Terry Mattingly

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Farewell, after 20 years: Why we did what we did

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Farewell, after 20 years: Why we did what we did

If you know anything about world religions, then you know that Easter is a big deal in Christianity.

In Eastern Orthodox churches, the Big Idea is stated this way, over and over, in rites for Pascha (Easter): “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life” (see this flash mob celebration in Lebanon).

I don’t bring this up as a matter of evangelism or some other #triggerwarning behavior. I am noting that this is an essential fact about Christianity, the world’s largest religious faith. Easter isn’t a “bunny” thing.

This brings us to one of the more unusual “religion ghosts” we spotted several times during the 20-year history of GetReligion. Here’s a case study at Newsweek and another at Facebook news. However, the classic version of this ghost appeared in the holy (in journalism terms) pages of The New York Times in this 2014 feature: “Hoping War-Weary Tourists Will Return to Israel.” Here is the key passage:

On a recent afternoon in the Old City of Jerusalem, while fighting raged in Gaza, Bilal Abu Khalaf hosted a group of Israeli tourists at his textile store in the Christian Quarter — one of Jerusalem’s tourist gems. …

“That’s the first group I’ve had here in more than a month,” Mr. Abu Khalaf said. “There have been whole weeks when no one has been inside the shop. I’ve sold almost nothing the entire summer. Business hasn’t been this bad since the first intifada in 1989, when the Palestinian groups ordered us to shutter our stores.”

Nearby, the vast Church of the Holy Sepulcher marking the site where many Christians believe that Jesus was buried, usually packed with pilgrims, was echoing and empty.

Now, what’s unusual about that? Well, it helps to know that the printed version said:

Nearby, the vast Church of the Holy Sepulcher marking the site where many Christians believe that Jesus is buried, usually packed with pilgrims, was echoing and empty.

It’s all about the word “is,” isn’t it?

Inquiring minds wanted to know: Was there anyone in the editorial chain at the world’s newspaper of record who knew the essential fact that traditional Christians don’t believe Jesus is buried anywhere? It’s that whole “Easter” thing.


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Crossroads: Failing to 'get' religion helped create schism between readers and newsrooms

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Crossroads: Failing to 'get' religion helped create schism between readers and newsrooms

Questions. Yes, we have some final (sort of) questions about journalism and religion news.

One one level, this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) focused on all those headlines about the red ink and devastating layoffs in elite newsrooms such as Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. For a quick summary of the drama, see this mini-report at Axios.

The news is staggering for people like me who have spent decades in journalism education — encouraging students to seek careers in traditional and online newsrooms at the local, regional and national level.

Thus, it’s hard to cheer about these disasters in the lives of many professionals. However, millions of millions of Americans — especially in red zip codes — have given up on the mainstream press. What about them? Should they cheer as major news organizations implode?

This week’s podcast is the last one that will be featured here at GetReligion, as we close a week from today, on this weblog’s 20th birthday. However, future episodes of Crossroads will continue to be available through the podcast page at the GetReligion.org archive, at my own Tmatt.net, the Religion Unplugged website, Lutheran Public Radio and the Apple podcasts page.

In this (sort of) finale, it was obvious to ask: Does the current newsroom employment crisis have anything to do with decades of journalism leaders failing to, you know, “get” religion when covering one of the most complex religious cultures in the Western world?

After recording the podcast, I had a flashback to a story that Rod “Live Not By Lies” Dreher shared about his years at the Dallas Morning News. Then, lo and behold, Dreher retold key parts of the story in a new Substack post (“Journalism Continues To Crash, Burn”).

A few of his colleagues were worried about the increasingly liberal — in terms of religion, culture and politics — product that the News was producing for the region it served.

“It aggravated us to no end that our readers were mostly conservatives — they really were; we had the audience research to prove it — but too many in the newsroom were bound and determined to act as if that wasn’t true.”


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If a NFL coaching legend quotes scripture in a press conference, does it make a sound?

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If a NFL coaching legend quotes scripture in a press conference, does it make a sound?

