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Great Britain's first Hindu prime minister inherits a prominent role in Anglicanism

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Great Britain's first Hindu prime minister inherits a prominent role in Anglicanism

ry to imagine, say, U.S. President William Howard Taft, who was a Unitarian, involved with choosing bishops who rule the Episcopal Church, or President Joseph Biden, a Catholic, participating in the selection of bishops in the United Methodist Church.

After the historically brief leadership of Britain's Liz Truss, Conservative Party members of Parliament this week agreed on Rishi Sunak to succeed her as prime minister at a moment of severe economic and political turmoil.

Despite sporadic calls for a change in the system, this Hindu believer will have the unique task of proposing each new Church of England bishop for formal action by King Charles III, the church’s Supreme Governour and “Defender of the Faith.” Then again will that be “Defender of Faith” this time around?

The Sunak religious anomaly provides the media a sidebar to the astonishing ascent of this Anglo-Indian as the first “person of color” and first person from ethnic minorities to lead the British government. He’s also the first prime minister who is not at least nominally a Christian.

The Times of India reports Sunak has called himself a “proud Hindu” and regularly attends the temple in his hometown of Southampton. He has sworn his oath of office on the Bhagavad Gita rather than the Bible.

By coincidence, Sunak’s triumph occurred on Diwali, the annual festival of lights celebration when Hindus invoke the goddess Lakshmi for prosperity. The Times article depicts this 42-year-old’s remarkably prosperous corporate career and rapid political rise.


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The rise of nondenominational churches, a big news trend that's really hard to cover

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The rise of nondenominational churches, a big news trend that's really hard to cover

Maybe the biggest story in American Christianity over the last 40 years is the incredible rise in
the share of Americans who identify as nondenominational Protestant Christians.

In the 1970s, they were just a rounding error in the religious landscape. That was then.

Today it’s impossible to ignore the number of nondenominational churches — the vast majority of which are evangelical or Pentecostal — that have sprouted up in every city, suburb and rural area in the United States.

There are likely more nondenominational Protestants in the United States today than Southern Baptists and mainline Protestants combined. Yet, they are somewhat of an enigma to those reporters who cover religion.

Why? Because it’s impossible to make a lot of generalizations about this movement. It’s hard to pin them down, even when doing basic research.

The religious groups that are part of this non-movement movement don’t have annual meetings that are easy to track and for journalists to cover. They don’t have national spokespersons.

What makes it even more difficult is that many of these churches are, to some degree, still aligned with a denomination, but don’t publicize that on their websites or make mention of that in worship services.


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Earth to RNS: Why not show a bit less deference to 'devout' Catholic abortionists?

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Earth to RNS: Why not show a bit less deference to 'devout' Catholic abortionists?

Last week, I was in New York receiving three awards for my work that appeared last year in Newsweek, Politico and National Geographic. Writers for Moment magazine, Sojourners, The Forward, The Washington Post, the San Francisco radio station KALW and many other organizations won as well, including Religion News Service.

In the case of RNS, much good work has been done. Which is why I’m scratching my head at two recent pieces: one a hagiography of the Rev. James Martin, a Catholic priest known for his ministry to gays, and a Catholic gynecologist who insists she keeps the faith –- yet performs abortions.

It was difficult to know exactly what the Martin piece, written by two rabbis was: A news story? An opinion piece? An analysis? A sermon? A nomination for sainthood?

The last is in jest yet only partially; Martin’s teachings are radical enough that then Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput had to release a statement in 2019 about how Martin does not speak for the Catholic Church and “to caution the faithful about some of his claims.”

The authors put Catholic teaching in the worst possible light in this paragraph:

This time of great change affords Catholic clergy the chance to adapt to new needs and serve people in new ways. Even as some may feel constrained by vows of obedience that obligate leadership to line up with papal directives, others are finding support for new areas of ministry and outreach to underserved and marginalized groups…

With this multifaceted approach, Father Martin brings his ministry outside the traditional institutional framework to directly reach the people he seeks to serve. His work provides a new model for clergy leadership within the Catholic Church, modeled on the example of Jesus.

Well actually, whenever Jesus encountered someone operating outside the bounds of traditional sexual mores, he certainly reached out to them, but he also said, “Go and sin no more.” Not sure Martin is doing that.


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Tips for reporters covering feds arresting abortion-facility protestors, from Christianity Today

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Tips for reporters covering feds arresting abortion-facility protestors, from Christianity Today

Long ago, back in 1980s Denver days, I was out of town covering a national religion-news event when something interesting happened during an Operation Rescue protest at abortion facility.

