The Nashville Tennessean

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Plug-In: Losing their religion -- shape of Latino Catholic population keeps changing in America

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Plug-In: Losing their religion -- shape of Latino Catholic population keeps changing in America

LANCASTER, Pa. — Greetings from Amish country.

I wrote this while in Pennsylvania for the Evangelical Press Association’s 2023 Christian Media Convention.

Let’s check out the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.

What to know: The big story

A declining demographic: Once upon a time in America, the phrase “Latino Catholic” seemed almost superfluous.

However, new research released this week details just how much that has changed.

The Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca reports:

The study by the Pew Research Center found that the percentage of Catholic Latinos fell to 43% in 2022 from 67% in 2010. The share of evangelical Protestants among U.S. Latinos remained relatively stable at 15%, compared with 12%. But the proportion of Latinos with no religious affiliation is now up to 30% from 10%, bringing it to about the same level as that of the U.S. population as a whole.

The tendency to identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” is especially strong among young Latinos, as with young Americans in general. About half of U.S. Latinos ages 18 to 29 identify themselves that way.

Crux’s John Lavenburg notes:

Even with the decreases, Latinos are about twice as likely as U.S. adults overall to identify as Catholic. However, the data within that 43 percent shows the potential impacts of a secularized U.S. culture on Latino Catholics, and paints a bleak picture for the future if the trends continue.

Political angle: The Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner suggests that evangelical Hispanics — despite “relatively stable” numbers — have a rising profile:

This is due in part, the research group said, to the political activism of some evangelical churches, but also because “a rising share of Latino voters” have cast their ballots for Republican candidates in recent elections.

Religion News Service’s Alejandra Molina cites “the clergy sexual abuse scandal, a lack of LGBTQ inclusivity and the rule that women can’t be priests” as reasons Latinos are leaving the Catholic Church.


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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

Was the attack on the elementary school at Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian Church a religion-news story?

Of course it was, for at least four reasons that we discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

(1) It was an attack on a conservative Christian school at a conservative Presbyterian church in a city that is often called the buckle fn the Bible Belt (although locals know that the Nashville establishment, especially in media, is left of center).

(2) Religious groups have played a major role in Tennessee debates about parental rights, education and LGBTQ issues. What does that have to do with the shooting? Hold that thought.

(3) Religious groups have played a major role in discussions of gun-control legislation in Tennessee and, in this case, it is important to avoid political labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” in that discussion.

(4) The young adult who attacked the Covenant School was a former student there. Audrey Hale had recently identified as Aiden Hale in social media, with male pronouns. Hale was still living in a conservative Christian home, with a mother who both was a strong advocate of gun control and on the staff of Village Chapel in Nashville.

What else do news readers know about the shooter? That depends — in this new age of partisan, advocacy media — on which news organizations a reader follows. In most mainstream coverage, even in Nashville, questions about the life and beliefs of the shooter have all but vanished.

Consider this short paragraph late, late in a Religion News Service follow-up report: “Grief, fear haunt Nashville as residents gather to mourn in wake of Covenant shooting.”

Very little is known about the shooter, a former student at Covenant who was killed by police. The shooter reportedly left a manifesto that has not been made public. 

Really? “Very” little?


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Heeding the Nashville shooter's own voice: Do journalists want the 'manifesto' released?

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Heeding the Nashville shooter's own voice: Do journalists want the 'manifesto' released?

Once again, we return to that mantra from old-school journalism — “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why” and “how.”

When covering the murders at Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian Church private school, journalists already know that the shooter wanted the public to know the answer to the “why” question.

Moments before shooting open the school’s doors, the person previously known as Audrey Hale, who chose the name “Aiden” in social media, sent a haunting and strategic message to a friend. Some timelines suggest that the shooter sent this message while parked in the church’s parking lot.

The contents of the message are highly relevant to news coverage of the shootings. Readers: Have you seen these words quoted in your local, regional and national news sources? Hale wrote:

“This is my last goodbye.

“I love you (heart) See you again in another life Audrey (Aiden)”

Later, Hale added:

“My family doesn’t know what I’m about to do

“One day this will make more sense. I’ve left more than enough evidence behind

“But something bad is about to happen.”

Public officials have made it clear that the shooter left behind a “manifesto,” as well as highly detailed plans for the attack on the school (school leaders have said Hale attended 4th and 5th grade there). The manifesto text is almost certainly what Hale was describing with the words, “One day this will make more sense. I’ve left more than enough evidence behind.”

