Pew Research

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Podcast: CNN offers an old opposition-research file on Speaker Mike 'theocrat' Johnson

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Podcast: CNN offers an old opposition-research file on Speaker Mike 'theocrat' Johnson

Before we return to the never-ending saga of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and his efforts to create a totalitarian theocracy that destroys democracy in America, let’s pause for a Journalism 101 case study.

Don’t worry, this is directly related to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Now, gentle readers, are any of you old enough to remember Marabel Morgan, the evangelical superstar who wrote “The Total Woman,” which sold something like 10 million copies? Morgan was an anti-feminist crusader clothed in pink (as opposed to something else) who had a knack for infuriating blue-zipcode elites. Here is a quick flashback, via the Faith Profiles website:

An editor at Time magazine once confided in Marabel Morgan that he came away from a cocktail party with high-heel marks all over his chest at the mere mention of her name.

And what heinous crime did Morgan commit that could provoke such a sharp reaction? Morgan wrote a book in the early 1970s that sold more than 5 million copies about how she salvaged her marriage. The widespread belief was that she proposed that women rekindle their marriages by such innovations as greeting their husbands at the door dressed in Saran Wrap or having sex under the dining room table.

Whee!

During my early 1980s religion-beat work at The Charlotte News, I ventured out to a suburban megachurch where Morgan spoke to several thousand fans. I left that meeting absolutely furious, my mind packed with outrageous punchline quotes from her (I had to admit entertaining) speech.

Driving back to the newsroom on deadline, I started figuring out what would be in the crucial first two or three paragraphs of the story. Then I realized that, if I followed my own prejudices, I was going to frontload this story with stuff that would fire up my editors and others who detested Morgan and her tribe.

Thus, I decided to attempt a story that opened with material that included (a) what Morgan said that I knew would appeal to her critics and (b) what she said that drew cheers and applause from her supporters.


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Here is a strange question: Why doesn't the U.S. Census ask questions about religion?

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Here is a strange question: Why doesn't the U.S. Census ask questions about religion?

QUESTION:

“Why doesn’t the U.S. Census ask about religion?”

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Most Americans may never have thought about this, an odd omission considering that religion is such an important aspect of society. Canada’s government, for example, has asked about religious affiliations since 1871.

But from the first once-a-decade U.S. Census conducted in 1790, the federal government has never directly asked all Americans about their religion (or lack thereof). Responses are anonymous, which should remove any sensitivities about answering such a question. The usual explanation is that “separation of church and state” forbids such questionining by a government agency, which is debatable.

Much of the history below draws upon an April 12  article about the Census by the Pew Research Center that has further detail for those interested, available by clicking here.

Instead of church-and-state entanglement, The Guy offers a different sort of objection to Census involvement. Religious affiliation or identity may be too complicated a matter for government nose-counters to deal with accurately.

Several non-government agencies with more expertise in this area collect standard data on Americans’ religion, with numbers that regularly conflict due to differing methods, assumptions and definitions.

One of the most important is Pew Research’s own Religious Landscape Study, last issued in 2014. www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/Groundwork for the next round has already begun. Pew’s precision on religious factions and identities is vital because Protestant categories like “Lutheran” or “Presbyterian” mask big differences among groups with that label.

That sort of specificity is also provided in the “U.S. Religion Census” conducted each decade since 1990 by experts in religion statistics.


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(Still) thinking about Americans wanting other people's religion to stay out of politics

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(Still) thinking about Americans wanting other people's religion to stay out of politics

How old does a “think piece” need to be for people to stop thinking about it?

Let me state that another way: What if a “think piece” is a year old and I am still thinking about it?

Part of my logic, in this case, is that discussion of certain topics linked to this particular Religion in Public blog piece have, if anything, only heated up in the 12 months since it was published. Consider the urgent push for reporting, publishing and polling about “Christian nationalism,” which has almost turned into an industry of its own, especially in certain niche corners of the press.

Oh, has the Associated Press ruled on whether the “n” in that term is upper- or lower-case? If this is a movement, it really needs its own website and corporate headquarters, or is that like asking for official contact information about the Mafia?

Anyway, this brings me to a really interesting piece by researcher Paul A. Djupe of Denison University, who is best known in these parts as a frequent co-writer with Ryan Burge, a contributor to this website. Here is the headline: “Congregations are Doing Acceptable Amounts of Political Engagement.”

The question at the heart of the essay: Do people who claim to want churches to stay out of politics include their own for of organized religion (and maybe unorganized sort-of religion)? Djupe is reacting, in part, to a Pew Research study posted online with this headline: “Americans Have Positive Views About Religion’s Role in Society, but Want It Out of Politics.”

So here is the first major chunk of material that readers — journalists especially — need to think about.