The protest was going as planned, with peaceful protestors willing to be arrested for blocking the entrance (think civil disobedience) when someone rushed forward and started verbally and physically harassing a client and her escort. This became the big story of the day.

When I heard about what had happened I asked the city desk if anyone had checked to see if the attacker was actually part of the planned protest. There was a possibility, of course, that this was a rogue protestor or even a plant from pro-abortion-rights groups whose goal was to get Operation Rescue shut down.

The key question: Had this person signed the Operation Rescue card to take part in the protest, in which participants promise to do nothing more than pray and sing hymns during the blockade, then allow themselves to be arrested? I had included that tactical detail in my earlier coverage of the protests.

Well, no one asked. To cut to the chase: No one really wanted to ask.

The template for the story had already been created. Factual details about Operation Rescue techniques were irrelevant. Once I was home, I checked. No one knew the identity of this rogue protestor and he had not signed the pledge card. He wasn’t part of the organized protest.

I thought this was a story. My editors just shook their heads.

I bring this up because of an interesting story I read at Christianity Today: “DOJ Steps Up Prosecution of Pro-Life Protestors at Clinics.” GetReligion rarely looks at coverage in religious-market publications, but I thought that this piece included some information that might help MAINSTREAM reporters cover this important trend story. Here is the overture:

In the past month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has indicted more than a dozenpro-life protestors across the country for obstructing access to abortion clinics.

Such prosecutions have been rare historically, with just a case or two annually for the past decade. But after the US Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade this summer, the DOJ announced a task force to pursue more enforcement against anyone obstructing access to abortion clinics. Many of those protestors facing charges are Christian.


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Plug-In: Religion-beat highlights -- Religion News Association presents its annual awards

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Plug-In: Religion-beat highlights -- Religion News Association presents its annual awards

What a fun night!

The Religion News Association presented its 2022 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence in a hybrid ceremony Wednesday at Columbia Journalism School in New York City.

Among the highlights:

• Sarah Pulliam Bailey, religion writer for The Washington Post, won for Excellence in Religion News Analysis, including a piece on “Preachers and their $5,000 sneakers.” Even better, Bailey brought her new baby with her to celebrate.

• Tom Gjelten, retired religion correspondent for NPR, won for Religion Story of the Year for his piece “An inconvenient genocide: Why we don’t know more about the Uyghurs” for Moment magazine. (Last week’s Plug-in highlighted the other finalists.)

• Julia Duin, a veteran religion journalist, including her work here at GetReligion, won for Excellence in Religion Reporting at Online-only News Outlets and placed in two other categories. Duin was honored for stories she wrote for National Geographic, Politico and Newsweek. The headline on that Politico piece: “The Christian Prophets Who Say Trump Is Coming Again.”


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FitzSimons Allison: Bookish Episcopal bishop who dared to say 'apostasy'

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FitzSimons Allison: Bookish Episcopal bishop who dared to say 'apostasy'

It has been three decades since the Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison took his first step away from his life as one of the Episcopal Church's strongest evangelical voices.

That tentative move took place in a small-group discussion during an Episcopal House of Bishops meeting in Kanuga, N.C., during his final year serving as the 12th bishop of the historic Diocese of South Carolina. The topic that day was, "Why are we dysfunctional?"

Allison attacked Episcopal priests and seminary professors who were openly proclaiming their faith in an ancient, erotic, divine spirit "older and greater" than the God of the Bible. There was, Allison said, a clear, ancient word for that -- "apostasy."

Other bishops said they had no problem accepting clergy who were testing the boundaries of ancient Christian doctrines.

After that clash, Allison remained in his pew and declined to share the consecrated bread and wine during a Holy Eucharist with the entire House of Bishops. He didn't publicly discuss this act of broken Communion for several years, but his silent protest was a poignant symbol of early cracks forming in the global Anglican Communion.

Now the 95-year-old bishop has officially resigned his status as an Episcopal bishop, making his departure official. Two weeks ago, he wrote U.S. Presiding Bishop Michael Curry to clarify that he had been received into the Anglican Church in North America -- a body recognized as valid by many Anglican bishops in Africa, Asia and the Global South, but not by the Archbishop of Canterbury or leaders in the U.S. Episcopal Church.

"Some people said that I didn't need to do this, because everyone knows where I stand," said Allison, reached by telephone. "But I felt, the way things have been going, that I still needed to make things official. That's just the way I am."


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Doctrine and fashion: As Iran protests persist, what women's clothing does Islam require?

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Doctrine and fashion: As Iran protests persist, what women's clothing does Islam require?

