, , , , , , ,

It will be easy for journalists to find God connections in Turkey's run-off election

, , , , , , ,
It will be easy for journalists to find God connections in Turkey's run-off election

A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to spend a few days in Turkey (recently re-branded as Türkiye), a country I’d not visited in 19 years. Back then, I was in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeastern sector — near the location of Turkey’s Feb. 6 earthquakes. It was like a visit to America’s Jim Crow past, as Kurds are a despised minority in Turkey.

My most recent journey (courtesy of the country’s tourism board) was very different — a swing around the country’s south-central precincts tracing the steps of St. Paul, who zig-zagged about Turkey during several visits.

While there, I experienced plenty of reminders (billboards and cars parades blasting slogans) that this was Turkey’s election season and that the country’s future very much hung on whether the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could be unseated in the upcoming May 28 run-off election.

Stay with that thought, because we will return to some observations on religion angles in the upcoming presidential run-off election.

Whatever happens, Erdogan will be a footnote in history. As Turkey’s most famous native son throughout the ages, Paul grew up in Tarsus, about 10 miles from the Mediterranean coast. It’s thought that his Jewish forebears arrived there a few centuries before and were made Roman citizens due to them being landowners. Tarsus was our first stop and because it’s impossible to know exactly where Paul’s family lived, the government has had to rely on where church tradition says it might have been.

So, there’s a “St. Paul’s well” with water you can still drink; some first-century ruins under protective glass, a St. Paul Museum surrounded by mulberry bushes and even an Islamic site purporting to be the biblical prophet Daniel’s tomb. One needs a tour guide to get about this town; these sites would have been difficult to locate in a rental car.

Those of us who live in the New World have difficulty imagining life in a country built on layers and layers of archeological sites; where’s it’s nothing to find a 2,000-year-old piece of statuary in one’s back yard and where the earliest Christians hung out.


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

Tim Keller sought 'winsome' Manhattan apologetics, a goal that became more difficult

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Tim Keller sought 'winsome' Manhattan apologetics, a goal that became more difficult

If one looks up the word “winsome” in a dictionary, here is a typical example of what shows up, via Merriam-Webster: “generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence.”

However, a Google search for the term “winsome,” when combined with “Tim Keller,” opens up a window into a completely different world — one closely linked to debates about the meaning of the word “evangelical” in a Donald Trump-era culture.

Frankly, I am not going to go there. What I will do is urge GetReligion readers who visit Twitter to follow the #TimKeller hashtag and check out the waves of tributes in the wake of the passing of one of the most important American evangelicals — defined in terms of doctrine — in recent decades.

Instead of looking at the tsunami of news coverage, I will simply note the obvious — Keller is receiving much, or even most, of this attention because he lived, worked, preached and wrote in New York City. If his career had unfolded in the Bible Belt, mainstream journalists would never have heard of him. Thus, here is the New York Times double-decker headline on its obituary (which ran quickly, but inside the print edition):

The Rev. Timothy Keller, Pioneering Manhattan Evangelist, Dies at 72

Shunning fire and brimstone, he became a best-selling author and founded Redeemer Presbyterian Church, which drew young New Yorkers.

The Gray Lady’s lede offered this:

The Rev. Timothy J. Keller, a best-selling author and theorist of Christianity who performed a modern miracle of his own — establishing a theologically orthodox church in Manhattan that attracted thousands of young professional followers — died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 72.

Yes, we can talk about the accuracy of the word “evangelist” in the headline. Once again, there are mainstream journalists who believe that is simply another way to say “evangelical.” Unless I missed something, Keller was not active in holding the kinds of public events — think Billy Graham “crusades” — normally associated with public evangelism. Were there some Central Park rallies with Keller sermons and altar calls that I missed? Please let me know.

What he was, of course, was a church builder and an “apologist” for small-o orthodox Christianity, of the Reformed form,” both in preaching and in writing — in books and a host of other forms.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Plug-In: What's happening with tense Southern Baptists and disunited Methodists?

, , , , , ,
Plug-In: What's happening with tense Southern Baptists and disunited Methodists?

It’s time for another roundup of religion news from the mainstream press and beyond. Please click lots of links and pass this along to others.