In October 2020, at the height of the voting phase of the presidential election, we asked 1,306 worship attenders about the level of political engagement in their house of worship, soliciting whether the congregation needed to be less political, more political, or had just the right level of political engagement. The (weighted) response is almost the exact opposite of the Pew result from a few years ago — 60 percent believe their congregation was just right or should be more political, while 40 percent say it should be less (or way less) political.


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What's up in 2023? The Guy offers a first draft of a religion-beat agenda

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What's up in 2023? The Guy offers a first draft of a religion-beat agenda

The new year could be climactic for two aspects of LGBTQ issues, first, the rights of religious and conservative dissenters within liberalized western culture, and second, the ongoing conflicts within church groups.

What should journalists be prepared to cover?

By June, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide the 303 Creative case, in which a website designer — based on First Amendment claims — seeks exemption from Colorado’s anti-discrimination law to avoid work on postings that celebrate same-sex weddings (background here). The Court might broadly define what rights various forms of religious traditionalists have in a host of legal conflicts facing e.g. U.S. religious colleges, social-service agencies and individual businesses now that same-sex marriage is legalized.

Inside a specific religion brand, this could be a pivotal year for the global Anglican Communion with its 46 national branches and some 85 million baptized members. A mid-January meeting of bishops in the “mother” Church of England may well decide dioceses can permit same-sex weddings. That historic change would then need approval from clergy and lay delegates at the February 6–9 General Synod.

Such a move would add explosive potential to the April 17-21 meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (“GAFCON”), long vexed by liberal moves in England, the United States and elsewhere in declining First World churches. GAFCON unites the heads of 10 Anglican branches, three of which alone (Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda) encompass half the world’s Anglicans. GAFCON’s chairman, Archbishop Foley Beach (admin@anglicanchurch.net and 724-266-9400), heads a church of conservatives who’ve left the U.S. Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada.

Already, key archbishops have boycotted global Anglican confabs, continuing a slow-motion breakup that began decades ago. Will the maneuvers in England and elsewhere provoke a huge, definitive break from the London-based Anglican Communion by churches in GAFCON and the related Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches?

The United Methodist Church could be on the brink of the biggest U.S. Protestant split since the Civil War. That’s a huge story at the local, regional, national and global levels.


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Plug-In: A 50-year TV flashback -- Why 'The Waltons' wasn't afraid of religious faith

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Plug-In: A 50-year TV flashback -- Why 'The Waltons' wasn't afraid of religious faith

During the pandemic lockdown, I rediscovered “The Waltons” and watched all 221 episodes.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that the classic TV show about a Depression-era family in rural Virginia made its prime-time debut on Sept. 14, 1972.

That’s 50 years ago.

I started emailing myself notes about religion references in specific episodes — those with titles such as “The Sinner”, “The Sermon” and “The Baptism” — and marked the anniversary date on my calendar. Journalists are always looking for a story, don't you know?

I pitched a piece to The Associated Press. To my delight, Global Religion news director David Crary and news editor Holly Meyer let me write it. This isn’t hard news, but I hope it’s interesting.

Speaking of AP friends, Matt Curry and I worked together in the Dallas bureau from 2003 to 2005. Curry later left journalism and attended Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. He's a big fan of “The Waltons,” and his family’s experience became the lede for my feature:

The Rev. Matt Curry’s parents were children of the Great Depression, just like “The Waltons” — the beloved TV family whose prime-time series premiered 50 years ago.

When Curry was growing up on a farm in northern Texas, his carpenter father and teacher mother often argued playfully over who had a poorer childhood.

“The Depression was the seminal time of their lives — the time that was about family and survival and making it through,” said Curry, now a 59-year-old Presbyterian pastor in Owensboro, Kentucky. “My dad used to talk about how his dad would go work out of town and send $5 a week to feed and clothe the family.”

So when “The Waltons,” set in 1932 and running through World War II, debuted on CBS on Sept. 14, 1972, the Currys identified closely with the storylines.

I enjoyed interviewing two stars of “The Waltons”: Richard Thomas (John-Boy Walton) and Kami Cotler (Elizabeth Walton).

The story explores how the series delved into spiritual themes at a time when the TV networks tended to avoid them.


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New York Times: LGBTQ rights are a key factor in Ukraine (even if many Ukrainians disagree)

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New York Times: LGBTQ rights are a key factor in Ukraine (even if many Ukrainians disagree)

When I was a sophomore at Baylor University (soon after the cooling of the earth’s crust) the great journalism professor David McHam had an interesting pre-computer way of demonstrating what he wanted to see when a student prepared a second draft of a news story.

Taking a metal straight edge (think pica pole), he would tear the copy into horizontal blocks of text. Then he would rearrange these into a different order, locking them in place with clear tape. Then he would say something like this: “You buried some of the most important information. Go rewrite the story in this order.”

