The Gospel Coalition

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Building the GetReligion archives: Flashback to journalists avoiding Gosnell trial horrors

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Building the GetReligion archives: Flashback to journalists avoiding Gosnell trial horrors

If you pay close attention to the details, it’s clear that your GetReligionistas are already preparing to close our doors on Feb. 2.

Look at the masthead, for example. We have inserted “2004-2024” under the name and the original first post — “What we do, why we do it” has turned into a “History” link. I’m already working on the “Why we did what we did” final piece.

Like I said the other day, we are closing — but some GetReligion features will continue in other places.

The religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling will keep writing some form of news “Memo” for Religion Unplugged, where his editor will be our own Clemente Lisi. I will continue the “Crossroads” podcast with our partners at Lutheran Public Radio and they will be available here at the GetReligion archive (see the new logo on the right sidebar), Tmatt.net and the podcast pages at Apple. We’re talking about some form of Q&A podcast or video. The GetReligion feed on X will remain open. I’m pondering a Substack newsletter — “Rational Sheep” — on religious faith and mass culture.

But the main thing that is going on is that we are working to turn this massive website into a searchable archive for people — journalists, book writers, etc. — who want tons of information, URLs and commentary about the past two decades of religion-beat news (with a heavy emphasis on First Amendment issues). It helps to remember that I am married to a reference librarian who started working on computer networks when she was a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate student in the late 1970s.

One of the things we will do, on the “Search” page, is offer some suggestions for search terms to find some classic GetReligion work. I have, for technical and legal reasons, been reading my way back through the history of of this blog and, the other day, I hit 2013.

Let’s just say that i urge readers to do a search for these terms — “Hemingway,” “Gosnell,” “trial,” 2013 — and dig into what they hit.


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Russell Moore on Christians who are switching churches or hitting exit doors -- period

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Russell Moore on Christians who are switching churches or hitting exit doors -- period

“Book of the Month” is certainly an appropriate label for Russell Moore’s “Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America,” released July 25 by Sentinel. I am borrowing that label, of course, from that venerable subscription club and corporate partner during The Guy’s days working with the old Time Inc.

The bottom line: Pretty much every religious professional will want to take a look at what this central figure has to say.

Ditto for journalists who write about religion.

Moore is, yes, controversial and opinionated but also thoughtful and knowledgeable, so it’s worth absorbing his latest plea for a thorough overhaul of this sprawling and complex Protestant movement (with some pertinence for Catholics, too).

This might be the right time for religion-beat pros to offer yet another broad look at evangelical pitfalls and prospects. The Twitter (er, X) traffic on this new Moore book will continue to be lively.

There’s a possible peg when Moore chats with Beth Moore (no relation), another prominent exile from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), in Houston on August 9, which will be live-streamed (details at www.russellmoore.com).

Moore famously opposed Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy on moral grounds when many other evangelical thinkers carefully kept their qualms private. His 2020 private admonition to executives of the SBC, which later leaked, depicted years of “the most vicious guerilla tactics” against him, especially his activism on issues linked to sexual abuse cases and cover-ups and mishandled race relations. He’s now one of seven ministers at Immanuel Church in Nashville, a congregation with ties to evangelicals in several denominations (including Anglicanism) and part of the Acts 29 network (www.acts29.com).


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How will religion fare as liberal arts education shrinks in the United States of America?

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How will religion fare as liberal arts education shrinks in the United States of America?

Pity U.S. colleges coping with political feuds, “diversity,” declining applications and enrollments, student debt and tight budgets.

Add religious and moral issues and things get even more complex.

Some religious colleges are on survival watch. On June 29, the 140-year-old Alliance University (formerly Nyack College) decided it must shut down, and a second New York City Christian school, The King’s College, will also close unless there’s a last-minute reprieve. Early in the week, Religion News Service reported:

The last remaining evangelical Christian college in New York City, The King’s College, announced Monday (July 17) in an email that the school, which has faced dire financial challenges, would not offer classes in the fall. In an earlier meeting with faculty and staff it was announced that many teaching contracts would not renew or were canceled.

“This decision comes after months of diligently exploring numerous avenues to enable the College to continue its mission,” read the email, which was addressed to “members of the King’s community” and signed by the Board of Trustees. “In connection with this decision,” it continued, “it is with regret we share that our faculty and staff positions will be reduced or eliminated.

The running tally by www.HigherEdDive.com lists 96 colleges that have gone out of business since 2016, and Christianity Today counts 18 Christian colleges that shut down since COVID, with more likely.

Amid all those newsworthy developments, let’s not neglect the content of higher education. There’s been considerable media coverage on conservatives’ complaints over neglect of “dead white men,” liberal faculty bias, oppressive secularization, imbalance on American history, “cancel culture” and “woke” pressures.

