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Coverage on whether employees must work on the Sabbath ignored the clout of Amazon

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Coverage on whether employees must work on the Sabbath ignored the clout of Amazon

After Sherbert v. Verner, a 1963 Supreme Court case that granted a Seventh-day Adventist the right to take her chosen day of worship (Saturday) off without recrimination from employers, I thought the right to not work on a particular day of the week had been settled.

But apparently not, especially if the employer’s needs shift over time.

At this point, the original promise to the employee that he/she would not have to work on a religious holiday goes out the window. Especially if Amazon is involved. This creates an interesting news dynamic, by the way, because the titan of Amazon is, of course, Jeff Bezos — owner of The Washington Post and a major player on the cultural left (except when it comes to labor issues).

First, there is this from USA Today:

Gerald Groff wanted to spend his Sundays at church. His employer, the U.S. Postal Service, wanted him delivering packages.

That simple dispute between an employee and his managers sparked one of the most significant religious cases to reach the Supreme Court in years – with the potential to shift the balance of power between employees and employers over weekend schedules, dress codes and how workers conduct themselves around colleagues.

The appeal raises a basic question with potentially sweeping consequences: How far must large employers go to accommodate the religious needs of their workers? For Groff, an Evangelical Christian who told his boss in 2017 that he wouldn’t cover Sunday shifts because of his faith, the answer became a personal and painful one. 

Then, instead of referring to the abovementioned 1963 case, the article refers to Trans World Airlines, Inc., v. Hardison, an airline maintenance clerk who was discharged for refusing to work Saturdays.

Larry Hardison, a Worldwide Church of God adherent, had switched to his new faith just after he was hired and for a time, he was able to observe his new faith’s requirement that one not work on the Sabbath. Then he switched positions and lost his seniority and his ability to decline Saturday shifts. Hardison sued the airline, but lost.


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Schism or not, what's next for the huge, disrupted global Anglican Communion?

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Schism or not, what's next for the huge, disrupted global Anglican Communion?

If the Anglican Communion did not suffer schism on April 21, it’s the next best thing.

A declaration issued that day at the conclusion of an international church assembly in Kigali, Rwanda, means the media and other religion-watchers should gird loins for years of maneuvers, legalities, confusion and acrimony.

Here’s what’s at stake. This major segment of Christianity encompasses an estimated 85 to 90 million members worldwide in 46 regional branches. Its older western churches have a rich heritage in religious thought, worship, and fine arts, while the younger churches in the “Global South” are at the forefront of today’s creative Christian expansion.

This loose confederation has been organized like so.

(1) The archbishop of Canterbury, its titular leader as head of the “mother” Church of England, is no pope but summons and presides at these meetings.

(2) The Lambeth Conference, which gathers all Anglican bishops worldwide, most recently held — with many Global South leaders absent —last summer.

(3) The Primates’ Meeting (the confusing P-word refers to the leaders of regional branches), held most recently in March, 2022.

(4) The Anglican Consultative Council, a body of bishops, clergy and lay delegates that met most recently in February in Ghana.

The April 21 “Kigali Commitment,” which includes an emphatic vote of no confidence in all four of those entities, was issued by 315 bishops, 456 priests and 531 lay delegates from 52 countries. Sponsors claim their churches constitute nearly 85% of the world’s active Anglicans; for certain they represent a substantial — and growing — majority.


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Black Americans are as likely to be 'nones' as other racial groups (but with a difference)

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Black Americans are as likely to be 'nones' as other racial groups (but with a difference)

One of the most difficult things to describe to the average person about religious classification is Black Protestants.

In 2000, a group of scholars created the RELTRAD classification scheme which divided Protestants up into three categories — evangelical, mainline and Black Protestant. Why are Hispanic and white evangelicals grouped together, but Black Protestants get their own separate category? What about Black evangelicals, Black Pentecostals and Black mainline Protestants?

It’s not an easy question answer, really. 

