, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Amazing! Brief mention of doctrine in LGBTQIA+ war at Point Loma Nazarene University

, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Amazing! Brief mention of doctrine in LGBTQIA+ war at Point Loma Nazarene University

Oh my! It appears that we have an actual reference to a doctrinal “covenant” in a Religion News Service report about a First Amendment battle between the leaders of a private Christian university and the pro-LGBTQ members of their faculty, student body and alumni.

Journalists almost always ignore the role of "lifestyle” or “doctrinal” covenants in defining the boundaries of the life and work of private schools, which are voluntary associations. It’s always important to ask if faculty, staff and students are asked to sign these covenants, in which they (the details vary) agree to support the doctrinal foundations of the school or, at the very least, not to attack them.

This is an issue your GetReligionistas have written about 100+ times or more during the past 20 years.

The fact that this latest fight is happening at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego will not surprise anyone familiar with the recent history of denominational life in the Church of the Nazarene. But that’s another story for another day. The reality is that there are hidden schisms in the faculties of many Christian colleges and universities, when it comes to issues of centuries of Christian moral theology.

Thus, back to the RNS report: “LGBTQ group condemns Point Loma Nazarene University for theology dean’s dismissal.” The subhead is also important: “The university denies charges by Lauren Cazares, founder of Loma LGBTQIA+ Alumni & Allies Coalition, that the dean of the school of theology was terminated for 'anything related to the LGBTQIA+ community.' “

There is next to nothing surprising in this report. RNS editors included zero comments from insiders or experts who disagree with the viewpoints voiced over and over by the LGBTQIA+ activists who provided material for this “news” report. There is one quote from a university spokesperson who notes that the administration, due to privacy laws, cannot discuss the dismissal of a faculty member.

But, hey, there is one reference to “doctrine” in this story! Let’s start with the overture:

A coalition of LGBTQ alumni of Point Loma Nazarene University — a private Christian liberal arts college in San Diego — is protesting the firing of the dean of the university’s school of theology, who they say was dismissed for siding with an adjunct professor who was let go due to her own public support for the LGBTQ community.

Mark Maddix, the dean for the school of theology and Christian ministry, was fired on March 15 by the university’s chief academic officer, Kerry Fulcher, according to an April 5 statement released by alumna Lauren Cazares, who founded Loma LGBTQIA+ Alumni & Allies Coalition earlier this year.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Campaign for thorough reform of Muslim law deserves mainstream coverage -- now

, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Campaign for thorough reform of Muslim law deserves mainstream coverage -- now

The world’s largest organization of Muslims is campaigning for thorough worldwide reform of how to understand the faith’s religious law (Sharia) and applied jurisprudence (Fiqh).

Such an ambitious goal may seem unlikely and, to date, western media have given the effort minimal coverage. It’s time for that trend to change.

Far from some esoteric intellectual discourse, such a philosophical change could potentially affect the future of the world’s second-largest faith regarding democracy, blasphemy laws, human rights, education, the role of women, treatment of other religions, warfare, extremism, terrorism and crime and punishment.

The organization in question is Nahdlatul Ulama (NU, meaning Revival of Islamic Scholars) in Indonesia, the nation with the largest Muslim population. Consider these numbers from James M. Dorsey, a freelance writer and adjunct senior fellow in international studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University: NU encompasses an estimated 90 million lay followers, tens of thousands of religious scholars, 44 universities and 18,000 lower schools.

NU upholds Sunni orthodoxy, but with a more tolerant tone than is customary in the Mideast. Its legal reform program was prominent during the massive February celebration of its 100th anniversary, analyzed in Dorsey’s March 31 Substack column. His article is a good starting point for journalists, but its opinionated viewpoint warrants careful follow-up interviewing. Also note this 2021 NU backgrounder by political scientist Ahmet T. Kuru (akuru@sdsu.edu).

Moderate Muslim thinkers have long favored some sort of move away from rigid legal traditionalism. Dorsey depicts a two-sided struggle among them, pitting allies of NU’s fully democratic and tolerant outlook against religious leaders beholden to rulers in the Mideast, as in Saudi Arabia, where certain social liberation is being allowed without fundamentally rethinking Islamic law or politics.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome to $$$$$$$ Easter: Lots of candy, booze and Jesus-free fun for half of America

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Welcome to $$$$$$$ Easter: Lots of candy, booze and Jesus-free fun for half of America

Easter is, without a doubt, the most important holy day in Christianity.