Under normal circumstances, journalists would be doing everything that they can to answer the “why” question in this case, including calling for the release of Hale’s manifesto text and other materials linked to the attack. But these are not normal circumstances.


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Loretta Lynn: A tough, trailblazing woman whose edgy art included doses of grit and faith

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Loretta Lynn: A tough, trailblazing woman whose edgy art included doses of grit and faith

If you know Nashville, then you probably know that there is nothing new about major country music stars also being Christian believers. In fact, it’s probably worthy of a headline or two if and when superstars send signals that they’re NOT at home in the Bible Belt.

That being said, I am still amazed when journalists produce stories about country artists and edit out the details in their lives and music that point toward faith. It happens all the time.

I’m not just talking about musicians putting a gospel song or two in their set lists when touring, as a kind of music-history exercise. I’m talking about reporters missing revelations in autobiographies, social-media statements to fans or mini-sermons on stage. I’m talking about passing up chances to talk with pastors who have known performers for years.

This brings me to the death of honky-tonk angel herself, Loretta Lynn — the matriarch for a generation or more of female artists in guitar town. As you would expect, the obits following her death stressed — with good cause, let me stress — her daring hit songs about blue-collar American life, with strong doses of reality about hard times, troubled homes, cracked marriages and lots of other sobering subjects.

Which is why, to cut to the chase, it’s even more important that this legend turned to Christian faith as an adult, in the midst of all that gritty stuff. Hold that thought. Here is a chunk of the Associated Press report that will appear in most American newspapers:

The Country Music Hall of Famer wrote fearlessly about sex and love, cheating husbands, divorce and birth control and sometimes got in trouble with radio programmers for material from which even rock performers once shied away.

Her biggest hits came in the 1960s and ’70s, including “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” “Rated X” and “You’re Looking at Country.” ...

Lynn knew that her songs were trailblazing, especially for country music, but she was just writing the truth that so many rural women like her experienced.

“I could see that other women was goin’ through the same thing, ‘cause I worked the clubs. I wasn’t the only one that was livin’ that life and I’m not the only one that’s gonna be livin’ today what I’m writin’,” she told The AP in 1995.

All true.


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This just in! Southern Baptists are still very conservative on issues of marriage and sex!

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This just in! Southern Baptists are still very conservative on issues of marriage and sex!

Let’s face it, it’s rather hard for a congregation to be “removed from fellowship” — that’s Baptist-ese for “kicked out” — from the Southern Baptist Convention.

After all, are we talking about ties being cut to the local association, a state convention (some states, for doctrinal reasons, have more than one) or the various programs linked to the national SBC? Then there are, for extra-conservative or extra-progressive congregations, alternative “fellowship” networks that have their own vague relationships with the larger SBC ship.

Finally, if a church is “removed from fellowship” and any or all of these levels of voluntary association, it may simply become an independent autonomous Baptist church, as opposed to an autonomous SBC church. Most local folks will never know the difference and independent, often nondenominational, congregations are the fastest growing sector of American religious life.

But if you dig into the Google search in my first paragraph, you will see that churches have been pushed out the exit door of SBC life for several reasons and that this is nothing new. However, it is true that these churches are being kicked out for reasons that many (not all) journalists may consider more worthy of coverage than others. Think “politics.”

Consider this summary material from a New York Times piece last year that ran with this headline: “Southern Baptists Expel 2 Churches Over Sex Abuse and 2 for L.G.B.T.Q. Inclusion.”

The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and has been increasingly divided in recent years over a variety of cultural and political issues, including racism, sexuality and white evangelicals’ embrace of former President Donald J. Trump. …

[A]n increasingly influential conservative wing of the denomination accuses those leaders of prioritizing “social justice” over biblical truth. They denounce the encroachment of “critical race theory” — an academic framework intended to capture the deep influence of racism — and accuse the S.B.C.’s national leadership of being out of step with the rank and file.

It’s pretty easy to spot the subjects that would leap into headlines, right?

There is, for example, nothing new about “progressive” Baptist congregations veering to the doctrinal left on issues linked to gender and sexuality.


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Look at a United Methodist timeline: Why are conservatives going nuclear with lawsuits?

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Look at a United Methodist timeline: Why are conservatives going nuclear with lawsuits?