Paul Djupe and I tried to answer that a few years ago in a post at Religion in Public. The answer will not shock GetReligion readers.

In short: politics. But, it’s a bit more than just how they vote on election day. Anyone who has ever worshipped with a predominantly Black congregation knows that it tends to be a bit different than how the United Methodists and lots of other folks do things on a Sunday morning.

I’ve always been fascinated by the role that the church plays in Black culture and was wondering if the rising tide of secularization had been blunted in a bit among African Americans — or if they were seeing the same trend lines as other racial groups.

In 2008, Black Americans were noticeably less likely to report no religious affiliation compared to their White counterparts. About one in five Black Americans were nones in 2008. That’s no different than Hispanics and three points less than White respondents.

But over the last few years, that gap has essentially disappeared.


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Global South Anglicans cut their ties to Canterbury? Maybe that's a news story worth ink

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Global South Anglicans cut their ties to Canterbury? Maybe that's a news story worth ink

One of the most depressing things about being a reporter these days is trying to accept the fact that we live in a split, divided, warped news marketplace in which stories that, in the past, would have been Big News for everyone are now “niche” news items that half of our journalism culture feels totally comfortable ignoring.

This happens on the journalist “right” as well as the journalism “left,” or whatever word people are using instead of “left” these days.

This just in: One of the world’s great Christian traditions — the global Anglican Communion — ran into a wall late last week. The big idea: Anglican leaders from nations that represent about 80% of all Anglicans regularly IN PEWS — as opposed to being names on membership lists that may or may not be relevant — voted to cut the ties between Canterbury and the most of the Anglican Communion.

I’ve been watching for elite media coverage all weekend. Here is a Google News file with logical search terms. Please click that search, which was made Sunday night. What do you see? Obviously, at that moment, this was a “conservative” and/or “religious” media story.

You see, the Anglicans in the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) represent the growing (in some cases booming) churches of Africa, Asia and the Third World. They do not, however, represent the zip codes in which the major newsrooms of the Western world are located. They also do not represent the world’s richest Anglicans. Thus, to be blunt, what these “lesser” Anglicans say is NEWS is not news until the New York Times says that it’s news. Right?

With that in mind read the top of this report — long, but essential — from the venerable Anglican publication called The Living Church: “GAFCON Rejects Archbishop Justin Welby’s Leadership.”

On April 21, primates representing a large majority of the Anglican Communion formally repudiated the historic leadership of the See of Canterbury.


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Plug-In: Does requiring a mail guy to work Sundays violate his religious freedom?

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Plug-In: Does requiring a mail guy to work Sundays violate his religious freedom?

Surprise! I mentioned earlier that I’d be on an international reporting trip and unable to produce today’s Plug-in.

Alas, I ran into a visa issue, so here I am. So, today’s news includes:

• Muslims celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday amid joy and tragedy, via The Associated Press’ Abby Sewell.

• Conservative Anglican leaders calling for a break with the Archbishop of Canterbury over same-sex blessings, via the Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca.

• An Iowa GOP event this weekend that represents a key test of former President Donald Trump’s hold on the U.S. religious right, via the Washington Times’ Seth McLaughlin.

That’s just the start of this week’s best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.

Let’s keep rolling!

What To Know: The Big Story

High court seeks compromise: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday reviewed “the case of a part-time mail carrier who quit his U.S. Postal Service job after he was forced to deliver packages on Sundays, when he observes the Sabbath.”

A majority of justices “expressed interest … in a compromise intended to balance religious rights in the workplace with the burden they might impose on employers and co-workers,” the Washington Post’s Ann E. Marimow reports.

CNN’s Ariane de Vogue explains:

A lower court had ruled against the worker, Gerald Groff, holding that his request would cause an “undue burden” on the USPS and lead to low morale at the workplace when other employees had to pick up his shifts.

Not just Christians: Conservative Christians aren’t the only ones asking for accommodation in the mailman case, Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron notes.

