Friday, April 25, 2025

Associated Press

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Podcast: Behold! ChatGPT has interesting, haunting thoughts on religion-beat questions

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Podcast: Behold! ChatGPT has interesting, haunting thoughts on religion-beat questions

It is highly likely, at this point, that most news consumers have heard of the ChatGPT website.

If not, click here to surf through the 56,100,000 reports currently about at Google News about this artificial intelligence (AI) project. Some would prefer to spend several months watching videos on the subject at YouTube. Good luck using the actual ChatGPT site — odds are high that you will have to wait in a long cyber-line to get access.

Journalists are concerned about ChatGPT because it offers a vision of what could be ahead in newsrooms, with computers “reporting” background reports on news events and even trends. And ChatGPT is a big deal in higher education, since it’s highly effective at faking all or significant chunks of term papers. The bot recently passed the U.S. Medical Licensing exams.

I was curious to know what ChatGPT thought about (#DUH) religion-news coverage. The results provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). For example, I asked: “What does the website GetReligion.org do?” The response:

GetReligion.org is a media criticism blog that focuses on examining the way religion is covered by the mainstream news media. It aims to provide analysis and commentary on news stories that deal with religious topics and to point out instances of inaccurate or biased reporting.

Not bad. That’s part of what we do here. We also provide as many, or more, think pieces, Q&As and memos about topics linked to religion-beat work, care of patriarch Richard Ostling, chart-master Ryan Burge and others. We also, from time to time, praise high-quality reporting from mainstream newsrooms.

Oh, I also confess that I asked ChatGPT about that Terry Mattingly guy and — on my birthday, no less — received a kind report on my work that also (#shudder) implied that I am dead.

Terry Mattingly was an American journalist and religion reporter known for his writing on religion and culture. He was a syndicated columnist and founder of the website "GetReligion", which analyzed religion news coverage in the media.


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That timely AP interview: What, precisely, did Pope Francis say about homosexual 'sin'?

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That timely AP interview: What, precisely, did Pope Francis say about homosexual 'sin'?

Let’s say that Pope Francis decides to sit down for an Associated Press interview, thus guaranteeing coverage that will appear in the maximum number of mainstream publications around the world.

The basic headline is generic, but points to newsworthy topics: “Pope discusses his health, critics and future papacy.” As you would expect, editors just love a papal interview addressing the potential for a political horse race before a Vatican election (with armies of dangerous right-wing “critics” in the wings).

Now, what angle of this interview would you expect to immediately jump into headlines and social media? Maybe something like, “The AP Interview: Pope says homosexuality not a crime.”

Obviously, the reaction have been different if AP editors had used this accurate headline (written by me), based on this interview: “The AP interview — Pope says homosexual acts are sins, not crimes.”

Hold that thought. First of all, I would like to know more about the backstory for this interview. The timing is interesting, in light of recent news linked to the death of Pope Benedict XVI (“Pope Francis meets Benedict's top aide as memoir rattles Vatican") and yet another powerful conservative leader (“Cardinal Pell authored controversial memo critical of Pope Francis, journalist reveals”).

It is also possible that the timing of this interview is linked to headlines such as this one, at The Telegraph: “ ‘Gay clubs’ run in seminaries, says Pope Benedict in posthumous attack on Francis: New book by the late pontiff makes extraordinary claims about the Catholic Church under his progressive successor.”

Say what? You haven’t seen coverage of this story in your local newspapers or on evening newscasts? Here is a sample of that report:

In a blistering attack on the state of the Catholic Church under his successor’s papacy, Benedict, who died on Dec 31 at the age of 95, said that the vocational training of the next generation of priests is on the verge of “collapse”.

He claimed that some bishops allow trainee priests to watch pornographic films as an outlet for their sexual urges.


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Final 2022 podcast: What parts of the Roe v. Wade story deserved additional coverage?

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Final 2022 podcast: What parts of the Roe v. Wade story deserved additional coverage?

Everyone had to know that the fall of Roe v. Wade would be the top pick in the Religion News Association’s annual poll to determine the Top 10 religion-beat stories of 2022. That would have been the case, even if the RNA hadn’t created two lists this year, one for U.S. stories and one for international stories.

Why? I’ve been following this poll closely since the late 1970s and once interviewed the legendary George Cornell of the Associated Press about his observations on mainstream religion-news coverage trends during his decades on the beat.

Let’s briefly review some of the factors that shape this list year after year, since this topic was discussed during the final 2022 “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). This episode was recorded while we wrestled with rolling power blackouts here in the frigid hills of East Tennessee. See if you can guess where we had to do a patch and start again!

First of all, the RNA top story will almost always be a hot political event or trend — with a religion angle. Politics, after all, is REAL news. Think White Evangelicals and Bad Man Orange. Second, it helps if stories feature clashes between religion and sex, usually in one of the progressive Mainline Protestant churches or, ideally, Roman Catholicism. Think Joe Biden, Catholic bishops and just about anything (especially if Pope Francis is involved). After that, you have slots for wars, natural disasters and newsy papal tours.

