David Brooks

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Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

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Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

People who spend years riding commuter trains — Baltimore to Washington, D.C., for me — learn that there are community rules. For example: Don’t crack up laughing and make a lot of noise.

I violated that written law several times while reading a snarky, hilarious 2000 book by David Brooks called, “Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There.” The term “Bobo” was short for “Bourgeois Bohemians.”

But what is a religion writer supposed to do while reading its “spirituality” chapter, which ended with a vision of "Bobo Heaven.” Brooks offers a tweedy angel of death sentencing an urban lawyer to spend eternity in her chic, “green” summer house, with National Public Radio on every channel. Heaven or hell?

Readers who have been online lately will know where this is going, because of the multi-media firestorm ignited by his New York Times column: “On Anti-Trumpers and the Modern Meritocracy.” That Brooks essay provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Here’s a sample:

The meritocracy isn’t only a system of exclusion; it’s an ethos. During his presidency, Barack Obama used the word “smart” in the context of his policies over 900 times. The implication was that anybody who disagreed with his policies (and perhaps didn’t go to Harvard Law) must be stupid.

Over the last decades, we’ve taken over whole professions and locked everybody else out. When I began my journalism career in Chicago in the 1980s, there were still some old crusty working-class guys around the newsroom. Now we’re not only a college-dominated profession; we’re an elite-college-dominated profession. Only 0.8 percent of college students graduate from the super-elite 12 schools (the Ivy League colleges, plus Stanford, M.I.T., Duke and the University of Chicago). A 2018 study found that more than 50 percent of the staff writers at the beloved New York Times and The Wall Street Journal attended one of the 29 most elite universities in the nation.

Now, let’s leave Orange Man Bad out of this. I’d like to focus on the fact that Brooks has been writing about this phenomenon for several decades now.

As you would expect, I appreciated that Brooks dared to mention the ice-blue trends in elite journalism. I started paying attention to that in the late 1970s (hold that thought). However, I have to admit that I wondered why Brooks defined his meritocracy in terms of class (correct), zip codes (correct), resume credentials (correct), but — in this case — ignored the obvious religion themes in this drama.


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

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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.


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Thinking about Bari Weiss, Twitter, evangelicals and New York Times op-ed doctrines

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Thinking about Bari Weiss, Twitter, evangelicals and New York Times op-ed doctrines

Here’s a question for you: When it comes to defining the doctrines of blue-zip-America, which is more important — the news pages of The New York Times or the newspaper of record’s op-ed pages?

In the old days, I would have said the op-ed pages.

But that was back when most of the Times news desks were, to one degree or another, still part of (to one degree or another) the American Model of the Press (background in this .pdf file). That was certainly the case in the era of the late, great A.M. Rosenthal.

At this moment in time, there are signs of actual diversity — even tension — in the op-ed pages and maybe, just maybe, signs of a few glowing embers of editorial independence in the news papers.

But let’s still assume — as I argued in my Religion & Liberty essay, “The Evolving Religion of Journalism” — that the Times news operation is still operating as a niche-news, advocacy journalism publication anxious to please the new liberal, maybe illiberal, readers who pay cash for its content.

Let’s assume that the July, 2020, resignation letter posted by Bari “The Free Press” Weiss remains a must-read “think piece” for all news consumers. For those who need a refresh, as part of this “think piece” doubleheader, here are two key passages from that shot over the bow of the Gray Lady’s principalities and powers:

… [A] new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.

Twitter is not on the masthead of The New York Times. But Twitter has become its ultimate editor. As the ethics and mores of that platform have become those of the paper, the paper itself has increasingly become a kind of performance space. Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. I was always taught that journalists were charged with writing the first rough draft of history. Now, history itself is one more ephemeral thing molded to fit the needs of a predetermined narrative.

Here is another essential passage from this “read it all” classic. This comes after Weiss — a gay, Jewish, old-school First Amendment liberal — describes the in-house digital bullying that made her hit the exit door:


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Along the religion beat: Should 'mainstream media' pundits take sides on church disputes?

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Along the religion beat: Should 'mainstream media' pundits take sides on church disputes?

The acerbic anti-Donald Trump conservative Jonah Goldberg says that — at National Review and currently TheDispatch.com — he has spent the past 25 years complaining about "liberal media bias."

But, he wrote last week, much has changed during that time with the breakup of America's onetime "hegemony" of three broadcast networks, the newsmagazines and a few influential newspapers. Now we have devoutly conservative news-talk radio and cable TV while infinite opinions of commentary and information overwhelm the Internet.

Then there's rising distrust in the news media, which The Religion Guy believes is a serious threat to healthy democracy. A Pew Research Center survey, reported last August, found that since 2016 the percentage of Americans with at least "some" trust in the national news media has slumped from 76% down to 58%, and among Trump-era Republicans and Republican leaners from 70% down to 35%.

