Still curious about the closing of a pro-LGBTQ Christian school in Kansas City? An update

Every now and then, I see an email or comment from a reader who says something like: “If you guys keep seeing big holes in stories, why don’t you do some work and try to fill them?”

Truth is, we are a commentary website, not a hard-news operation. Some holes can be filled with a few clicks of a computer mouse, and we have been known to do that. Others would require direct contacts with sources involved in the original story.

A trickier issue is when people involved in stories CONTACT US and offer their own takes on what was published. Also, your GetReligionistas never assume the reporter named in the byline was responsible for every detail or wording that appeared in the final story. Trust me, it really ticks off a reporter to be blamed for a flaw in a story — when it was the result of an editor’s work.

All of that is a prelude to this unusual post, which is an update on this one: “Kansas City Star shows a curious lack of curiosity about pro-LGBTQ Christian school's closing.” In this case, a religion-beat veteran decided to run the Star report as a wire feature, but was curious about some of the same issues that caught my attention.

Let’s start at the end of my post:

What is the painful reality that this story is striving to avoid? To answer that question, we would need to know something about the churches on both sides of this debate.
Here is my suggestion: Talk to the leaders of nearby African-American evangelical, Pentecostal and Baptist congregations, especially those linked to parents who were sending their children to this school.

To be blunt, there was a very obvious “reality” that the Star report — “KC Christian school lost donations after supporting LGBTQ rights. Now it’s closing” — avoided. What was it? Readers will need to see that information in context. So, yes, hold that thought.

The big question: Why did parents, donors and church leaders cut their support for this idealistic urban school? The Star said it was the candid change in the school’s doctrinal statement on LGBTQ issues — period.

Kansas City Star shows a curious lack of curiosity about pro-LGBTQ Christian school's closing

All together now: Who. What. When. Where. Why. How.

Once upon a time, journalists were really curious people when it came to seeking basic, on-the-record answers to factual questions linked to the stories they were covering. That old “W5H” equation didn’t cover all the bases, of course, but it wasn’t a bad place to start.

When covering stories about a religious group, it really helps to know the specific religious tradition or larger organization (think “denomination”) to which it is linked. If it’s an ecumenical or interfaith group, that may require seeking the ties that band various groups of people who are involved in this project.

This brings us to a recent Kansas City Star report that ran with this headline: “KC Christian school lost donations after supporting LGBTQ rights. Now it’s closing.”

By definition, a “Christian school” is a religious organization. I have never heard of one that did not have ties of some kind — financial, theological, cultural or historical — to a specific religious tradition or to a group of churches that helped it get started. Think of this as the “Who” and “Why” factors.

Yes, in this nondenominational age a school may, in fact, have links to a number of congregations or religious networks. But that doesn’t mean there are no, to quote that old Gospel hymn, "ties that bind.” A nondenominational school will still have specific flocks of believersthat provide students, donations, training and other kinds of practical support.

The Urban Christian Academy certainly fits the nondenominational mold, or lack of a mold. Check out its online “manifesto” about it’s spiritual and intellectual commitments. However, that doesn’t mean that its leaders have zero practical or even personal links to institutional churches or other schools.

There was plenty of room to address questions of this kind in this 1,500-word feature. Was there a reason that the Kansas City Star included next to zero information about the institutional DNA of this urban school? I find the newsroom’s lack of curiosity to be be rather curious. Let’s look at a few pieces of this report and look for clues as to what is going on, starting with the overture:

In its nine years of existence, Urban Christian Academy steadily grew, adding a new grade each year in a neglected southeast Kansas City neighborhood.
The school has provided its students, kindergarten through eighth grade, with a tuition-free private education. And with its “inclusive theology,” it always supported LGBTQ students and staff. But it did so quietly, as issues like same-sex marriage and gay clergy divided Protestant denominations while hate crimes and violence against the LGBTQ community rose.

OK, this is a story about theological, doctrinal divisions inside “Protestant denominations.”