Yet with considerably less fanfare, a different 21st Century trend is recasting the very definition of a well-educated citizen. College education as it existed in the West across the centuries was a huge invention and contribution of the Christian religion and, in turn, it enhanced value formation and spiritual depth. Any religion builds upon the past and non-technological reflection on what’s “good, true, and beautiful,” as the old formula expressed it.


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Has the doctrinal DNA of the Southern Baptist Convention changed that much?

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Has the doctrinal DNA of the Southern Baptist Convention changed that much?

After decades as America's most famous Sunday school teacher, Jimmy Carter decided to cut the symbolic ties binding him to the Southern Baptist Convention.

The former president remained active at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, and didn't renounce his faith. His 2000 letter to 75,000 American Baptists explained that he rejected a revision of the SBC's Baptist Faith and Message document, months earlier, to oppose the ordination of women.

"I have been disappointed and feel excluded by the adoption of policies and an increasingly rigid SBC creed," wrote Carter, who is now 98 years old and in hospice care. He stressed that, with his wife Rosalynn, he would cooperate with "traditional Baptists who share such beliefs as separation of church and state, servanthood of pastors, priesthood of believers, a free religious press, and equality of women."

From Carter's point of view, the SBC had evolved from a convention of autonomous churches -- with individuals claiming "soul competency" when choosing their own beliefs -- into a denomination that defines orthodoxy on doctrines.

The issue isn't who is a Baptist and who is not. Church historians struggle to count the number of organized Baptist groups and thousands of Baptist churches are totally independent. The question is whether the SBC's DNA has changed in ways that will affect local churches, as well as agencies, boards and seminaries at the state and national levels.

The Rev. Rick Warren -- an American evangelical superstar -- urged the recent national convention in New Orleans not to "disfellowship" congregations that ordain women, such as the giant Saddleback Church he founded in 1980.

"For 178 years, the SBC has been a blend of at least a dozen different tribes of Baptists," said Warren, during floor debates. "If you think every Baptist thinks like you, you're mistaken.


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Podcast: Did the Southern Baptist Convention just become a different kind of 'Baptist' body?

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Podcast: Did the Southern Baptist Convention just become a different kind of 'Baptist' body?

Bill Clinton and Al Gore? They were once Southern Baptists and I imagine that they remain generic Baptists.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell? An independent Baptist who led a church that became Southern Baptist. How about the Rev. Pat Robertson? He was Southern Baptist, but his second ordination was totally post-denominational (with one Episcopal bishop taking part, for what it’s worth).

President Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist, but dropped his ties to the Southern Baptist Convention. I think journalist Bill Moyers fits that mold, too. Come to think of it, so does political science professor and pastor Ryan Burge.

So what does “Baptist” mean, with or without that whole “Southern” thing? Is it up to the individual believer, the local congregation or some kind of affirmation at the regional, state or national level? After all, there are hundreds of different “Baptist” brands and thousands of totally independent “Baptist” congregations.

These questions loomed in the background during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). The topic was press coverage of the national meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was held in New Orleans this year.

As usual, the big SBC show drew lots of coverage — especially with the dramatic appeal by the Rev. Rick Warren, perhaps America’s best-known evangelical, for his Saddleback Church to be readmitted to the national convention, even after it plunged ahead and ordained women to various ministries.

Supporters of the ordination of women lost that move — by a wide margin. Also, the Rev. Bart Barber, the establishment candidate, was easily elected to a second term as SBC president.

That being said, what was the big news here? The best way to follow the crucial decisions in New Orleans is to dig into two Religion News Service pieces. Here is a key passage from the first, by religion-beat veterans Adelle Banks and Bob Smietana:

Warren and the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham, who leads the Louisville church, each argued that Baptists don’t agree on a range of matters — from Calvinism to COVID-19 — but that hadn’t halted their ability to have a shared commitment to spreading the gospel.

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued against keeping either Saddleback or Fern Creek within the Southern Baptist fold. He said the idea of women pastors “is an issue of fundamental biblical authority that does violate both the doctrine and the order of the Southern Baptist Convention.”


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Podcast: Is Christmas 'news'? Not really, unless it is a case of 'Christmas AND ...'

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Podcast: Is Christmas 'news'? Not really, unless it is a case of 'Christmas AND ...'

At least once a year, back in the days when I was in a newsroom full-time, I would have a semi-argument with an editor about this question: Are debates about worship issues “hard news”?