This brings me to a New York Times story about religion, culture, politics and war in Ukraine. There’s a lot of interesting material here, but readers who want to know some crucial basic facts will need to be patient — because they are buried deep in this report. The double-decker headline offers the basic framework:

War Spurs Ukrainian Efforts to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

The role of gay soldiers, the lack of legal rights for their partners, and the threat of Russia imposing anti-L.G.B.T. policies have turned the war into a catalyst for change in Ukraine.

Now, before I go any further, let me note that, yes, I am Orthodox and I attend a parish that includes Slavic believers, as well as lots and lots of American converts. Also, my two visits to Kiev left me convinced Ukraine is — as the Soviets intended — a tragically divided nation. My views are identical to those of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, on that subject.

When Russian began its evil invasion, I posted a note on Facebook that ended with this:

EU-USA was arrogant enough to think they could — with money, culture and military tech — turn Eastern-Russian Ukrainians into Europeans. Will Putin be arrogant enough to think he can, with blood, turn Western-European Ukrainians into Russians?

I raise this issue because, at a crucial point deep in this Times story, I believe it is relevant. Hold that though.

The anecdotal lede for this story focuses on the fears of a young Ukrainian combat medic named Olexander Shadskykh. That leads to the thesis statement:


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What's the role of religion as social trust unravels in American public life?

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What's the role of religion as social trust unravels in American public life?

Time for a Religion Guy Memo that sidesteps the onrushing news of the moment for a broader-brush assessment of America and American religion that the media need to be thinking about.

Last Saturday, CNN host Michael Smerconish asked whether the United States is experiencing “a national nervous breakdown,” and conducted a (non-scientific) online poll in which 78% of 22,000-plus viewers answered “no” to this question: “Are concerns about America’s unraveling overblown?”

Devastating documentation on the situation came the morning after Independence Day from the Gallup Poll’s annual survey on the population’s confidence in the various institutions that lead, bind and shape the nation.

The Gallup organization stands out among pollsters for its data on identical or similar questions across many years. Writers who pursue this will want to examine the year-by-year “confidence in institutions” data, which in many cases date back to 1973.

Since this is GetReligion, we start with how much confidence this year’s 1,015 respondents have in “the church or organized religion.”

The following numbers combine the “a great deal” and “quite a lot” answers to yield a confidence index. (The poll’s other choices were “some,” “very little,” “none” and “no opinion.”) Note that these percentages track opinions among the general public, not just Americans who are personally involved or knowledgeable about religion.

Simply put, the populace’s confidence in organized religion has hit rock bottom in 2022 at 31%, compared with a 52% majority as recently as 2009, and consistent scores of 60% or better from 1973 through 1985. Digging into the internals we find 46% confidence among self-identified Republicans vs. a paltry 26% among Democrats.

What happened? The Guy sees no clear pattern of immediate reactions to, for instance, news eruptions regarding Catholic priestly predators or the abortion or the same-sex marriage disputes, though gradual accumulating impact seems likely. There’s possibly a bit of damage from a Christian faction’s visible conservative politicking, particularly in the Trump years, but even that is debatable.

The Guy proposes an explanation based upon all institutions gauged by the poll.


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A key anti-Donald Trump evangelical ponders what seven years have wrought in America

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A key anti-Donald Trump evangelical ponders what seven years have wrought in America

This is the 11th Guy Memo in a year guiding the media and other observers on dynamics within U.S. evangelical Protestantism. There are growing signs of a crack-up including, for sure, sexual scandals and self-inflicted wounds, but also the gap between institutional elites and the grassroots, creating division, instability and, we can expect, long-term damage.

If 11 articles seem like overkill, The Guy notes this has long been the most dynamic segment in American religion, and probably the largest in terms of active attendance. Though made up of organizationally chaotic fiefdoms, the movement’s impact rested upon substantial solidarity in belief and social outlook compared with other religious sectors.

Then seven years ago the disruptive force known as Donald J. Trump emerged.

Which brings us to last week’s significant scan by prominent evangelical Marvin Olasky in the conservative National Review.

Importantly, this does not come from some well-meaning outsider (thinking of you, David Brooks) but a career-long insider who’s profoundly conservative in both biblical belief and politics. But he is also anti-Trump.

Here we need to pause to sketch the landscape in evangelical journalism.

Olasky says the “big three” news outlets of evangelicalism are World magazine, where he was longtime editor-in-chief, the 66-year-old Christianity Today and Charisma, voice of the Pentecostal-charismatic wing of this hard-to-define world. (Beat specialists would of course add other informative websites without print editions.)

During Trump’s 2020 campaign, Charisma CEO Stephen Strang issued a book subtitled “Why He [Trump] Must Win and What’s at Stake for Christians If He Loses,” followed by a magazine piece telling readers “Why We Must Support Trump in Prayer and at the Polls.”

But the other two top editors disagreed. In World, Olasky proclaimed Trump morally “unfit for power” just before the 2016 election. In 2019, Christianity Today editor-in-chief Mark Galli called for Trump’s impeachment and removal from office over Ukraine meddling for partisan purposes.


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