Christianity remains the largest faith group in the world.

There’s no way around the fact that Easter is the celebration of the doctrinal conviction that unites traditional Christians around the world: “Christ is risen!”

What a downer. This is a problem for people who decorate shopping malls and make the obligatory A1 holiday photo assignments for newspapers. There is more to this dilemma (ask Google) than struggling to photograph religious rites that take place at midnight or sunrise.

But people love fun, food, candy, parties, greeting cards, etc. Businesses love selling lots of stuff. And, in case you have not heard, a growing number of people in the mushy, old-mainstream middle of religious life — in America and elsewhere in the Western World — are cutting their ties to organized faith (“Nones” and others) and moving into a business, political and cultural coalition with atheists and agnostics.

This is a big $$$$$$$ deal.

This leads to this totally valid — even if rather depressing, for believers — headline at Religion New Service: “Adult egg hunts and kiddie pools full of gifts: Is Easter the new Christmas?”

So I want to ask a journalism question on this Easter Monday morning (for Western Christians, since this Holy Week for Orthodox Christians and other Eastern rites): What was the Easter art featured in your local media this year? Here in East Tennessee, the major daily featured GOP racism and Earth Day.

But back to that RNS story. Why call it “totally valid”?

For a simple reason: It’s describing Easter in a growing segment of the American cultural marketplace. The question is how journalists can feature this reality — while also noting the rites and traditions of, well, the largest faith group in the world.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Weeks before the attack, Covenant's pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus

, , , , , , , , ,
Weeks before the attack, Covenant's pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus

The Bible's shortest verse -- "Jesus wept" -- is also one of its most important.

That was the message delivered by the Rev. Chad Scruggs in a March 5 sermon -- "Death's Conqueror" -- as the faithful at Nashville's Covenant Presbyterian Church continued their Lenten journey toward Holy Week and Easter's promise of new life after death.

"How do we face death in our world," he asked, "especially untimely deaths, without the pain and confusion of death leading us to despair?"

That was three weeks before a gunman crashed through the glass doors of his church's Covenant School and killed three staff members and three 9-year-old students -- including the pastor's daughter, Hallie Scruggs. Police fatally shot the attacker, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a former Covenant student who had taken the name "Aiden" and male pronouns online. 

Police confirmed that Covenant had been targeted. But Nashville officials and the FBI have declined to release a "manifesto" referenced in Hale's final social-media warning: "One day this will make more sense. I've left more than enough evidence behind."

The families of those killed have mourned in private, even as solemn Holy Week rites flowed toward Easter (April 9) -- surrounded by a whirlwind of familiar arguments about gun control and a mental-health crisis that has shattered so many lives.

In his sermon before the attack, Scruggs had already plunged into deeper, ancient, mysteries -- stressing that believers can trust that God understands the grief, anger and confusion caused by violence and death.

When meeting the grieving family of his friend Lazarus, Jesus responded with anger, as well as compassion. Thus, the importance of the Gospel of John's blunt words: "Jesus wept."


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

God's Word? Concerning modern scholarship and those bloodthirsty Bible passages

, , , , , , , ,
God's Word? Concerning modern scholarship and those bloodthirsty Bible passages

QUESTION:

How do scholars explain bloodthirsty Bible passages?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Skeptics seeking to disparage the Bible and, with it, Judaism and Christianity, cite certain passages in the Bible that depict all-out warfare as mandated by God. Consider Israel’s “conquest” of Canaan under Joshua, and a notably bloodthirsty passage like Deuteronomy 20:16-17, which says “you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them … as the LORD your God has commanded.”

Readers can see how that issue might, to say the least, be relevant to debates about some events in recent decades.

There’s been intriguing recent discussions of this complex issue. Even conservative evangelicals, who defend the Bible’s historical accuracy, are reinterpreting such passages, as we’ll see.

“Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary,” issued by Judaism’s Conservative branch, freely admits a modern reader “recoils” from a demand to wipe out a population group. It says the context is the Canaanites’ “abhorrent” deeds. Verse 18 goes on to explain combat is necessary so “they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods.”