“Religious minorities — Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Seventh-day Adventists — have filed briefs asking the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that gutted a civil rights statute’s protections for religious accommodation,” Shimron’s story points out.

Important context: The Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner recently interviewed Larry Hardison, whose “name was chiseled into American legal history 46 years ago when the Supreme Court ruled against him in a landmark religious accommodation case.”

For more insight, see “A brief history of American Christians fighting Sunday mail” by Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman.


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'On Religion' column enters year 35: Demons, martyrs, violence and miracles in Colombia

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'On Religion' column enters year 35: Demons, martyrs, violence and miracles in Colombia

In one of her first encounters with violence linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Deann Alford heard, or felt, a bullet pass and slam into a door frame, with shrapnel striking a nearby woman and child.

The future journalist was both shocked and inspired by her contacts with Christians caught in that land's toxic climate of paramilitary warfare, narcotrafficking and kidnappings. She struggled to grasp how someone like pilot Russell Martin Stendal, after years held for ransom, could forgive his kidnappers and then start a missionary effort to convert them.

"Without his months as their hostage, I'm convinced he never could have reached the FARC," wrote Alford, in "Victorious: The Impossible Path to Peace," her blunt memoir about religious freedom in Colombia.

Stendal, she added, "has forgiven all. But I have not. ... In my quarter-century as a journalist, I've written dozens of articles about Colombian guerrilla groups' crimes against Christians, ranging from extortion to murder. Many of these stories regard crimes of the FARC, typically threatening and abducting church workers, missionaries and pastors, extorting them with offers they could not refuse."

Eventually, Alford realized that it wasn't enough to cover Colombia with telephone calls, faxes and Internet connections. She would have to put "boots on the ground" and return. "But I didn't. I was afraid. No, that word is too mild. I was terrified. I let the risk of being killed and kidnapped keep me away."

Alford's bottom line: "I told the Lord I would go anywhere for him but Colombia."

But she returned and, over years of contacts, her fears mixed with frustration. After working in secular newsrooms, as well as Christian publications and wire services, she couldn't understand why more people -- journalists and religious leaders -- could not see the importance of the faith stories unfolding, decade after decade, in Colombia.

This is another example of an important theme woven into my work with this "On Religion" column, with this week marking the start of my 35th year. Simply stated, many journalists do not "get" religion, in terms of grasping the role faith plays in many important events and trends stories.

But Alford was dealing with an even more complex equation. Yes, many editors fail to value religion-news coverage. But it's also true that many Americans -- including people in pews -- do not value coverage of international news. Thus, it's hard to imagine a tougher sell in today's media marketplace than coverage of religion news on the other side of the world.


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Hot megachurch question: 'Why have many worshippers stopped singing in church'?

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Hot megachurch question: 'Why have many worshippers stopped singing in church'?

QUESTION:

“Why have many worshippers stopped singing in church?”

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The question in that headline accompanied a provocative article about U.S. Protestant church trends that The Guy will turn to in a moment. The answer is important, and it’s quite obvious to observers of the long-running “worship wars” that are about far more than guitars and drums supplanting pipe organs and hymnals.

(For Catholicism’s parallel debate, check out the lively book “Why Catholics Can’t Sing” in the revised edition subtitled “With New Grand Conclusions and Good Advice”(!). Author Thomas Day, retired music department chair at Rhode Island’s Salve Regina University, laments destructive inroads of popular culture.)

The headline question accompanied this April piece on GetReligion.org by its editor Terry “tmatt” Mattingly: That might suggest slant from a boyhood Southern Baptist turned (guitar playing) Eastern Orthodox. However, Mattingly was not promoting his own liturgical preference, but reporting concerns raised by Kenny Lamm, the worship strategist for the Southern Baptists’ North Carolina state convention, who leads workshops nationwide.

Lamm recently posed these issues on his website in response to a pre-Easter e-mail from a frustrated man who’s been searching for a new church to join and visited one possibility four weeks in a row. Here’s what he experienced there.