The fall of Roe v. Wade had it all, putting a core Sexual Revolution doctrine at risk, to one degree or another, depending on the blue, red or purple state involved.

I will not run through the contents of the whole RNA list. However, it’s interesting to note the wordings in some poll items, paying attention to what is included and what is NOT included therein. For example, here is No. 1 in the U.S. list:

The Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent and says there is no constitutional right to abortion, sparking battles in courts and state legislatures and driving voters to the November polls in high numbers. More than a dozen states enact abortion bans, while voters reject constitutional abortion restrictions in conservative Kansas and Kentucky and put abortion rights in three other states’ constitutions.

What is missing in that complex item?


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Religion News Service, and AP, offer the latest news from the left side of Christian higher ed

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Religion News Service, and AP, offer the latest news from the left side of Christian higher ed

It’s another day, with yet another Religion News Service story about Christian higher education that fails to add one or two sentences of crucial material about ongoing clashes between centuries of Christian doctrine and the Sexual Revolution.

The setting for this news story, once again, is Seattle Pacific University — a Free Methodist institution in the progressive Pacific Northwest. Click here for flashbacks to GetReligion posts about news coverage of what is clearly a bitterly divided campus.

Once again, RNS readers never learn whether students and faculty on this campus sign — at enrollment or employment — what is usually called a “doctrinal covenant” or “lifestyle agreement.” This is a document in which members of a voluntary community pledge to support, or at the very least not openly oppose, a private school’s beliefs on a variety of moral and theological issues.

Many faith-based schools (on the religious left or right) have these covenants, but many do not. Thus, it’s crucial for news readers to know if students and faculty involved in a doctrinal conflict have chosen to sign covenants and, of course, the details of what is contained in the documents. This brings us to this RNS update, with a double-decker headline:

SPU board members seek dismissal of lawsuit over LGBTQ exclusion

The lawsuit, board members say, is an effort to 'intimidate and punish leaders of a religious institution for the exercise of protected First Amendment rights.'

This is a short story, based on documents linked to the lawsuit. Here is the overture:

Members of Seattle Pacific University’s board of trustees are asking a Washington state court to dismiss a lawsuit brought against the body by a group of students and faculty at the school, arguing that the suit is an effort to “intimidate and punish leaders of a religious institution for the exercise of protected First Amendment rights.”


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Plug-In: Religious liberty vs. gay rights -- LGBTQ debates escalate around the world

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Plug-In: Religious liberty vs. gay rights -- LGBTQ debates escalate around the world

The latest clash of religious liberty versus gay rights at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Friction over LGBTQ issues in traditional faiths around the world, from the global Anglican Communion to the vast Muslim world.

Final congressional passage of a bill to protect same-sex marriage rights.

No doubt, there’s a common theme to some of this past week’s top headlines.

At The Associated Press, Jessica Gresko and Mark Sherman report:

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority sounded sympathetic Monday to a Christian graphic artist who objects to designing wedding websites for gay couples, the latest collision of religion and gay rights to land at the high court.

The designer and her supporters say that ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their beliefs. Her opponents, meanwhile, say that if she wins, a range of businesses will be able to discriminate, refusing to serve Black, Jewish or Muslim customers, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants.

Meanwhile, AP’s global religion team partners with its Lilly Endowment grant partners — Religion News Service and The Conversation — to examine LGBTQ belief and belonging around the world.

Among the specific stories:

• Friction over LGBTQ issues worsens in global Anglican church (by AP’s Chinedu Asadu and David Crary and RNS’ Catherine Pepinster)

• Across vast Muslim world, LGBTQ people remain marginalized (by AP’s Edna Tarigan, Mariam Fam and David Crary)

• LGBTQ students wrestle with tensions at Christian colleges (by AP’s Giovanna Dell’Orto and RNS’ Yonat Shimron)


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News coverage of LGBTQ issues enters mop-up phase in the religion marketplace

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News coverage of LGBTQ issues enters mop-up phase in the religion marketplace

It has been a big week for the ongoing LGBTQ+ story. Even as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about how much to tolerate personal dissent against same-sex marriage, the U.S. House, the House this morning passed nationwide codification of the gay marriage right that the Court enacted by 5-4 in the 2015 Obergefell ruling.

The new law effectively concludes phase one in the unusually rapid upending of a central societal structure dating from antiquity. The next few years, the media will be covering the mop-up phase facing religious groups and individuals that uphold traditional teachings about marriage, over against anti-discrimination assertions by government, Hollywood, corporate America and private actors.

The current Supreme Court case (303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, docket #21-476) involves a Colorado website designer who does not create pages that celebrate same-sex weddings — though she serves gay customers otherwise. Her free-speech claim is opposed by, for example, Reform Judaism, many liberal Protestants and other social liberals.

Observers figure that the Court, with a more traditionalist makeup than in 2015, will back this designer’s plea and ultimately look kindly upon further religious claims under the Bill of Rights. If so, the future conflict may focus on the Carborundum tactic as the LGBTQ+ movement grinds down conservatives’ energy, time and money in long-running legal maneuvers, meanwhile building cultural pressure to marginalize conscientious objectors as simple bigots.

