominational exit doors in Western North Carolina and Florida. The lawyers trying to sue the UMC establishment are, you see, are working on a deadline

A lawyer for the Western North Carolina Annual Conference, which has more than 1,000 congregations, responded … saying it would not comply since the request does not follow the disaffiliation plan approved by a special session of the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in 2019.

That plan allows churches to leave the denomination through the end of 2023. They can take their properties with them after paying two years of apportionments and pension liabilities.

Tick, tick, tick.

That 2019 General Conference was, of course, the watershed event in which a coalition of growing Global South churches and some conservative Americans infuriated the shrinking UMC establishment by passing the “Traditional Plan,” while also (#TriggerWarning) urging enforcement of “Book of Discipline” doctrinal stands on marriage and sexuality.


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Plug-In: Why my old school district pulled 41 books from libraries -- including the Bible

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Plug-In: Why my old school district pulled 41 books from libraries -- including the Bible

I don’t remember the Keller Independent School District making national headlines when I was a student here in the 1980s. Even back then, this North Texas community — which began with a railroad extension from Fort Worth in the 1850s — was growing.

But in my time at Keller High School, then the district’s only high school, Keller was still more farm town than burgeoning suburb. We had one grocery store along U.S. 377 and no McDonald’s — I drove to nearby North Richland Hills to flip Quarter Pounders my junior and senior years.

An old gray water tower that proclaimed “Keller: Home of the Indians” greeted visitors to our town, referring to the school mascot. I edited the student newspaper The Wigwam, played sousaphone in the marching band and graduated 23rd in a class of about 300 in 1986. The next year, our former drum major, Michelle Royer, won the Miss USA Pageant — the biggest news I recall from those days.

My parents still live in the area, so I visit frequently and have witnessed Keller’s explosive growth, including multiple exits along Interstate 35.

This week, I’ve watched with interest as the Keller school district’s decision to remove 41 books from its libraries, including the Bible and an illustrated version of “Anne Frank’s Diary,” has made headlines everywhere from the Texas Tribune to the New York Times. What in the world is happening?

Basically this: The national culture wars have come to the local school board. And not just in Keller.

A previous Plug-in highlighted stories by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Emily Brindley and The Tennessean’s Liam Adams on school board candidates campaigning on Christianity and conservatism.

Each of the books pulled in Keller — including the Bible — was challenged by a parent, lawmaker or other community member in the last year, USA Today’s Jeanine Santucci reports.

The Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner points out:

“Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” is an illustrated version of the bestselling classic written by a young Jewish girl in the Netherlands as she and her family hid from Nazi occupation forces. The story ended when the Franks were captured and sent to concentration camps; Anne and her sister Margot died, most likely of typhus, in the Bergen-Belsen camp. Her father Otto survived and published the diary, which had been hidden by his secretary, after the war.


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Some trends in global Anglican Communion are starting to look rather Black and White

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Some trends in global Anglican Communion are starting to look rather Black and White

There was nothing unusual about Nigerian Archbishop Henry Ndukuba leading the 2021 dedication rites for Holy Trinity Cathedral Church, which was packed with Nigerian Anglicans and a dozen or so bishops.

But this historic service was held in Houston and the cathedral is not part of the Diocese of Texas or the U.S. Episcopal Church. Some clergy at this Church of Nigeria North American Mission event were recognized as Anglicans by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Some were not.

This puzzle became more complicated recently during Lambeth 2022, which Nigeria boycotted, along with the churches of Uganda and Rwanda. Other Global South bishops, during Lambeth standoffs with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby over the status of doctrines on marriage and sex, declined to receive Holy Communion with openly gay and lesbian bishops.

"There is a profound asymmetric quality to the Anglican Communion, where the voice of the bulk of its membership is either absent or muted," said the Rev. David Goodhew of St. Barnabas Church in Middlesborough, England. He is the author of a series of articles about African Anglicanism for Covenant, the weblog of The Living Church, an independent Anglican publication founded in 1878.

"If one adds up the number of bishops who didn't share Holy Communion at Lambeth … that is a very large number," he said. "I have been startled by the number of descriptions that said this Lambeth was a success. I don't know how one makes that claim when it would appear the bulk of the Anglican Communion's bishops couldn't come together to receive Communion. That looks like a disaster."

Bottom line: Global South Anglicans are experiencing a "volcano of growth" and remain "at loggerheads" with the shrinking churches of the United Kingdom, North America and other western nations. While most Global South bishops serve growing flocks -- roughly 75% of active worshipers in the 77-million-member Anglican Communion -- many western bishops lead what Goodhew called "micro-dioceses" with under 1,000 active members or "mini-dioceses" with fewer than 5,000.

The Church of Nigeria, meanwhile, claims 17 million members and the Center for Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, near Boston, estimates active participants at 22 million. The other churches skipping Lambeth 2022 were Uganda, with 10 million members, and Rwanda, with 1 million members.

The Church of England remains Anglicanism's power hub. It has 26 million members, but 2019 weekly attendance was about 679,000 -- before the COVID-19 crisis.


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