Another simultaneous change, Goldberg said, is "the blurring of reporting with partisan punditry, particularly on cable news and social media." The Guy would contend that this distrust expands when partisan opinion seeps into or overshadows supposed hard news. (This is the spirit of our media age, since, as tmatt often observes here at GetReligion, opinion is cheap and actual reporting is expensive).

That brings us to religion coverage in the print media and the Internet (broadcasters and cable generally slight the beat) and a rather idiosyncratic must-read complaint about The New York Times from Hillsdale College historian D.G. Hart, posted at Real Clear Religion the same day as Goldberg's article. In case you missed it, the text is here.

Hart thinks the Times "rightly" figures that explicitly religious periodicals can handle faith news, which means he does not read the paper that closely (though it can be criticized for sins of omission). The article appears to suggest the Times and other outlets should downplay or eliminate attempts to do religion-beat reporting -- which would remove the very reason GetReligion exists.


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Podcast: Religion News Service offers new story about an old trend called 'Sheilaism'

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Podcast: Religion News Service offers new story about an old trend called 'Sheilaism'

One of the problems with covering the same religion-beat topics for multiple decades (in other words, I am old) is that you tend to see many “new” news stories as pieces of puzzles that are actually quite old.

Consider, for example, the Religion News Service feature that was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

The headline on that RNS piece stated: “A 300-year-old church hopes to connect with spiritual but not religious neighbors.” Here is the overture from this story by religion-beat veteran Bob Smietana:

For three centuries, Trinity Episcopal Church has tried to meet the spiritual needs of the small community of Southport, Connecticut, about an hour and a half outside of New York.

As more and more of the church’s neighbors ditch organized religion but not faith, leaders at Trinity hope a new initiative will help them find meaning and purpose in life even if they never attend a Sunday service.

The church recently launched the Trinity Spiritual Center, which offers lectures, classes on meditation and contemplation, and a sense of community during a trying time, said the Rev. Margaret Hodgkins, the rector of Trinity Church.

We will come back to some of the specifics of this piece — details that link it to several trends that are (#SIGH) decades old in the aging, shrinking world of mainline Protestantism and, to a lesser extent, parts of Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, liberal Judaism and other established religious “brands.”

The Big Idea in this RNS piece is that an Episcopal parish that has some resources to spend has decided to help spiritual seekers find their own paths to the top of Mt. Eternity without proclaiming any of those narrow, tacky doctrines linked to 2,000 years of Christian faith and practice. You know, all that stuff about the Resurrection of Jesus, eternal salvation or moral theology (warning: veiled reference to the “tmatt trio”).

In other words, the goal appears to be a sort-of parish in honor of St. Sheila, the patron saint of “Sheilaism.”


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Here we go again: What ails U.S. evangelicalism and where is this movement headed?

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Here we go again: What ails U.S. evangelicalism and where is this movement headed?

It's hard to imagine a print article more eye-catching than a lead item in The New York Times Sunday Review that sprawls over three pages, or to imagine a more prominent scribe than columnist David Brooks. The February 6 Brooks opus lionized "the dissenters trying to save evangelicalism."

Save from what? "Misogyny, racism, racial obliviousness, celebrity worship, resentment, and the willingness to sacrifice principle for power" — that last phrase targeting disciples of Donald Trump.

We're at the publicity apex for what Brooks, and movement outsiders and insiders, are calling a "crisis" for this conservative Protestant movement. In recent months The Guy has, less elegantly, pondered a "crack-up. Thus:

* “Are we finally witnessing the long-anticipated (by journalists) evangelical crack-up?”

* “Latest angles on Trump-era 'evangelicals,' including questions about the vague label itself.”

* “Concerning evangelical elites, Donald Trump and the press: The great crack-up continues.”

* “Journalism tips on: (1) Evangelical crack-ups, (2) campus faith fights, (3) COVID exemptions.”

This struggle will continue to need fair-minded journalistic attention, simply because this loosely-organized and variegated movement remains the largest and most dynamic segment of American religion. To a considerable extent, as evangelicalism goes, so goes the nation. Both are polarized, troubled and scandal-ridden.

On this topic it's always necessary to remember we're talking about WHITE evangelicals because Black Protestants, though often evangelical in style and substance, form a distinctly separate subculture (which "mainstream" media typically ignore alongside their fixation on the white variety).

A related preliminary point: What is an "evangelical" anyway?


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For media exploration: Does church decline underlie what's depressing many Americans? 

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For media exploration: Does church decline underlie what's depressing many Americans? 

Here's an off-the headlines theme for media to explore: To what extent does the slide toward a Great Depression for churches since 2000 underlie America's ills?

Think about it. Surveys and pundits underscore the rampant pessimism and dissatisfaction among many citizens, the toxic political divide and the way anything from calls for COVID vaccinations to Simone Biles's Olympics withdrawal will now stir partisan furies.

Consider ills that occurred simultaneously with weakened churches, bemoaned last week by New York Times columnist David Brooks. Major depression among teens jumped 63% from 2013 to 2016. Suicides increased 33% in the two decades ending in 2019. Estrangement from a family member is reported by 27% of Americans. Since 1990, those saying they lack even one close friend have quadrupled.