THE QUESTION:

As Iran protests persist, what women’s clothing does Islam require?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The facts are these. On September 13, Iran’s morality police arrested 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for violating the legally required Muslim dress code for women. She was wearing the mandatory head scarf (hijab), but apparently it did not correctly conceal all of her hair. Three days later, Amini died while still in police custody. The government blames a heart attack, but suspicions that she was abused run rampant.

In the spontaneous uproar that resulted, refusal to wear the hijab became a symbol of resisting oppression as protests across the nation targeted not only restrictions for women but expressed over-all rejection of the harsh theocratic regime that has ruled revolutionary Iran the past 43 years. At this writing, at least 200 Iranians have reportedly been killed and 1,500 demonstrators arrested.

Azadeh Moaveni of New York University wrote in The New York Times that resentment boiled over in part because women in Tehran’s wealthy and politically-connected elite flagrantly ignore the Muslim dress laws without arrest.

There’s always been vigorous discussion of the complexities about exactly what attire is properly modest and thus faithful to Islam.

Responding to events in Iran, Deina Abdelkader at the University of Massachusetts Lowell contends that clothing rules “have nothing to do with Islamic tenets” while Muslim countries have imposed — or forbidden — forms of women’s attire in order to proclaim their ideology, whether secular or scrupulously religious.

Islam’s fundamental concern here is not unique, since religions normally advocate modesty and propriety. In particular, Jewish tradition associates attire as part of a general admonition in the Torah (Deuteronomy 23:15, JPS translation): “Let your camp be holy; let Him [God] not find anything unseemly among you and turn away from you.”


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Podcast: 'Culture Wars' again, as Muslims protest LGBTQ advances in public schools

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Podcast: 'Culture Wars' again, as Muslims protest LGBTQ advances in public schools

If you read newspapers or magazines in America, you have heard the term “culture wars.”

If you have read GetReligion for any time at all, then you probably know that, in the work of sociologist James Davison Hunter, the term “culture wars” was given a very specific definition that rarely shows up in news coverage.

In the early 1990s, Hunter published a bestseller entitled, “Culture Wars: The Struggle To Control The Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics In America.” The term leapt into news jargon and, as often happens, it became totally politicized.

What was Hunter talking about? Hold that thought, because we will come back to it. We will need to apply it to a story that’s in the news right now, a story that many will describe as a “culture wars” fight. We discussed all of this during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Let’s start with this local headline from the Detroit Free Press: “LGBTQ and faith communities struggle for unity in Dearborn, Hamtramck.” What we have here is one of those stories in which conservative religious parents are making a stand in protest LGBTQ education efforts — and some other gender trends — in their local schools.

Sound familiar? But there’s a twist. This time, the evangelical Protestants have what journalists clearly consider some unlikely parters. Here is the (long) overture to the Detroit story, which went national:

The protest began with a prayer.

On a Sunday afternoon last month in Dearborn, Nagi Almudhegi took the stage to address the crowd gathered outside Henry Ford Centennial Library to demonstrate against some LGBTQ books in Dearborn Public Schools' libraries.

"I'd like to start off first of all with a prayer," Almudhegi said. "And I'm going to read, recite the chapter on Fatiha (opening of Quran) in Arabic and then I will read the English translation."

As he spoke, some in the crowd held up signs denouncing books and educational materials in the public schools that they believe are too explicit for children.


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Could secular feminism and some kind of religion converge in a Sexual Revolution rethink?

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Could secular feminism and some kind of religion converge in a Sexual Revolution rethink?

Attention journalists: Here are some chapter headings from the latest advice book on sex:

“Men and Women Are Different”

“Some Desires Are Bad”

“Loveless Sex Is Not Empowering”

“Violence Is Not Love”

“People Are Not Products”

“Marriage Is Good”

“Sex Must Be Taken Seriously”

“Listen to Your Mother”

To which geezers in The Guy’s swiftly passing generation can only respond with something that, today, would be #DUH.”

Yet Americans who’ve grown up since the blitz of the 1960s Sexual Revolution have been immersed in a culture that promotes and expects commitment-free hook-ups and casual sex, even very early in a relationship.

Turns out women feel disheartened, dishonored and coerced by this supposed “freedom,” and have good reason to be, says Britain’s Louise Perry in her spirited book “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century” (Polity Press). She assails so-called “liberal feminism” for routinely handing countless women a raw deal.

Her preachments will be routine common sense for folks who resist fierce cultural pressure and remain guided by religious teachings of the past few thousand years.

What might especially intrigue reporters is that Perry, a fellow journalist with the Daily Mail and the New Statesman and an anti-rape crusader, makes a thoroughly secularized case that nonetheless coincides at many points with a religious tradition toward which she expresses zero trace of fondness.


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