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Many pieces in this news puzzle: New Israeli coalition reflects land's complex religiosity

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Many pieces in this news puzzle: New Israeli coalition reflects land's complex religiosity

What does it say about Israel that its founding prime minister was someone who today might be labeled a “BuJew,” a Jew strongly attracted to Buddhist philosophy? Or that it took Israel more than 70 years to produce a prime minister who identifies with Orthodox Judaism?

The BuJew prime minister was, of course, the otherwise secular David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s George Washington equivalent. Ben-Gurion actually took several days during a 1961 two-week state visit to Burma (today’s Myanmar) to attend a Buddhist retreat. I can’t imagine an Israeli prime minister doing that today given the Jewish state’s current political turmoil and Orthodoxy’s influence.

The first Orthodox prime minister is set to be Naftali Bennett, who as of this writing is scheduled to command the top spot in Israel’s nascent anti-Netanyahu governing coalition, itself tentatively set to formally assume office within days.

Again, what does all of this say? A lot, I’d argue, about Israel’s religious complexity and the degree to which religion and politics are tightly intertwined, perhaps inseparably so, in Israel (and the Middle East in general, but that’s a larger topic for another day).

I’d also argue it underscores the importance for journalists opining on Israel to be well versed on its religious politics — from its varied and often antagonistic Jewish factions, to its distinctive Arab Muslim, Christian and Druse communities — if they are to adequately explain the thinking that goes into Israeli decision making.

Consider the following. Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, the longtime right-wing prime minister, is a secular Jew, as are most Israeli Jews. Yet he nonetheless enjoyed the support of his nation’s ultra-Orthodox parties. Netanyahu gained their support by including the parties in his ruling coalitions, giving them great access and sometimes control over public funds needed for their community institutions and economic safety nets.

Bennett, meanwhile, has gained the condemnation of several leading Orthodox Jews, even though identifies with this religious descriptor.


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In the age of COVID-19, it's impossible for clergy to avoid wrestling with the internet

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In the age of COVID-19, it's impossible for clergy to avoid wrestling with the internet

Even before the coronavirus crisis, this question haunted pastors: What in God's name are we supposed to do with the internet?

American clergy aren't the only ones wrestling with this puzzle. Consider this advice -- from Moscow -- about online personality cults.

"A priest, sometimes very young, begins to think that he is an experienced pastor -- so many subscribers! -- able to answer the many questions that come to him in virtual reality," noted Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, at a recent diocesan conference. "Such clerics often lose the ability to accept any criticism, and not only on the internet, or respond to objections with endless arguments."

Pastors eventually have to ask, he added, if their online work is leading people through parish doors and into face-to-face faith communities.

"That is the question of the hour, for sure," said Savannah Kimberlin, director of published research for the Barna Group. Recent surveys have convinced Barna researchers that "the future church will be a blend of digital and in-person work. But it's up to us to decide what that will look like. …

"But isn't that true of our society as a whole? There are digital solutions for so many issues in our lives, right now. … But we can also see people yearning for more than that -- for experiences of contact with others in a community."

In a recent survey, 81% of churchgoing adults affirmed that "experiencing God alongside others" was very important to them, she said. At the same time, a majority of those surveyed said they hoped their congregations would continue some forms of online ministry in the future.

Similar paradoxes emerge when researchers studied evangelistic efforts to reach people who are "unchurched" or completely disconnected from religious institutions.

Half of all unchurched adults (52%), along with 73% of non-Christians, said they are not interested in invitations to church activities. However, a new Barna survey -- cooperating with Alpha USA, a nondenominational outreach group -- found that 41% of non-Christians said they were open to "spiritual conversations about Christianity" if the setting felt friendly.

Online forums and streamed events -- experienced at home, with viewers in control -- may offer some newcomers the flexibility and "safety" that they want.


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New podcast: 'Screen' culture tied to loneliness; can clergy build bridges with same tech?

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New podcast: 'Screen' culture tied to loneliness; can clergy build bridges with same tech?

The coronavirus pandemic has created a wide variety of religion-beat stories — from empty local pews to the U.S. Supreme Court debating how many people can occupy local pews. And sometimes it feels like all roads during this crisis, for better or worse, lead to the internet.