Among last week’s late-developing headlines: Influential pastor Tim Keller, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2020, was placed on hospice care, as Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana reported. Keller then passed away a short time later. Click here for the obituary that ran deep inside The New York Times: “The Rev. Timothy Keller, Pioneering Manhattan Evangelist, Dies at 72.” Click here to follow the #TimKeller threads on Twitter.

On a happier note, “The Chosen” — the popular TV show about Jesus and his disciples — seems to be influencing baby names, as the Deseret News’ Mya Jaradat explains.

The major story this week — the material for this post was collected before Keller’s death — concerns doctrinal battles by the Southern Baptists, not all of them in the South, and the United Methodists, who are not so united these days.

What To Know: The Big Story

Back in the saddle?: Last year, the Southern Baptist Convention kicked out Saddleback Church, founded by Rick Warren, for appointing women as pastors.

Now Saddleback is appealing that decision, asking messengers to the SBC’s annual meeting in New Orleans next month to reverse it.

“The appeal extends the standoff between the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and one of its largest, most successful churches,” the Associated Press’ Peter Smith writes.

Read related coverage by Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt, Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks, The Tennessean’s Liam Adams and the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner.

Affiliation and disaffiliation: Don’t be surprised if those terms end up as the Methodists’ words of the year.


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

LGBTQ Catholics dream of a changed church, while seeing reasons to hope

, , , , , , , , ,
LGBTQ Catholics dream of a changed church, while seeing reasons to hope

As a child in inner-city Milwaukee, Father Bryan Massingale's grandmother gave him a leather-bound copy of The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, along with a dream that he might need it someday.

"My grandmother was not delusional. She did not live in denial of reality," said Massingale, a Jesuit priest who holds an endowed chair in ethics at Fordham University, in New York City. "Her gift was a vision, an act of hope. It was a dream, a hope, a reminder that the neighborhood, with its drugs, violence and rodent-infested corner store with overpriced goods, did not define or limit who I could be."

That's important to know, he declared, since he was speaking as "a Black, gay priest and theologian" at Fordham's recent Ignatian Q Conference for LGBTQ students from Jesuit campuses. This event was a "space for our dreaming, for queer dreams" of hope for "despised and disdained and stigmatized peoples," he added.

"I dream of a church where gay priests and lesbian sisters are acknowledged as the holy and faithful leaders they already are," he said, in a published version of his address. "I dream of a church where LGBTQ employees and schoolteachers can teach our children, serve God's people and have their vocations, sexuality and committed loves affirmed. …

"I dream of a church that enthusiastically celebrates same-sex loves as incarnations of God's love among us."

Theological visions of this kind inspire hope for some Catholics and concern for others.

Thus, the North American phase of the Vatican's global Synod on Synodality found "strong tensions within the Church," while participants in the virtual assemblies also "felt hope and encouragement and a desire for the synodal process to continue," according to the 36-page report (.pdf here) released on April 12 by U.S. and Canadian Catholic leaders.


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

Lots of interesting issues haunt this question! Should Christians Use Tarot Cards?

, , , , , , ,
Lots of interesting issues haunt this question! Should Christians Use Tarot Cards?

QUESTION:

Should Christians Use Tarot Cards?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

If you think this topic is off the wall, at least it’s not off the news.

Tarot for Christians is promoted by the May cover story in The Christian Century, a venerable independent magazine that helps define what’s trendy and acceptable for “Mainline” and liberal Protestant readers.

The article’s author is the monthly’s own Associate Editor Jessica Mesman, who also co-founded the Sick Pilgrim blog aimed at “people who questioned EVERYTHING.” Her self-described social circle consists of fellow “lapsed Catholics” along with “exvangelicals, and other ‘deconstructing’ Christians” who seek to fill the vacuum left by their prior religious “narrative threads.”

For the uninitiated: Tarot cards consist of a deck numbering 78, with 22 to symbolize “Major Arcana” or life events, and 56 “Minor Arcana” that cover everyday occurrences.

Some devotees may claim the practice is rooted in ancient Egyptian magic. But conventional history says Tarot originated as an entertaining card game in 15th century Italy that later merged into the occult movement’s quest for liberating answers through access to hidden wisdom. Tarot was newly popularized as a “New Age” spiritual practice in America’s 1960s counterculture and the “Neo-Pagan” movement.