One more time.

For years, Bobby Ross, Jr., and I have written lots of posts about religion-shaped holes in mainstream sports coverage. Apparently, very few GetReligion readers were interested in this topic (as opposed to, let’s say, the American audience for a prime NFL game).

But we soldiered on. This brings me — one last time — to a curious case study involving my Baltimore Ravens (who are still in the Super Bowl hunt, at this point).

Recently, a commentator on one of the dozens of NFL commentary shows asked an interesting question: Why don’t we talk more about the ongoing success of John Harbaugh, the Ravens head coach since 2008? No one had a good answer.

But I will ask a related question: After the Raven’s 34-20 playoff victory over the Houston Texans, which video clip was easier to find? The one (a) with Harbaugh showing his dad-style dancing moves in the joyful locker room or the one (b) in which he opened his press conference, with a very serious tone of voice, with a favorite Bible quote?

Click those Google links and you will see that, once again, the role that Christian faith (Catholic, to be specific) plays in the life and work of this future Hall of Fame coach is a “conservative” news story. Period. The viral dancing moves are much more important.

Which element of these two elements of Harbaugh’s personality is the most important in his life and work? The most accurate answer is “BOTH.”

However, I suspect that Harbaugh would say that his faith is more important. This brings me to the point that Ross and I have tried to make about the faith-shaped hole in most sports news coverage (and Clemente Lisi has noted this in global soccer coverage, as well). We are not stating that it is automatically news when sports personalities talk about their faith. It is new when they consistently cite their faith as a crucial factor how and why they do what they do in their career and life.

In this case, Fox News (naturally) went with the basic facts: “Ravens head coach John Harbaugh recites Bible verse to open press conference after playoff win.”


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Concerning Bob Smietana's kind RNS look at GetReligion (with a few friendly quibbles)

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Concerning Bob Smietana's kind RNS look at GetReligion (with a few friendly quibbles)

May I have a brief moment, please, to ask a question to my fellow religion-beat reporters?

I have a style question for you folks. Has the ever-evolving Associated Press stylebook addressed the issue of whether the news beat on which we work is also called the “God beat,” the “Godbeat,” the “godbeat” or maybe the “gods beat”?

Just asking. I asking that question because many GetReligion readers may have seen the Religion News Service piece by Bob Smietana that ran with this double-decker headline:

After 20 years, Terry Mattingly bids farewell to GetReligion

Religion reporting still matters, Mattingly says, but the internet’s ‘preaching to the choir’ algorithms have won out

In that news piece for mainstream newspapers, Smietana went with “ ‘God beat’ specialists” when describing religion-beat professionals. That’s interesting, since I have always seen “Godbeat” as the official nickname (at least for old-timers like me).

I should stress that Smietana and I talked for 90 minutes for this piece, after quite a few long conversations over the years. It’s a remarkably kind piece, although I really wished some other GetReligionistas had been quoted.

I was glad that Smietana did this story. Last year, the media-ethics pro Aly Colon of Washington and Lee University asked me to nominate some speakers for a pair of Poynter seminars to help journalists who, while they don’t work on the religion beat, their work frequently veers into religion territory. Smietana was one of the first reporters I mentioned, stressing that “while Bob and I have argued about lots of things for many years” he is a “pro’s pro on the beat who knows his stuff and he needs to be there.”

In this RNS feature, Smietana wrote:

A proud curmudgeon, Mattingly is known for his outspoken opinions and blunt criticism, as well as his loyalty and willingness to make friends with people he disagrees with.


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Thinking about 'God Made Trump,' with 'Hemingway -- Mark Hemingway'

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Thinking about 'God Made Trump,' with 'Hemingway -- Mark Hemingway'

Editor’s note: While preparing for this week’s podcast (“Carefully entering the hall of mirrors created by the 'God Made Trump' video”) I emailed a former GetReligionista who is way smarter than me about the Byzantine Beltway world. That would be “Mark — Mark Hemingway.” If you get that reference, you know that @Heminator knows a few things about mass-media satire. Here is his response, with slight editing.