Programmed lighting that blinds the “audience” (notably, not “congregation” or “worshippers”) in a pitch black room so you cannot see your fellow Christians. Haze machines. Unfamiliar songs “we can’t follow” with “unmemorable” melodies that leap uncomfortably, and with a vocal range running so high “the average singer” cannot reach the notes (a la the National Anthem!). Amplified instruments so loud they bury the sloppily dressed singers on stage and far moreso those out in the seats, and make the ears hurt (earplugs are kindly provided in the lobby).

Result: “We did not see one person singing — not one.”


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Podcast: Can journalists and religious leaders learn how to talk about what 'news' is?

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Podcast: Can journalists and religious leaders learn how to talk about what 'news' is?

Day after day, year after year (this week opened year 35 for my national “On Religion” column) I receive all kinds of “press releases” from people who want me to write columns about this, that or the other.

Some folks still send these printed on dead-tree pulp, if you can imagine that. The vast majority arrive via email or in press kits (mainly for books) via UPS, Fedex or the U.S. Postal Service.

I am happy to check out most of this material. However, about 90% or more of these offerings are sent by PR professionals who appear to have zero idea what I write about or the audience for my columns. They are simply throwing cheerful digital spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.

In short, they do not understand “news” — what it is and what it is not.

What can religious leaders and/or organizations do to improve their success rates with reporters like me? That was half the equation that we discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here for temporary link to tune that in).

The other half? Just flip that reporter’s notebook around. How can reporters do a better job finding the right voices to include in their coverage of events and trends linked to religion? How can journalists convince clergy and other religious folks to cooperate with press coverage — especially when dealing with controversial topics and scandals?

The podcast was recorded while I was in Los Angeles for two forums hosted by the Poynter Institute under this title: “Telling the Stories of Faith and the Faithful.” The first forum was for reporters and editors, including quite a few who are not religion-beat specialists. The second day, yes, focused on talks with a small circle of religious leaders about understanding how journalists think and work.

We were talking about many of the same questions and issues on both days — only viewed from different sides of a reporter’s notebook (or smartphone, in this age). Here is a bite of the Poynter summary of the session with reporters:


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RIP Charles Stanley, a Southern Baptist media pro (and a megachurch preacher, too)

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RIP Charles Stanley, a Southern Baptist media pro (and a megachurch preacher, too)

There’s an old saying in the Sunbelt that goes like this: When Jesus makes his glorious return on the last day, He will still have to fly through Atlanta.

I will visit that giant airport myself, today, on my way home from speaking at a Poynter Institute conference — “Telling the Stories of Faith and the Faithful” here in Los Angeles. One day featured meetings with West Coast reporters, including many that don’t work the religion beat, and the second day focused on talks with a circle of faith-group leaders. There were great questions and lots of dialogue.

Thinking about the Atlanta airport reminded me of what I think was as highly symbolic encounter with the Rev. Charles Stanley, a pivotal Southern Baptist leader and preacher who died this week. See this Associated Press report: “Charles Stanley, influential Baptist preacher, dies at 90.”

The leader of First Baptist Church of Atlanta was elected SBC president in 1985 during what was, in my experience, one of the most intense, even angry, national conventions ever (and that’s saying something) during the near life-and-death Southern Baptist civil war of that era.

To get to that meeting in Kansas City, working for The Charlotte Observer, I had to (#DUH) change planes in Atlanta. I ended up on the same plane with Stanley, who was rumored to be a candidate for SBC president. He was in First Class, obviously, and I was not, obviously. After we had been airborne for an hour or so, I walked up front to give Stanley my card and to request an interview before the election.

Seeing that he was reading a document, I confess that I looked it over before I alerted him to my presence at his right shoulder.

Trust me — I wish I had a photographic memory. Why? Because he was reading a professional set of public-relations guidelines describing (#WaitForIt) how to deal with journalists after his election as SBC president.


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