A Tarot card reader, whether a paid professional or the individual, turns over Tarot cards and reflects by intuition on what the images say. Often this is divination or “fortune telling,” believed to provide information and guidance about the future. But as with Christian writers like Brittany Muller, Mesman’s own practice reflects on the cards’ images as “a tool for self-directed spiritual contemplation,” rather like Enneagrams or the Myers-Briggs self-assessment questionnaire.

“There doesn’t have to be any magic involved — not in the sense of manipulation of supernatural power,” she explains.


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

Podcast: A growing army of Americans (#surprise) no longer trusts the news media

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Podcast: A growing army of Americans (#surprise) no longer trusts the news media

Were there tears in Anderson Cooper’s eyes? Did you hear a tremor in his voice?

A clip featuring the CNN superstar (that’s a relative term, these days) went viral after he wore his elite heart on his finely tailored sleeve when responding to woke social-media meltdowns after The. Most. Trusted. Name. In. News. dared to air a ratings-chasing “town hall” with former President Donald Trump.

By all means, watch the YouTube video featured at the top of this post, because it was featured in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), which focused on another set of bleak, hellish poll numbers about Americans doubting the mainstream-news industrial complex. I argued — no surprise if you read my recent Religion & Liberty essay (“The Evolving Religion of Journalism”) — that niche-press coverage of moral, cultural and religious issues has played a big role in this disaster.

Cooper’s dramatic soliloquy included some strong language aimed directly at CNN’s shrinking choir of loyal viewers on what used to be called the “left.” In a way, it’s a kind of niche-news Rorschach test. What do you see and hear?

Meanwhile, here are some of the key quotes, drawn from a rather snarky piece at The Hollywood Reporter (I have added bold text for emphasis):

Echoing some of the points that network CEO Chris Licht had made to CNN staff … (Cooper) attempted to pivot and spin why CNN felt it was important to cover Trump. “The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night, that man … may be president of the United States in less than two years. And that audience that upset you, that’s a sampling of about half the country.”

He added, “If last night showed anything, it showed [Trump winning] can happen again. It is happening again. He hasn’t changed and he is running hard. You have every right to be outraged today and angry, and never watch this network again.”

Cooper then rather bizarrely put the onus back on the audience to not remain ignorant of people on the other side of the political divide and incredibly implied that some people were ignorant of Trump. “Do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away? If we all only listen to those we agree with, it may actually do the opposite.”

Yes, the crucial word “silo” was used, in an emotional dermon aimed directly at CNN viewers. At some point, we can expect someone on Fox News to offer some variation of this litany when talking to its post-Tucker Carlson audience.

This is the media dynamic at the heart of trends in the Divided States of America.


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

The past is dead? Time for news analysis of America's scrambled Protestant marketplace

, , , , , , , , , ,
The past is dead? Time for news analysis of America's scrambled Protestant marketplace

Starting with a band of Anglicans landing at Jamestown in 1607 and then Pilgrim dissenters at Plymouth in 1620, various forms of Protestantism collectively dominated what became the United States. That broad cultural hegemony persisted through Revolution, Civil War, Catholic immigration, industrialization, globalization, and Protestants’ countless internal squabbles, splits and reunions.

But the Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center tells us the U.S. population is now only 46.6% Protestant. Add to that these newsworthy numbers on Protestantism’s Big Three and we find a scrambled scenario of historic proportions that invites thorough journalistic analysis.

* Last week the Southern Baptist Convention reported its worst-ever decline of 457,371 members from 2021 to 2022 – and of 1.5 million just since 2018 – to the current 13.2 million. The denomination had posted steady gains over a century until recent years. 

Oh, here’s a newsroom calendar alert: That slide should roil the Baptists’ important June 13-14 annual meeting in New Orleans, alongside disputes over female pastors and sexual abuse response, and a competitive presidential election.

* The news service of the United Methodist Church, #3 in size among U.S. Protestant groups, last week posted tabulation of departures since 2019 of 2,996 conservative congregations, roughly one-tenth of the denomination, with more in process. Most are joining the newborn Global Methodist Church. (Update: This week, Methodist conservatives put dropouts at 3,356 congregations, with another 1,000 or more likely.)

* Meanwhile, other Protestants are gaining. In particular, The Religion Guy has proclaimed the following as 2022’s “Story of the Year.” In November, the latest U.S. Religion Census revealed that independent, non-denominational congregations are now decisively the nation’s largest grouping of Protestants, with 21 million adherents in 44,319 congregations. Most are Evangelicals. This relegates the Southern Baptists down to #2 in size.