Yes, we had lots of ground to cover in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Empty local pews have, in some cases, led to near-empty offering plates. Leaders in religious groups that were struggling before COVID-19 — look for closing congregations, seminaries, colleges and even cathedrals — are now hearing the demographics clock tick, tick, tick even louder.

We’re talking about huge stories, but they are also stories that are hard for journalists to cover, simply because they require information at the local, regional and national levels.

It was easy to cover local clergypersons as they learned to mount smartphones atop camera tripods and stream worship services to their locked-down flocks (as opposed to megachurches that already had cameras and massive websites). It was also easier to cover black-sheep clergy that rebelled against social-distancing guidelines than it was to report on the remarkable efforts of leaders in entire denominations and religious traditions seek ways for their people to worship as best they could within constantly evolving (and often hostile) government guidelines.

Journalists, of course, were also being affected by lockdowns and, in some cases, budget cuts. This was an equal-opportunity crisis.

Let me give you an example of an important story that everyone knows is unfolding right now. Consider this Baptist Press headline: “Pandemic division causing pastors to leave ministry, pastoral mentor says.” Here is the overture:

Brian Croft jokes that masks are the new “color of the carpet argument” in churches, with similarly poor outcomes. Pastors are resigning from the stress “kind of in a way I’ve never really seen.”

The founder of Practical Shepherding transitioned from fulltime pastoring to lead the shepherding outreach fulltime in January, pulled by a need for coaching and counseling that has steadily increased among pastors over the past decade.

Then came COVID-19.


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Have most Protestants in the United States gone soft on drinking alcohol?

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Have most Protestants in the United States gone soft on drinking alcohol?

THE QUESTION:

What do today’s U.S. Protestants believe about the use of alcoholic beverages? Have attitudes softened?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Yes, without question. And there’s been a bit of soul-searching about this in America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. Its press service reports ongoing concern especially about teen alcohol abuse has increased somewhat since recent Senate testimony about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Catholic prep school experience.

Further, just afterward USA Today reported a study showing from 2007 to 2017 U.S. deaths attributed to alcohol increased 35 percent, and 67 percent among women (while teen deaths declined 16 percent). These fatalities well outnumber those from opioid overdoses that have roused such public concern.

Not so long ago, total abstinence predominated among many or most Protestants, who effectively mandated this for clergy and expected the same from lay members. (Other faith groups such as Muslims and Mormons elevate abstinence into a divine commandment.)

In a 2007 survey of Southern Baptists, only 3 percent of pastors and 29 percent of lay members said they drink alcoholic beverages. This survey showed that across other U.S. Protestant denominations 25 percent of pastors and 42 percent of lay members said they drink.

A 2016 Barna Group poll showed 60 percent of adults who are active churchgoers (both Protestants and Catholics) said they drink, compared with 67 percent for the over-all U.S. population. Among evangelicals there was a nearly even split with 46 percent who drink. (Barna defines “evangelicals” by conservative beliefs, not the loose self-identification political polls use.) Only 2 percent of evangelicals admitted they sometimes over-indulge.

Otherwise, Barna found, regular churchgoers consume smaller amounts on average than others. Asked why they don’t drink, 10 percent of abstainers acknowledged it’s because they are addicts in recovery. Notably, 41 percent of the population said alcohol causes trouble for their families.

The Bible does not teach total abstinence, and says wine can be a blessing (Psalm 104:15) and helpful medicine (Proverbs 31:6 or 1 Timothy 5:23).


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Hey Washington Post czars: Evangelicals and Catholics are irrelevant in #NeverTrump camp?

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It you have followed Republican politics over the past quarter century or so, you know that GOP White House wins have often been linked to what researchers have called the "pew gap," especially when there are high election-day vote totals among white evangelicals and devout Catholics.

That "pew gap" phenomenon can be stated as follows: The more non-African-Americans voters attend worship services, the more likely they are to vote for culturally conservative candidates -- almost always Republicans.

