NAE

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If there's a U.S. evangelical 'crisis', who are the 'evangelicals' that journalists are talking about?

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If there's a U.S. evangelical 'crisis', who are the 'evangelicals' that journalists are talking about?

Commentators who were respected, card-carrying evangelical Protestants as of June 16, 2015 (when Donald Trump announced) are saying their movement faces a “crisis” and its very name should be shelved as too politicized, at least in the U.S. A few celebrities unite with multitudes of grass-roots voters in linking evangelicalism with the Donald Trump-ified Republican Party.

Yet there are many non-partisan leaders like the Rev. Leith Anderson, who’s retiring after 13 years as president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). He tells the savvy Adelle Banks of RNS that “I want the standard to be what the Bible teaches, not what the polls report.”

The media won’t be dumping the E-word any time soon. But amid the confusion and rancor, we do need to know what we’re talking about. Thus the value of the new Eerdmans paperback ”Evangelicals: Who They Have Been, Are Now, and Could Be.” This anthology of old and new articles was compiled by expert historians David Bebbington of Britain and Americans George Marsden and Mark Noll.

Self-identified evangelicals form the largest U.S. religious bloc, and the book has three potential uses for journalists. First, it could focus an analytical article. Second, it offers fine introductory background for writers who are new to this terrain. Third, those who already know a lot will learn some things.

Making definitions difficult, this fluid movement crosses denominational lines and combines formal church bodies, myriad independent congregations, “parachurch” agencies, traveling personalities, media, music and more. Some folks accurately labeled “evangelical” have other primary identities. And don’t forget the minority evangelical factions within pluralistic “mainline” Protestant denominations.

Look at things this way: Groups in councils of churches and the like have shared organizations without shared belief. Evangelicalism has shared belief without a shared organization. In defining such a loose phenomenon, journalists will be reminded of Justice Potter Stewart’s remark on pornography. “I know it when I see it.”


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Thinking 'evangelical,' again: As always these arguments pit theology against politics

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Like many bitter dodgeball contests linked to religion these days, the fight began on Twitter.

On one side was a historian who has written several books on the roots of evangelicalism — defining the term (a) in doctrinal terms and (b) in a global context. When you put those two things together, you end up with lots of people, in lots of places, throughout Protestant history, who are “evangelicals.” It helps that the word is used this way around the world in many different church settings.

On the other side were other historians, as well as woke, post-evangelical voices. The key here? You guessed it: that famous 81 percent number, as in the percentage of white, self-identified “evangelicals” who — gladly or reluctantly — voted for GOP candidate Donald Trump (or against Democrat Hillary Clinton). Thus, “evangelicals” are white, conservative Republicans with racist roots (and lots of homophobia).

In other words, “evangelical” has evolved into semi-curse word that cannot be separated from contemporary American culture and Trumpian-era politics. We know this is true, because this is the way the term is used in most elite media coverage of politics.

The argument focused on an article at The Gospel Coalition website by Thomas Kidd of Baylor University with this title: “Phillis Wheatley: An Evangelical and the First Published African American Female Poet.”

The problem is that Wheatley is a black, heroic figure. Thus, it is wrong to identify her as an “evangelical,” even in an article that is striving to get modern evangelicals to pay more attention to the lives and convictions of evangelicals in other cultures and in other times. The piece ended by noting: “Evangelicals, of all people, need to remember her today.”


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Election day drinking game? Maybe. But here's another evangelical politics stat for news stories

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Hey, it’s election day.

Want to have a drinking game? Most evangelicals and Baptists can use Dr Pepper or some other appropriate beverage.

Take a drink tonight when, during cable-news gabfests, you hear a reference to white evangelical voters and their love of Donald Trump.

You can take a DOUBLE SHOT if someone quotes the magic “81 percent” number from 2016.

Oh, wait. I am making an assumption here. So let me say this: You have heard, I assume, that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump and that they still just love that man more than life itself?

The reality, of course, is more complex than that.

Thus, those who love nuanced, accurate journalism can only hope that editors and producers will hand out copies of the recent Christianity Today essay by Ed Stetzer, director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, that ran with this headline: “Why Evangelicals Voted Trump: Debunking the 81%.” The survey info in that essay is important.

Here is some additional information to toss into the mix, care of the National Association of Evangelicals and Baptist Press. The big numbers are right at the top:

WASHINGTON (BP) -- Most leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals identified as independents in an NAE poll preceding the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. …

Two-thirds of those surveyed, 66 percent, described themselves as independents rather than a member of a major political party in the NAE poll of its 106-member board of directors, the NAE said. While the sampling is narrow and not scientific, the NAE said the results "track with" those of a 2017 Gallup poll of the general U.S. population.


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Orlando shooting: Florida media scrambling to decide what it was about

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Was it Islamic terrorism? Just regular terrorism? A hate crime? A wake-up call for gay rights and gun control?

Like a dropped glass, the Orlando shooting has already shattered into many stories, less than 48 hours after the event.  Activists for various causes have filled in a few details of the tragedy into scripts that seem otherwise pre-written. And many news media have been helping them.

The coverage has been overwhelming -- local and national alike -- and the cash-strapped newspapers have often borrowed from national news outlets. But here's what jumped out during my look at Florida media.

The Orlando Sentinel has done outstanding -- though not flawless -- coverage, with multiple updates. By 1:02 p.m. Sunday, it had produced an impressive profile of Omar Mateen, named by police as the man who stormed the Pulse nightclub and killed 49 people. Building partly on work by the Washington Post, the profile includes:

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, the 29-year-old gunman accused of killing dozens of people in Orlando on Sunday, was a security guard, the divorced father of a 3-year-old and, in school, someone who acted "dorky."
He also was an extremist whose outspoken interest in terrorism twice put him on the FBI’s radar screen.
On Sunday morning, he became something far larger: a lone gunman who authorities say was responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
He called 911 from outside a gay nightclub just south of downtown Orlando, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, authorities said, then began his assault.

For comparison, check out the Tampa Bay Times' version, which came out at 12:13 p.m. today.

The Sentinel also reveals that Mateen grew up in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and bought two guns legally; worked for a security firm; been investigated by the FBI at least twice since 2013; made reference to the Tsarnaev brothers, the brothers who bombed the 2013 Boston Marathon; and was married for two years to a woman who left because of his abusiveness. All of those elements have become part of the standard narrative in other media.


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