Scholarly commentaries think ritual sacrifice of children was a major part of this. The context of such verses is said to be “the Torah’s abiding fear that these pagan nations will lead Israel astray.”

Here’s another part of the context. Risking any military advantage from surprise, Joshua informed Canaanites in advance about the invasion plan so they could flee from bloodshed, and he first offered a peace settlement before resorting to combat. (That was relatively humane for the cruel culture 3,000 years ago.) The same point is underscored by a classic source in Orthodox Judaism, the “Pentateuch & Haftorahs” compiled by Britain’s longtime chief rabbi, J.H. Hertz.

This Orthodox Jewish commentary also observes that the Israelites’ need for a homeland is part of all human history, including for most western nations.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Do readers need to know the 'why' factor in the Covenant School shootings?

, , , , , , , , , , ,
Podcast: Do readers need to know the 'why' factor in the Covenant School shootings?

Before returning to mainstream news coverage of the attack on Covenant Presbyterian Church and its school, let’s look at a story that raises similar issues — in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Consider this new information linked to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

The headline on a KRDO report: “Manifesto details former student’s plans to carry out multiple Colorado Springs school shootings.” Yes, note the word “manifesto.”

In this case, police are dealing with threats, not actions. However, journalists covering this story face some familiar questions about content and emphasis. Let’s pick this up at the second paragraph.

According to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, 19-year-old William Whitworth - who identifies as “Lilly”- was charged after an investigation into "threats involving schools in Colorado Springs Academy District 20."

The context for this story is Colorado Springs. What do we know about that “conservative” city, in terms of its media profile? Here is an interesting headline from The Guardian: “Colorado Springs: a playground for pro-life, pro-gun evangelical Christians.”

Back to the very low-key Colorado news report:

Once inside [the home], deputies noted in the affidavit two holes that appeared to be punch marks in the wall. The door to a bedroom was off its hinges and lying beside the opening. … The sister identified herself as Lilly, but further investigation determined her birth name is William Whitworth.

Once again, readers face that familiar, but suddenly controversial, question from the old-school journalism equation “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why” and “how.”

A dozen or so paragraphs and news-you-can-use bullet lists into the story, readers finally learn:

When asked if she was going to shoot up a school, the affidavit states Whitworth "visibly shook her head and down indicating yes." When asked why she'd do that, Whitworth stated, "Why does anyone do it." …

While waiting for the fire department, Whitworth was asked how much she had been planning the school shooting. She stated she was "about a third of the way from doing it," verifying again that Timberview Middle School was one of the "main targets" currently and other targets were churches.

There’s some (#triggerwarning) anti-Donald Trump material in this troubled young person’s writings, as well. But it would be interesting — since Colorado Springs is internationally known as a haven for evangelical ministries — to know just a bit more (as in anything) about the targeted “churches.”


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Attention mass-media leaders: What should Americans know about each others' faiths?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Attention mass-media leaders: What should Americans know about each others' faiths?

America’s three biggest hamburger chains have 27,000 local outlets.

The three biggest of America’s 2,800 or so religious denominations alone have 97,000 local congregations.

Which is to simply remind readers that faiths retain powerful impact in society despite the increase of people with no religious affiliation and other secular inroads.

Relations among major faiths feel especially pertinent in 2023, since Islam’s holy month of Ramadan with concluding Eid festival overlaps Jewish Passover and the two Easter dates observed by Christians.

Zeenat Rahman, executive director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, thinks American religion is “increasingly polarizing” and yet at the same time is “essential to rebuilding a strong civil society,” which means Americans “need a basic understanding of the faith of others.”

So, in practice what do people know about other major world religions? What should they know?

Those are important questions for regional or national journalists to explore via interviewing, plus polling if your medium has the money. Or consider commissioning brief articles where religious leaders sum up the basics they think others should know about their faiths and — especially helpful — what’s often misunderstood.

How about books? Stephen Wylen accepted this sort of challenge with his self-published “You Should Know This: A Rabbi Explains Christianity to Jews.” For years now, Terry Mattingly has also been recommending this classic by religion-beat veteran Mark Pinsky: “A Jew among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.”

Some standard book publisher should put together a non-sectarian and up-to-date anthology in which experts would depict their own religions for outsiders, including the main internal branches and variants.