As I have stated before, it's hard to find a better illustration of this principle than the overture of the 2003 Atlantic Monthly essay called "Blue Movie." This piece focused on a campaign by Bill, not Hillary Rodham, Clinton, but it remains relevant. This passage is long, but remains essential -- especially in light of the very strange Washington Post piece about the remnants of the #NeverTrump movement that is the subject of this post. The Atlantic stated:

Early in the 1996 election campaign Dick Morris and Mark Penn, two of Bill Clinton's advisers, discovered a polling technique that proved to be one of the best ways of determining whether a voter was more likely to choose Clinton or Bob Dole for President. Respondents were asked five questions, four of which tested attitudes toward sex: Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong? Do you ever personally look at pornography? Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married? Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong? The fifth question was whether religion was very important in the voter's life.
Respondents who took the "liberal" stand on three of the five questions supported Clinton over Dole by a two-to-one ratio; those who took a liberal stand on four or five questions were, not surprisingly, even more likely to support Clinton. The same was true in reverse for those who took a "conservative" stand on three or more of the questions. (Someone taking the liberal position, as pollsters define it, dismisses the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong, admits to looking at pornography, doesn't look down on a married person having an affair, regards sex before marriage as morally acceptable, and views religion as not a very important part of daily life.) 


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One more time: What explains enthusiasm among many evangelicals for Trump?

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One more time: What explains enthusiasm among many evangelicals for Trump?

On Super Tuesday, Donald Trump easily swept the four states with the heaviest majorities of Protestants who consider themselves “evangelicals” -- Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas and Georgia.  

So the campaign’s major religious puzzle -- likely to be pondered come 2020 and 2024 -- continues to be how to explain Trump’s appeal to Bible Belters.

Yes, Trump brags that he’s either a “strong Christian,” “good Christian” or “great Christian.” Many GOP voters don’t buy it. And they don’t care. Pew Research Center polling in January showed only 44 percent of Republicans and Republican “leaners” see Trump as either “very” or “somewhat” religious, while 24 percent said “not too” religious and 23 percent “not at all.”

That’s far below the “very” or “somewhat religious” image of Marco Rubio (at 70 percent) who’d be the party’s first Catholic nominee, Baptist Ted Cruz (76 percent) and Seventh-day Adventist Dr. Ben Carson (80 percent). Anglican John Kasich was not listed.

An anti-Trump evangelical who worked in the Bush 43 White House, Peter Wehner, posed the question in a harsh New York Times piece: “Mr. Trump’s character is antithetical to many of the qualities evangelicals should prize in a political leader.” Their backing for “a moral degenerate” is “inexplicable” and will do “incalculable damage to their witness.” Many such words are being tossed about in religious, journalistic, and political circles.

Observers who hate Christians, or evangelicals, or social conservatives, or political conservatives, or Republicans, have a ready answer: The GOP and especially its religious ranks are chock full of creeps, fools, and racists.


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Facing the Sexual Revolution's impact, even among 'active' members of red-pew flocks

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Facing the Sexual Revolution's impact, even among 'active' members of red-pew flocks

It happens to journalists every now and then. You are interviewing a source and suddenly this person says something strange and specific that completely changes how you see an issue that you are covering.

That happened to me back in the early 1990s when I was covering the very first events linked to the "True Love Waits" movement to support young people who wanted help in "saving sex for marriage." This happened so long ago that I don't have a digital copy of my "On Religion" column on this topic stored anywhere on line.

Anyway, I realize that for many people the whole "True Love Waits" thing was either a joke or an idealistic attempt to ask young people to do the impossible in modern American culture. But put that issue aside for a moment, because that isn't the angle of this issue that knocked me out in that interview long ago. (Yes, I have written about this before here at GetReligion.)

If you want to understand the background for this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to tune that in), I want you to think about something else.

What fascinated me was that, according to key "True Love Waits" leaders, they didn't struggle to find young people who wanted to take vows and join the program. What surprised them was that many church leaders were hesitating to get on board because of behind-the-scenes opposition from ADULTS in their congregations.

The problem was that pastors were afraid to offend a few, or even many, adults in their churches -- even deacons -- because of the sexual complications in many lives and marriages, including sins that shattered marriages and homes. Key parents didn't want to stand beside their teens and take the program's vows.

It was the old plank-in-the-eye issue.


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