John Fea

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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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Yin-yang of Washington Post on Amy Coney Barrett: Wait. Pope Francis embraces charismatics?

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It would appear that the goal on the cultural and religious left is to find a way to link Judge Amy Coney Barrett to all of that strange charismatic Christian stuff like healing and speaking on tongues while avoiding anti-dogma language that would raise warning flags for Sunday-morning-Mass Catholics. She may as well be a fundamentalist Protestant!

Here is the Big Idea that is right up top, in a story that uses the term “handmaid” 11 times — early and often.

Oh, this will also require tip-toeing around the awkward fact that millions of charismatic Christians are found in Latino and Black pews — Catholic and Protestant.

Will this play a role in the hearings that are getting underway as I type this? We will see.

In the branch of the Democratic Party known as Acela Zone journalism, the key to the news coverage has continued to be a steady drumbeat of references to the word “handmaid,” which in cable-television land calls to mind all kinds of horrible fundamentalist terrors, starting with sexual slaves in red capes and white bonnets.

It’s hard to know what to write about the People of Praise-phobia angle of this story right now, since your GetReligionistas have been on it for some time now. See my podcast and post here: “Why is the 'handmaid' image so important in Amy Coney Barrett coverage?” Also, Julia Duin’s deep dive here into 40 years of history linked to the People of Praise and charismatic Christian communities of this kind. There there is Clemente Lisi on three big questions that reporters need to face linked to Barrett’s faith.

There are too many elite news stories on the handmaid angle to parse them all, so let’s focus on that recent Washington Post feature from a team led by the scribe who brought you the hagiography of Christine Blasey Ford during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

For starters, this would be a good time to remind readers that reporters rarely play any role in the writing of the headlines atop their work. The headline on a piece such as this one primarily tells you the angle that editors thought would launch it into social-media circles among the newsroom’s true believers. Thus we have: “Amy Coney Barrett served as a ‘handmaid’ in Christian group People of Praise.”


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Press is right to ask: Why was that video about 'Hitler' offensive at a Christian college?

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One thing I found out after a teaching at two Christian colleges (one as an adjunct and the other as a professor), is that the powers-that-be do not want faculty to stand out. Whereas a secular institution is generally happy if faculty are out there making news, conservative Christian colleges don’t want faculty angering anyone who might withhold donations as a result.

So if you wonder why so many faculty at Christian colleges appear to be a bland lot, that’s why. Outspoken folks like Karen Swallow Prior (formerly at Liberty University, now at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) are rare. Prior never got fired from Liberty but others of us weren’t so lucky,

The list of Christian faculty kicked out of their institutions now includes James Spiegel, a newly dismissed professor from the evangelically minded Taylor University in Indiana. We’ll start with Emily McFarlan Miller’s RNS story to get the basics:

A longtime faculty member at Taylor University no longer has a job at the Christian school, reportedly after posting a video of a song he’d written titled “Little Hitler” on YouTube.

An email sent Tuesday (Sept. 1) to the “Taylor University Family” from the school’s president, provost, dean and board chair confirmed James Spiegel, a professor of philosophy and religion, no longer is employed by the university in Upland, Indiana.

Spiegel, who had been employed by the university since 1993, according to his curriculum vitae, is a controversial figure on campus.

He wrote a petition opposing plans to bring Starbucks to campus because of its “stands on the sanctity of life and human sexuality” and signed onto another supporting Vice President Mike Pence’s invitation to speak last year at graduation. Taylor's president resigned a month after Pence's visit, which sparked sharp disagreement on campus.

So here’s a guy who’s been on campus 27 years and they only now decide they don’t want him?

Spiegel told Taylor’s student newspaper, The Echo, that he was fired after he posted and declined to remove a YouTube video two weeks ago in which he performed an original song titled “Little Hitler." The professor claimed the school had received a harassment complaint about the video. He also said he previously had performed the song at chapel and at a faculty retreat, according to The Echo.

The song includes the lyrics: “We’re appalled at injustice and oppression and every atrocity that makes the nightly news, but just give it a thought: If you knew you’d never get caught, you’d be thieving and raping and murdering, too.”

Sounds basic Christian theology about the depravity of sinful mankind to me. The student newspaper’s account of the firing made it clear that it was Spiegel’s activism on behalf of several causes led to his dismissal. Oddly, the video had been around for 10 years.

“I have performed it numerous times in various places, including in a Taylor chapel in October 2010 and at a Taylor Colleagues College faculty retreat to about 120 faculty,” Spiegel wrote. “There were no complaints in either case.”

Spiegel has also been in the limelight for recent controversial actions, such as the authorship of the “Excalibur” newsletter in early 2018, and for authorship of the petition in spring of 2019 against an on-campus Starbucks which never materialized on campus.

When asked if these controversies added to the decision for his termination, Spiegel wrote that “many people believe that is the case.”

Reporting on this sort of thing is harder than it looks. There are many layers. While looking at various blogs that were commenting on the issue, one by John Fea struck my eye. Read this paragraph closely:

Should he be fired for “Little Hitler”? I can’t answer that question. I would need to know more about the local culture on campus at Taylor and the way Spiegel and his song fit into that culture. Perhaps there is a larger story here. Maybe this is more than just an academic freedom issue.

Some of you might be surprised to know that Christian universities closely guard the idea of their institutions having a “culture” that cannot be disturbed. This is not just an idea from the Right. You’ve no doubt read about how college campuses tend to have almost zero conservative and/or Republican faculty because the liberal mindset of these places doesn’t want anyone countering the zeitgeist.


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