Every now and then I would win and we’d run a story — like a feature about United Methodists arguing about gender-neutral language for God (this was in the 1980s). When it ran, all hellfire broke loose, which convinced some editors that I was right. Others, however, were upset that so many readers disagreed with their conviction that a religion-religion story was news, as opposed to religion-politics stories.

This brings me to Christmas — which is on a Sunday this year. This has led to some interesting polling and emotional online debates, but, so far, not much news coverage about the central worship question: Should churches celebrate Christmas on Christmas, even if Dec. 25 falls on a Sunday? This was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

Research? The team at Lifeway Research has done two studies linked to Christmas worship. For example, see this Baptist Press headline: “Most churches plan to open on Christmas and New Year’s Day.” I wrote a column the other day with this headline: “When is Christmas? That depends on the person asking.”

Back to the question about worship being news. You end up with an equation that goes something like this:

* Flocks of people attending Latin Mass rites is not news.

* The pope questioning the motives of traditional Catholics who support the Latin Mass is news.

* A major American political leader — Joe Biden, perhaps — supporting the pope’s take on the Latin Mass would be big news.

See how this works? You can see how this would apply to the whole “When is Christmas?” debate. It matters to millions of people in pews. It doesn’t matter to the political desk.


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Thinking about that 'Define evangelical' thing, with Andrew Walker, Ryan Burge (and Mark Noll)

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Thinking about that 'Define evangelical' thing, with Andrew Walker, Ryan Burge (and Mark Noll)

If you search for “define evangelical” in the 18 years worth of material stored here at GetReligion you will find about four screens worth of information. Here’s what that looks like in a Google search.

Believe it or not, this was a hot topic before the advent of Orange Man Bad and the dreaded “81% of White evangelicals” mantra.

Debates about the meaning of the church-history term “evangelical” are so old that I once asked the Rev. Billy Graham for his take. Here’s some information about his answer, drawn from this “On Religion” column: “Define 'evangelical' – please.”

… You might assume that the world's most famous evangelist has an easy answer for this tricky political question: "What does the word 'evangelical' mean?" If you assumed this, you would be wrong. In fact, Graham once bounced that question right back at me.

"Actually, that's a question I'd like to ask somebody, too," he said, during a 1987 interview in his mountainside home office in Montreat, N.C. This oft-abused term has "become blurred. ... You go all the way from the extreme fundamentalists to the extreme liberals and, somewhere in between, there are the evangelicals."

Wait a minute, I said. If Billy Graham doesn't know what "evangelical" means, then who does? Graham agreed that this is a problem for journalists and historians. One man's "evangelical" is another's "fundamentalist."

That leads us to the topic of this quick, and rather rare, Monday “think piece” (I’m traveling right now and rather unplugged, so I wrote this several days ago).

Thus, at the top of this post you will see a video feature from The Gospel Coalition in which two academics — political scientist Ryan Burge ( a GetReligion contributor) and ethicist-apologist Andrew Walker — debate this topic: “Is ‘Evangelical’ a Political or Theological identity?” (Careful readers may have noticed that, a few lines earlier, I called it a “church-history term” and I’m sticking to that.)

I will let Burge and Walker speak for themselves.


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New podcast: Reformed Church in America split points to rising tensions in Calvin country

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New podcast: Reformed Church in America split points to rising tensions in Calvin country

Growing up as a Texas Baptist (long ago) I was predestined to know next to nothing about what some have called the great “northern kingdom” of American evangelicalism. Yes, we can debate whether “evangelical” is an accurate description of the Calvinist world based in Grand Rapids, Mich., and other cities and towns in the Midwest.

I had to learn some of this lingo when I moved to Central Illinois and then when I broke into religion-beat work in Charlotte, N.C., a city with every imaginable form of Presbyterian and Reformed church life.

As I mentioned in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to listen), I quickly learned that the Reformed Church in America was a rather centrist flock, while the Christian Reformed Church was much more conservative, in terms of doctrine and culture. I would not have called either of these bodies a “Mainline Protestant” denomination.

Things change. Eventually, the RCA started arguing about the familiar subjects that have divided so many religious bodies — biblical authority and sex. This leads us to a Religion News Service report: “Reformed Church in America splits as conservative churches form new denomination.” Here is the overture:

(RNS) — On New Year’s Day, 43 congregations of the Reformed Church in America split from the national denomination, one of the oldest Protestant bodies in the United States, in part over theological differences regarding same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy.

The departure of the theologically conservative congregations to the new group, the Alliance of Reformed Churches, leaves some who remain in the RCA concerned for the denomination’s survival. Before the split, the nearly 400-year-old denomination had fewer than 200,000 members and 1,000 churches.

At least 125 churches from various denominations are in conversation with ARC leaders about joining.

“Various denominations?” Hold that thought.


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