An opinion-page complaint against religion’s “encroachment” upon society, posted by NBC News and written by Stanford University journal editor Marcie Bianco, neatly encapsulates where this culture war appears to be heading. This is the voice from the cultural left:

Dig a bit deeper, and what this act really represents is the inflexibility of our nation’s institutions and the national entrenchment — despite constitutional assurances to the contrary — of religion.


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AP soft-pedals big story: USA progressives winning (sort of) the United Methodist war

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AP soft-pedals big story: USA progressives winning (sort of) the United Methodist war

If you have followed the half century of United Methodist Church warfare over the Bible, marriage and sex — I started covering this story in the early 1980s — you know the debates have consistently contained activists in three different camps. Here’s that line-up, for newcomers:

(1) The doctrinal right fighting for enforcement of the doctrines and rules in the church’s Book of Discipline.

(2) The North American establishment that has insisted that it could find a way to tweak the status quo — doctrine would change from zip code to zip code — so that everyone could stay in the same big financial tent, including LGBTQ activists in UMC seminaries and agencies.

(3) The candid doctrinal left — think West and Northeast — that openly proclaims the need to change 2,000 years of Christian tradition to fit the doctrines of the Sexual Revolution.

These divisions only became more complex as the United Methodists evolved into a truly global denomination that included booming churches in Africa and Asia — a form of diversity that made the denomination’s shrinking North American establishment more and more nervous.

In global meetings, a small-o orthodox coalition — most of the Global South plus a conservative U.S. minority — kept winning vote after General Conference vote to defend current doctrines. However, COVID-19 prevented crucial global meetings, allowing the U.S. establishment (Camp 2) several years to steer the ship.

This brings me to a new Associated Press report that does a great job, if that was the goal, of soft-pedaling recent victories by the establishment and candid left. The headline: “LGBTQ-friendly votes signal progressive shift for Methodists.” The overture:

The United Methodist Church moved toward becoming more progressive and LGBTQ-affirming during U.S. regional meetings this month that included the election of its second openly gay bishop. Conservatives say the developments will only accelerate their exit from one of the nation’s largest Protestant denominations.

Each of the UMC’s five U.S. jurisdictions — meeting separately in early November — approved similarly worded measures aspiring to a future of church where “LGBTQIA+ people will be protected, affirmed, and empowered.”

How would these aspirations come to pass?


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Bobby Ross, Jr., tweets and tweets and tweets bonus coverage of that new SBC president

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Bobby Ross, Jr., tweets and tweets and tweets bonus coverage of that new SBC president

Just a note from tmatt, even though the byline on this piece says Bobby Ross, Jr.

There’s a good reason for that.

The Rev. Bart Barber has certainly been in the news, of late — “Yes, Southern Baptists are talking about '60 Minutes' (while Ryan Burge keeps doing the math)” — and, as it turns out, chart-master Ryan Burge wasn’t the only GetReligionista who has been talking with him or about him.

Bobby wrote a profile piece on Barber the other day for the Associated Press (this has been happening more often, methinks) and, as it turns out, he had material left over from that interview that he put in lots, and lots, and lots of tweets.

A Bobby Ross tweetstorm?

You got it.

All of these short punchy sentences, in Ross style, means it’s time to let the tweet-storm begin.

Roll tweets, in this bonus Ross piece.

Ready?


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Story of 2022 finalists (hello Julia Duin) to speak at Religion News Association awards

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Story of 2022 finalists (hello Julia Duin) to speak at Religion News Association awards

The Religion News Association will present its 2022 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence in a ceremony next week at Columbia Journalism School in New York.

Finalists, for work produced in 2021, were announced in August. See the full list.

Wednesday night’s hybrid in-person and online event will feature a panel discussion by finalists for Religion Story of the Year, including:

• GetReligion’s own Julia Duin, for “The Christian prophets who say Trump is coming again,” for Politico. And click here for a post noting Duin’s work on this topic over the years.

• Deepti Hajela (representing a team that included Luis Andres Henao and Mariam Fam), for “Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias,” for The Associated Press.

• Emily Kaplan, for “The rise of the liberal Latter-day Saints,” for The Washington Post.

• Marie-Rose Sheinerman, “‘Second class citizens’: LGBTQ students allege culture of alienation and fear at Yeshiva University,” for The Forward.

I plan to watch the ceremony and report on the winners in next week’s Plug-in. In case you missed it, ReligionUnplugged.com’s own Paul Glader and Michael Ray Smith earned third place for Religion Story of the Year last year for “God and guns: Why American churchgoers are packing heat.”

In other contest news, the American Academy of Religion has announced the recipients of its 2022 journalism awards: Peter Manseau, Dawn Araujo-Hawkins and Ken Chitwood for best in-depth newswriting and Mike Cosper, Monique Parsons and Kylie McGivern for best in-depth multimedia journalism. Read about all the winners.


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