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I haven't seen anything that establishes it's satire; but it's so over the top I also can't imagine anyone took it seriously.

I would only note that there's a very, very fine line for the "meme magic" online right between satire and stuff calculated to "trigger the libs." Basically, if the left is outraged by something, the idea is that they're going to lean so hard into it so as to make the issue pervasive enough that the criticism for doing what is unacceptable loses its sting.

Why? Because the left holds tremendous cultural power in setting the boundaries for what is acceptable and unacceptable discourse. That was always a power that the left abused by applying double standards and political correctness to their advantage; but it was mostly done around the margins because of a general consensus on the First Amendment as an important value. 

However, in the last decade or so with critical theory/wokism/cancel culture finally obtaining some sort of critical mass in among institutional leadership that the First Amendment consensus is really no more, at least among a lot of cultural gatekeepers, and they've just been moving the goalposts randomly as it suits their purposes.


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Podcast: Carefully entering the hall of mirrors created by the 'God Made Trump' video

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Podcast: Carefully entering the hall of mirrors created by the 'God Made Trump' video

I will not apologize for the fact that this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) contains lots of questions and few answers.

In a way, the whole “God Made Trump” video ruckus is a house of mirrors full of questions.

Nevertheless, you cannot follow what Americans call “politics” without pondering the role that religious language is playing these days. At the same time, it’s impossible to ignore the role of humor — including brutal satire — in all of this. Put religion and humor together (with a dash of AI) and all hades breaks loose.

The New York Times offered a straight-faced news story about a trend that is a threat to democracy when used by conservatives and, in particular, the MAGA Orange Man Bad team. What about the satire on the other side, which is usually offered by billion-dollar platforms in mainstream media and late-night entertainment? That isn’t relevant. Meanwhile, here’s that double-decker Times headline:

Iowa Pastors Say Video Depicting Trump as Godly Is ‘Very Concerning’

The viral video shows the former president, in starkly religious, almost messianic tones, as the vessel of a higher power sent to save the nation.

The big question here that the Times team never asks: To what degree is the “God Made Trump” video satire or a wink-wink salute to a certain tribe of Trump supporters in some pews? Hold that thought, because asking that question leads to those hall-of-mirrors questions.

This Times piece is all serious all the time. Here is a key byte of that:

The clip’s authors are members of the Dilley Meme Team, an organized collective of video producers who call themselves “Trump’s Online War Machine.” The group’s leader, Brenden Dilley, describes himself as Christian and a man of faith, but says he has never read the Bible and does not attend church. He has said that Mr. Trump has “God-tier genetics” and, in response to outcry over the “God Made Trump” video, he posted a meme depicting Mr. Trump as Moses parting the Red Sea.


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Building the GetReligion archives: Flashback to journalists avoiding Gosnell trial horrors

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Building the GetReligion archives: Flashback to journalists avoiding Gosnell trial horrors

If you pay close attention to the details, it’s clear that your GetReligionistas are already preparing to close our doors on Feb. 2.

Look at the masthead, for example. We have inserted “2004-2024” under the name and the original first post — “What we do, why we do it” has turned into a “History” link. I’m already working on the “Why we did what we did” final piece.

Like I said the other day, we are closing — but some GetReligion features will continue in other places.

The religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling will keep writing some form of news “Memo” for Religion Unplugged, where his editor will be our own Clemente Lisi. I will continue the “Crossroads” podcast with our partners at Lutheran Public Radio and they will be available here at the GetReligion archive (see the new logo on the right sidebar), Tmatt.net and the podcast pages at Apple. We’re talking about some form of Q&A podcast or video. The GetReligion feed on X will remain open. I’m pondering a Substack newsletter — “Rational Sheep” — on religious faith and mass culture.

