Back in the early 1980s, I worked at The Charlotte Observer during an interesting time in Presbyterian history. I am referring to the final crossing of the “t”s and the dotting of the “i”s that completed the union of the northern United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and the southern Presbyterian Church in the United States to create the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), one of the “Seven Sisters” of liberal Protestantism.
At that time, Charlotte was a rare Southern city — in that there were as many, or more, Presbyterians than there were Southern Baptists. Thus, a “Presbyterian” merger was big news.
Ah, but trying to write about this story in a mainstream newspaper was a nightmare, due to the complexity of Presbyterianism in that region. You start with the churches that merged, the UPC and the PCUS. Then you add the PCUSA. For starters, do you also know the differences between the PCUSA, the ARPC (Associate Reformed Presbyterian), the CPC (Cumberland Presbyterian), the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), the OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian) and the EPC (Evangelical Presbyterian Church)?
You couldn’t cover Charlotte back then without being able to handle this doctrinal alphabet soup.
This brings me to Mark Galli and the firestorm about his Christianity Today editorial (GetReligion “big idea” post here) asking for Donald Trump to be removed from the White House. At the moment, some journalists are acting like CT is part of the Religious Right, while Trump-ites are saying it’s now on the religious left. All of this, of course, is linked to confusion about how to define That Word — “evangelicalism.”
As you would expect, Galli — who is retiring as CT editor — has been in a hot spotlight.
So who is this guy? The Los Angeles Times offered a short profile (yes, the original headline called Galli an “evangelist” editor) that included this:
Galli was born in San Francisco and grew up in Santa Cruz — liberal hotspots and somewhat unlikely cities in which to develop strong evangelical influences. And yet Galli has spent much of his career at Christianity Today, which Billy Graham founded in the 1950s.
“When I was a teenager ... my mother had a conversion experience actually watching Billy Graham on TV,” Galli said.
During a difficult emotional time, Galli’s mother got on her knees in their home, in front of the the television, and accepted Jesus Christ, he said. A few months later, on Dec. 19, 1965 — 54 years, to the day, before Galli published this editorial — he too accepted Christ during an altar call. …
Like those evangelicals who support Trump, Galli shares their anti-abortion stance and support for religious freedom. But he said he doesn’t understand why Trump’s supporters seem to dig in their heels when defending what he considers the president’s immoral behavior.
This sounds like a rather ordinary, West Coast version of an “evangelical” biography — but one that contains zero specific information about the editor’s denominational or theological background.
A similar piece at The Chicago Tribune slips in an interesting word or two:
Galli is 67, a native Californian who has lived for three decades in the suburb of Glen Ellyn. Now an Anglican, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister but relinquished his ordination when he turned to journalism. He became managing editor of Christianity Today in 2000 and has been editor-in-chief since 2012.
He calls himself “a huge pro-life guy” and an advocate of religious freedom, but he rejects the argument that just because Trump has acted and talked in defense of those stances, Trump deserves to be defended.
OK, inquiring evangelical minds would want to know: Is Galli an “Anglican” or an “Episcopalian”? There are evangelicals in both of those camps, these days. But let me state this in political terms, so that journalists will understand: Is Galli in Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s denomination or in one of the Anglican rebel alliances that are clashing with the Episcopal Church in North America and elsewhere? This is an argument that ended up affecting CT, soon after the retirement of a previous editor (yes, note the byline on that piece).
Also, if Galli was ordained as a “Presbyterian” minister, what brand of Presbyterian was he?
A bit of online searching indicates that Galli was once the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Sacramento. But is that the PCUSA congregation that has “closed its doors” or the conservative PCA congregation with the same name that stresses its belief in biblical authority?
A CT piece about Galli’s upcoming retirement — “The Gospel According to Mark (Galli)” — included this interesting comment:
… Even as he paddled in various Christian streams, Mark resolutely remained an evangelical, with commitments forged in the Presbyterian wars of his years as a pastor and wielded with grace.
Ah. Presbyterian wars. I have covered those.
What is my point here? Well, I am not trying to say what some pro-Trump evangelicals are saying — that folks like Galli are secret liberals, kind of a deep-state force hiding in famous evangelical institutions, like Christianity Today.
I understand the whole seeking-a-new denomination process, as a pastor’s son raised in a centrist Southern Baptist home who veered through evangelical Episcopal life on his way to ancient Eastern Orthodoxy, in an era when lots of evangelicals and mainline folks have made similar journeys. I know that my basic small-o orthodox beliefs didn’t change in that process, but I did gain lots of new information and convictions in big-O Orthodoxy.
So this post really isn’t about Mark Galli. I cannot say how his pilgrimage has affected this story.
I do, however, know that things like doctrine and culture are important and that journalists need to ask questions and nail down the specifics. And, well, I also know that a former PCUSA pastor raised in California who joined the leadership class among northern evangelicals in Wheaton-world Anglicanism are from a different CULTURE than most of the people who voted for Trump in, well, places like Baptist pews in Dallas and Lynchburg, Va.
As a #NeverTrump #NeverHillary guy from Day 1, I probably agree with Galli on all kinds of things. After reading his editorial, I think we would have an interesting discussion of why there are evangelicals, Catholic, Orthodox and others who disagree with us on the morality of voting for someone like Trump (who I believe was unqualified to even run for president because of his amoral and unstable nature).
The bottom line: There are many critics of CT and Galli who WOULD want to know specific, factual information about his denominational history and where he currently worships. There are evangelicals who support him who would want to know, as well.
So once again I say: Doctrine matters. Culture matters. In religion-beat work, the facts matter.
Ask questions. Quote the answers. If journalists want to know where these stories are going, then they need to grasp the importance of the basic details. It’s called journalism and the religion-beat deserves the same attention to detail as politics, sports and business reporting, as well as other complicated beats that newsroom managers take seriously.