Such concerns evoke the classic book "Bowling Alone" by Harvard Professor Robert Putnam, a much-mulled 2000 tome now available in an updated 2020 edition. Not just bowling leagues but hyper-individualism, minus personal fellowship, is shrinking local lodges, civic groups and charities as well as churches. This seems to be an old problem (see the video with this post) that is only growing more intense.

The 2012 National Council of Churches yearbook (the 80th and last edition before publication ceased) reported that groups representing 330,222 local congregations claiming 159.8 million members filed data (a big undercount that omitted scads of independent churches). That was well over 20 times the current U.S. outlets for McDonald's or Starbucks. Big numbers, high stakes.

Local churches' centrality in community decline and prospects for recovery was asserted by Matt Lewis, a Daily Beast conservative, in an Eastertime piece (“America’s Losing Faith, and That Makes the Next Trump All But Inevitable“) and a follow-up last week (“How Trumpists Prey on Loneliness, and Loneliness Preys on Trumpists: Frankly, We Did Join a Cult“).

Lewis describes himself as a churchgoer (no specifics revealed) and "a (very flawed) Christian" who constantly needs God's forgiveness.


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On the agenda until Inauguration Day 2025: Whither Trumpism and, thus, evangelicalism? 

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On the agenda until Inauguration Day 2025: Whither Trumpism and, thus, evangelicalism? 

In a city locked down as an armed encampment, Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris were inaugurated without the disruptions many feared. There were prayers and familiar political calls for healing and unity.

References to the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol came early and often.

Regarding that historic day, much remains to be investigated but Wall Street Journal veteran Gerald Seib offered a brisk summary: "Mr. Trump sent a crowd of his supporters to the Capitol to stop the constitutional transfer of power to his elected successor. That crowd turned into a mob that ransacked the seat of American democracy and tried to hunt down its elected leaders." Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell stated much the same Tuesday.

Seib added that in the melee, "mainstream Trump supporters were overshadowed by those swinging fire extinguishers at cops and a man wearing a 'Camp Aushwitz' sweatshirt." That is, the fringe dwellers, unhinged devotees and insurrection plotters emerged from a larger throng that obeyed the president's summons to attend his "Stop the Steal" rally and march upon the Capitol.

The same with a certain number of evangelical-style Protestants at the "Steal" protest and explicitly religious "Jericho" march. They were swept into the criminal rampage alongside violent extremists who trashed the symbolic citadel, spewed F-bombs, assaulted police (battering one to death) and chanted threats to assassinate America's #1 evangelical office-holder, Vice President Mike Pence.

Several top religion reporters publicized this unnerving aspect of the fray. In response, GetReligion editor Terry Mattingly questioned whether the rioting rabble truly represented elements of the power structures of the evangelical movement and its leadership, as some claimed.

The evangelical elite does not control many among the proletariat, as The Guy noted while pondering evangelicalism's future last July 29, and the gap has grown since then. Revulsion over Trump's words and deeds provoked some evangelical leaders to favor Biden but evangelical voters gave Trump a healthy margin (as always with Republican nominees, witness Romney, McCain, Bush). This is especially true among nondenominational, independent churches and among some self-proclaimed Pentecostal prophets (see this important Julia Duin post)

Whatever the numbers and stature of the those who waved Jesus banners, the day sullied evangelical Protestantism, and perhaps even religious faith in general, for the vast American citizenry that believes Trump and his disciples tried to steal the election from Biden.

Fairly or not, in the public mind and in the media, evangelicalism is now fused not just with the Republican Party but its dominant Trumpite wing.


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Thinking about St. Benedict: Emma Green looks at one extreme option in Kansas

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Several years ago, I took a copy of The Atlantic Monthly with me on a non-stop flight from Baltimore to the Los Angeles area. I was still reading it when the plane landed on the West Coast. And that was before Emma Green arrived.

As I have stated before here at GetReligion, Green’s work is magazine-style analysis, yet she is also doing hard reporting as part of that mix — reporting that often drives hard-news beat reporters to have to consider expanding their sources and the points of view included in their work. At times, it seems like we could feature Green in this “think piece” slot every weekend.

This time around, she headed to a state that I am beginning to frequent for family reasons. Kansas is not for everyone, but it is an interesting and unique culture — a real place. It’s as far south and west as you can go and still be in the Midwest, with it’s strong emphasis on family and community. How many public parks are there in Wichita? (The answer is 144.)

Here is the headline on Green’s new piece:

The Christian Withdrawal Experiment

Feeling out of step with the mores of contemporary life, members of a conservative-Catholic group have built a thriving community in rural Kansas. Could their flight from mainstream society be a harbinger for the nation?

The big idea, of course, is that these believers are withdrawing, as much as is possible in this hyperlinked world, from one culture in order to defend another. At the heart of it all is faith and family.

But is this specific community the emerging norm? Here is the overture:


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