Hey news consumers, remember that time when President Donald Trump stood in front of a church (sort of in an urban war zone), held up a Bible and the world went nuts?
Chances are good that you heard about it. However, as a refresher, here are 66,100,1000 Google references to this incident, as well as as an imperfect collection of other Trumpian news involving the word “Bible.”
Or remember that time when Trump — long-time member of the liberal Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and probably, in terms of private life, one of the most secular presidents in American history — went to Liberty University to court evangelicals and said this (care of an NPR report):
"We're going to protect Christianity. I can say that. I don't have to be politically correct," he thundered at the beginning of his speech at the conservative evangelical university.
Then he moved on to cite "Two Corinthians 3:17, that's the whole ballgame. ... Is that the one you like?" Trump asked. "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
Over at Google, there appear to be a mere 2,380,000 references to this “Two Corinthians” incident.
Truth is, politicians often say and do strange things while courting support in religious settings that are way outside their own cultural comfort zone.
This brings us to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, which focuses on the coverage — actually, the lack of coverage — of the recent visit that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul paid to the Christian Cultural Center, a massive and very influential predominantly African-American megachurch in Brooklyn. Click here to get that podcast, or head over to Apple Podcasts.
Now, there was more to this political-religious event than the hilarious typo in the rushed transcript of the governor’s remarks produced, apparently, by a staff member. Check out the opening words here: “The phrase be to God, this is the day the Lord has made. Amen, amen.”
Let’s assume that the governor actually said “praise be to God.”
There’s a lot going on in this short speech, including Hochul talking about her blue-collar, immigrant, big-family, trailer home roots. She didn’t mention her Irish Catholic heritage or her bulletproof record of support for abortion rights at any point during a pregnancy. There was this interesting passage about her sense of divine calling to office:
I will be brief because I know you want to hear the Word and the beautiful singers who I also draw such strength from. … I feel that God has tapped me on the shoulder as well because everything I have done in life has been because of the Grace of God leading me to that place and now God has asked me to serve humbly as your servant, as your Governor, and yes it is the first female governor.
But here is the passage that the governor’s own team emphasized as the talking point of the day. We are talking about the second paragraph. I have added the preceding paragraph, to show the context of her “apostles” remarks:
We are not through this pandemic. I wished we were but I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what — God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers — he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. Thank you. And I wear my 'vaccinated' necklace all the time to say I'm vaccinated. All of you, yes, I know you're vaccinated, you're the smart ones, but you know there's people out there who aren't listening to God and what God wants. You know who they are.
I need you to be my apostles. I need you to go out and talk about it and say, we owe this to each other. We love each other. Jesus taught us to love one another and how do you show that love but to care about each other enough to say, please get the vaccine because I love you and I want you to live, I want our kids to be safe when they're in schools, I want to be safe when you go to a doctor's office or to a hospital and are treated by somebody, you don't want to get the virus from them. You're already sick or you wouldn't be there. We have to solve this, my friends. I need every one of you. I need you to let them know that this is how we can fight this pandemic."
The question raised in the podcast: Would a Republican politico — Trump, perhaps — have received more press coverage if he or she had used similar awkward language in a rally or service at a politically powerful White evangelical megachurch? Would the GOP politico have been accused, just maybe, of blurring lines between church and state?
What if these remarks were connected, by timing, with a bold decision to fire workers who refused vaccinations, including those who claimed the shots violated their religious beliefs? Oh, and these workers are also being denied unemployment benefits? Hochul didn’t claim divine inspiration on these moves, but critics would say that is implied (a connection that certainly would have been made if the remarks were made by a Republican).
What happened in the mainstream coverage of this drama?
Well, basically, there wasn’t any coverage to speak of. This was another one of those “conservative” news stories featured in The Washington Times and elsewhere. This didn’t even draw a lively headline in The New York Post (that I have seen).
A piece at Yahoo — Is that mainstream news? — did add this:
Hochul has spoken dismissively regarding those who would seek a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine.
"I'm not aware of a sanctioned religious exemption from any organized religion," she told reporters during a Sept. 16 press briefing. "In fact, they are encouraging the opposite. Everybody from the pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated."
That’s a valid point, of course, one underscored in remarks on the right by voices such as the Rev. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist in Dallas and the Rev. Franklin Graham. As we discussed just last week, in another podcast, the religious liberty issues linked to vaccines are are complex, but public officials can certainly argue that this is a matter of a “clear threat to life and health.”
Still, this debate is a strong news hook for coverage of the Hochul sermonette. Right?
If so, why was this story avoided by mainstream newsrooms, especially in New York City and the Acela Zone? There are several reasons:
* This was an example of “good religion,” for most journalists — which isn’t as newsy as “bad religion.” How can one tell the difference? “Bad religion” clashes with the doctrines of the New York Times editorial pages, for starters.
* A variation on that theme: The “religious left” is actually more active, at the church level, than the Religious Right — a fact that receives little news coverage. See this must-read analysis of data collected by (who else) Ryan Burge and Paul A. Djupe at the Religion in Public weblog: “The Religious Left is Small But Loud.”
* This was an African-American church, a zone in which journalists rarely see church-state tensions.
* This particular congregation has, in the past, been courted by Republicans and Democrats. As a glowing New York Times profile of its pastor noted: “His church, the largest in New York City, has long been considered a required stop on the way to City Hall and beyond.” In other words, this event was business as usual in New York City.
Any questions?
Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it on to others.
FIRST IMAGE: Image of Jesus and his apostles posted at StainedGlassInc.com