But the main thing that is going on is that we are working to turn this massive website into a searchable archive for people — journalists, book writers, etc. — who want tons of information, URLs and commentary about the past two decades of religion-beat news (with a heavy emphasis on First Amendment issues). It helps to remember that I am married to a reference librarian who started working on computer networks when she was a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate student in the late 1970s.

One of the things we will do, on the “Search” page, is offer some suggestions for search terms to find some classic GetReligion work. I have, for technical and legal reasons, been reading my way back through the history of of this blog and, the other day, I hit 2013.

Let’s just say that i urge readers to do a search for these terms — “Hemingway,” “Gosnell,” “trial,” 2013 — and dig into what they hit.


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#DUH -- Church of Rome is not the only global flock wrestling with same-sex blessings

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#DUH -- Church of Rome is not the only global flock wrestling with same-sex blessings

Bishop Martin Mtumbuka of Malawi pulled no punches when passing judgement on the Vatican's stunning declaration that Catholic clergy could bless couples living in "irregular relationships," such as same-sex unions.

This "looks to us like a heresy, it reads like a heresy, and it affects heresy," he said. "We cannot allow such an offensive and apparently blasphemous declaration to be implemented in our dioceses" in southeast Africa.

The Fiducia Supplicans ("Supplicating Trust") document triggered debates around the world, but negative reactions have been especially strong in Africa, with strong protests from bishops' conferences in Malawi, Zambia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Angola and other nations.

"The Church of Africa is the voice of the poor, the simple and the small," wrote Cardinal Robert Sarah of Guinea, the former head of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. "It has the task of announcing the Word of God in front of Western Christians who, because they are rich, equipped with multiple skills in philosophy, theological, biblical and canonical sciences, believe they are evolved, modern and wise in the wisdom of the world."

Cardinal Sarah endorsed the declarations from African bishops and added: "We must encourage other national or regional bishops' conferences and every bishop to do the same. By doing so, we are not opposing Pope Francis, but we are firmly and radically opposing a heresy that seriously undermines the Church, the Body of Christ, because it is contrary to the Catholic faith and Tradition."

These tensions resemble doctrinal fault lines seen during the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family, noted historian Philip Jenkins, the author of "The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity" and "Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions" and many other books.

"Religious faith and fertility are linked and it's easy to see that around the world," said Jenkins, reached by Zoom.


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Podcast: Yes, churches in Africa are 'growing,' but what what does 'growing' mean?

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Podcast: Yes, churches in Africa are 'growing,' but what what does 'growing' mean?

I realize that I have used this Anglican-wars anecdote before on this website. But, hey, GetReligion is closing its doors in a few weeks and this will almost certainly be my last chance to use it here.

To be honest, this parable from the Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison of South Carolina — an evangelical Anglican scholar who is now in his mid-90s — was the perfect way to summarize the issues covered during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Host Todd Wilken and I were discussing two important news reports about the escalating Catholic doctrinal wars about same-sex blessings, and this pulled us back to some themes from our top stories of 2023 podcast. One of the new stories was from The New York Times (“Blessing of Same-Sex Couples Rankles Africa’s Catholics”) and the other from the Associated Press (“How to deal with same-sex unions? It’s a question fracturing major Christian denominations”).

Like I said, these were must-read reports, but there were “ghosts” in them worth exploring. This brings us to the aforementioned Allison anecdote from several decades ago:

Needless to say, [Allison] has witnessed more than his share of Anglican debates about the future of the Anglican Communion, a communion in which national churches are in rapid decline in rich, powerful lands like the United States, Canada and England, but exploding with growth in the Global South.

During one global meeting, Allison watched a symbolic collision between these two worlds. Bishops from North America and their allies were talking about moving forward, making doctrinal changes in order to embrace the cultural revolutions in their lands. They were sure that Anglicans needed to evolve, or die.

Finally, a frustrated African bishop asked three questions: “Where are your children? Where are your converts? Where are your priests?”

The big question: What does it mean when journalists say that a church or religious movement is “growing”?

Usually, this is a reference to mere membership statistics. But notice that this is not how that African bishop defined church life in his growing corner of the Anglican world.


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