Pew Research defined three categories, “Evangelical Protestants” at 25.4% of Americans, “Mainline Protestants” at 14.7%, and members of “Historically Black” church groups at 6.5%.


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

Yes, what about that meeting between Pope Francis and an exiled Russian Orthodox leader?

, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Yes, what about that meeting between Pope Francis and an exiled Russian Orthodox leader?

So, my gentle readers, please allow me to flash back to a recent news story that I intended to discuss, but travel got in the way. This was a story that may or may not have been important, but we really don’t know because it centered on a private meeting between Pope Francis and a very symbolic Russian Orthodox leader.

Why to I say that Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest is a highly”symbolic” Orthodox leader, especially at this point in the hellish conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

To explain my use of “symbolic,” we need to look at the Associated Press story that ran with this headline: “Pope in Hungary meets with Ukrainian refugees, Russian envoy.”

Ah, but was Metropolitan Hilarion a “Russian envoy,” in this case? Hold that thought, because things get more complex in the AP lede:

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Pope Francis plunged into both sides of Russia’s war with Ukraine on Saturday, greeting some of the 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled across the border to Hungary during a public prayer service and then meeting privately with an envoy of the Russian Orthodox Church that has strongly supported the war.

First, an important point of grammar in the final clause of that sentence, as in “meeting privately with an envoy of the Russian Orthodox Church that has strongly supported the war.” I added the bold italics, stressing that this is “that,” rather than “who.”

As we will see, it appears that the AP team covering this event knew little or nothing about the recent personal history of Hilarion. Then again, AP may have — for for some reason — chosen to omit interesting and potentially important information.

Hold that thought (again), as we read some material that appears later in this story:

Immediately after greeting and encouraging the refugees, Francis … met with the Russian Orthodox Church’s representative in Hungary, Metropolitan Hilarion, who developed close relations with the Vatican during his years as the Russian church’s foreign minister. The Vatican said the 20-minute meeting at the Holy See’s embassy in Budapest was “cordial.”

The Russian church’s strong support for the Kremlin’s war has rankled the Vatican and prevented a second papal meeting with Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.


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

View from Rome: Italian press aims to inform, but loves tabloid-style Vatican scandals

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
View from Rome: Italian press aims to inform, but loves tabloid-style Vatican scandals

There’s nothing like walking down Via della Conciliazione in Rome. It’s a very long street, bustling with cars and tourists, that feeds into St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. It’s a reminder of how big and imposing the Vatican can be, at least physically, in the increasingly secular West.

Italy, however, remains a Catholic nation, at least culturally, with reminders everywhere you look.

I am back in Italy for the first time since 2018. Unable to visit in recent years because of the pandemic, I am happy to be back to visit family and watch some soccer.   

My return to Italy also gives me the chance to observe how Italian journalists cover the Vatican and Pope Francis. What this close look reveals is a press fixated less on the doctrinal battles and culture-war issues we see in the American press. Instead, it’s all about international politics, the disappearance of a young girl (more on that later) and banking scandals.  

Let me explain. Italian media very much cover the papacy as a political force (it still very much is in this part of the world) and less of a religious one. As we say here at religion, many journalists believe religion is news to the degree that if affects politics.

Scandals involving the Holy See, even ones that are decades old and unsolved, continue to intrigue readers. It’s true that culture war issues were increasingly a factor in Italy’s elections that led to Giorgia Meloni becoming the country’s first female prime minister. It’s also true that Italian newspapers are not objective — many belong to political parties — but they don’t hide that fact from readers. That’s how the press works in Europe.

The big stories the Italian press have covered lately are the pope’s recent meeting with Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky at the Vatican, the unsolved “Vatican Girl” scandal from 1983 and an ongoing trial that has revealed a series of financial scandals. Another big issue for the Vatican and Italy is falling birth rates, a story with strong religious overtones.

These stories transcend whatever political bias Italian newspapers bring to the table. They are seen as important to the country’s geo-political situation (in the case of Ukraine and birth rates).

The other stories reveal a Vatican that is very much involved in shadowy behavior — a corrupt institution that makes for attention-grabbing headlines meant to get clicks and sell newspapers. A murder mystery and alleged financial wrongdoing on the part of bishops will do that.


Please respect our Commenting Policy