Political scientist (and GetReligion contributor) Ryan Burge recently took up these matters, in a Religion News Service analysis, by re-examining 2019 interfaith data from the ubiquitous Pew Research Center.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tremors in a 'fundamentalist' empire: What kind of news story is unfolding at Bob Jones U?

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Tremors in a 'fundamentalist' empire: What kind of news story is unfolding at Bob Jones U?

Attention religion-beat journalists: What we have here is a chance to use the hot-button word “fundamentalist” in way that is consistent with years of guidance from the Associated Press Stylebook.

Honest. Give it a try.

I am referring to news coverage of a rather mysterious power struggle at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C. At this point, there has been next to zero national coverage of this inside-baseball conflict, perhaps because it’s a fight between conservative Christians that does not appear to involve the words “Donald Trump.”

But there has been quite a bit of coverage at the regional level and in “Christian market” news, because this is a powerful and symbolic institution in the Bible Belt. You can see some major-league buzz words in the overture of the main story at The State: “SC Christian university president resigns, cites problems with governing board.” This is long, but essential:

The president of Bob Jones University has resigned amid long-simmering disagreements with the chairman of the board and grandson of the university’s founder over the discretion of the fundamentalist Christian school in Greenville.

Steve Pettit was named president in 2014, the first non-Jones family member to hold the job since the school was founded by Bob Jones Sr. in 1927. He was succeeded by Bob Jones Jr., Bob Jones III and then his great-grandson, Stephen Jones. Bob Jones IV elected not to work at the school.

In a four-page letter to the board, Pettit said board chair John Lewis had created disunity on the board, held a meeting without telling staff and was not taking seriously a comment made by a board member that “female students’ clothing and female student athlete uniforms accentuate their ‘boobs and butts.’”

Pettit said he had heard the board member took photos of women without their permission. He said he did not know if the information was true, but by law should have been turned over to the Title IX coordinator for investigation.

Ah, a Title IX fight. For those who have followed Bob Jones trends, that would lead straight into the crucial issue of whether this school will play ball with government agencies or outside educational authorities of any kind.

A big word here is “separatism,” along with “ultra-separatism” (click here for background). The key is the degree to which true “fundamentalist” would work with mere evangelicals who have associated, in any way, with liberal and modern trends in Christian faith.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , ,

Catholicism's internal cracks go public with Cardinal Robert McElroy ban on EWTN

, , , , , , , , , ,
Catholicism's internal cracks go public with Cardinal Robert McElroy ban on EWTN

It should come as no surprise to anyone that politicians don’t much like the press. This isn’t a shocking statement to anyone old enough to remember President Richard Nixon and Watergate.

Nixon, of course, wasn’t alone. A watchdog press has ran afoul of many presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. This last one most of all.

In Catholicism, popes have also been media targets. Popes, compared to presidents, have been more gracious when speaking of the press. That even goes for the hyper-aggressive Italian media and their daily Vatican coverage.

As the left-right political divide widens, while many journalists working for mainstream publications abandon objectivity, so have the Catholic left-right doctrinal feuds. Francis’ papacy, in fact, has been plagued by it. Mainstream news coverage, for those who read this space, know that readers are increasingly fed narratives over reality.

The Catholic press operates differently. Those on the left wish to reform the church. Those on the right want to uphold and preserve centuries-old doctrines. Catholic media, depending where the publication or TV station falls on the doctrinal spectrum, isn’t governed by objectivity but by church teachings. This is where the conflict arises and when culture war battles within the church — and society at large — can manifest themselves.

This is an internecine battle among members of the Catholic hierarchy. In the crosshairs is EWTN. The media empire, founded by Mother Angelica in 1980, is a news organization that does all of its reporting through the lens of traditional Catholic teaching. It’s the 1992 Catholic Catechism network.

That frequently comes into direct conflict with the words and actions of Pope Francis’ strongest supporters, when dealing with ministry to LGBTQ Catholics, for example, and other culture-war issues.

Just as Obama went after Fox News and Trump against most everyone (even Fox News following the 2020 presidential election), we now have Catholic cardinals openly criticizing Catholic media. The recent case involving San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy is an example of Catholicism’s internal divisions playing out in Catholic media.

McElroy’s target is EWTN, one of the largest Catholic news organization in the world.


Please respect our Commenting Policy