The slowly evolving trainwreck that is the disunited United Methodist Church is an unbelievably complicated story and I have lots of sympathy for journalists who are being asked to cover it — week after week — in normal-length news reports.

I have some right to say this, since I have been covering this story since 1984 or earlier.

For starters, there is no one United Methodist Church and there hasn’t been one for decades. See this flashback column that I wrote a few years ago: “Old fault lines can be seen in the ‘seven churches’ of divided Methodism,” which was followed by “Doctrinal debates that define the divided United Methodists.”

The bottom line, once again: This war has always been about biblical authority and a host of other doctrinal clashes, with battles about homosexuality grabbing the headlines.

Anyway, I was reading another update from The Nashville Tennessean the other day — “United Methodists grapple with schism as 300-plus churches leave across U.S.” (high paywall) — and something hit me (other than the fact that “schism” still isn’t an accurate word for what is happening here). The key was looking at several key events on a timeline.

First, let’s plug in a key fact from a recent Religion News Service report about the doctrinally conservative UMC congregations who are trying to hit the denominational exit doors in Western North Carolina and Florida. The lawyers trying to sue the UMC establishment are, you see, are working on a deadline

A lawyer for the Western North Carolina Annual Conference, which has more than 1,000 congregations, responded … saying it would not comply since the request does not follow the disaffiliation plan approved by a special session of the United Methodist Church’s General Conference in 2019.

That plan allows churches to leave the denomination through the end of 2023. They can take their properties with them after paying two years of apportionments and pension liabilities.

Tick, tick, tick.

That 2019 General Conference was, of course, the watershed event in which a coalition of growing Global South churches and some conservative Americans infuriated the shrinking UMC establishment by passing the “Traditional Plan,” while also (#TriggerWarning) urging enforcement of “Book of Discipline” doctrinal stands on marriage and sexuality.


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Podcast: Those hellish SBC sexual-abuse stories? They may be coming to a zip code near you

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Podcast: Those hellish SBC sexual-abuse stories? They may be coming to a zip code near you

There’s an old saying in the real estate business about properties that get hot and then sell quickly: “Location, location, location.”

That’s precisely where we are right now with the sexual-abuse scandal that looms over the core institutions of the giant, complex, sprawling Southern Baptist Convention.

Where is the story heating up right now? Where is the story going in the future? The answer to both of those questions is: “Location, location, location.” This is true with current events (and events yet to come) and it’s also true with the must-read coverage of this big story. We focused on both sides of that equation during this week’s GetReligion podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

First, let’s talk about the journalism behind this story, which has been building for several years now (see this Bobby Ross, Jr., “Plug-In” update for a starter). Everything begins in Texas and Tennessee and reporters there who are doing the heavy lifting — in Nashville and Houston, to be specific. You can see this, ironically, in this Washington Post story: “How two Texas newspapers broke open the Southern Baptist sex scandal.” Here is the overture:

Houston Chronicle city hall reporter Robert Downen was on the night shift one evening in 2018, just a few months into the job, when something caught his attention.

Scrolling through an online federal court docket, he spotted a lawsuit that accused Paul Pressler, a prominent former judge and leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, of sexual assault. While the case had been previously reported, newly filed documents painted an even more damning picture, including the revelation that Pressler had previously agreed to pay his accuser $450,000. Downen, then 25, probed more deeply and discovered other survivors of church abuse, who made it clear to him, he recalled, that “if you think this problem is confined to one leader, we have quite a bit to show you.”

Downen’s ever-growing spreadsheet of cases soon inspired a larger reporting effort to quantify the scope of sex abuse within the massive Protestant denomination. Journalists at the Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News teamed up to create a database of cases involving nearly 300 church leaders and more than 700 victims for their landmark 2019 “Abuse of Faith” series.

A wave of outrage in response to the series rocked the Southern Baptist Convention, prompting its Executive Committee to hire an outside firm to investigate.

Sexual-abuse accusations against Pressler had been rumbling for decades behind closed doors and in locked-tight legal proceedings. I first heard about them in the early 1980s, through a well-placed contact at CBS News, when I first hit the religion beat at The Charlotte News. There was smoke, but no one could get to the fire. The fact that this SBC giant’s accusers were young males only added to the tension.

If you know SBC life — I grew up as a Texas Baptist preacher’s kid and my whole family has Baylor University ties — then you may know this old saying: Texas is the wallet on which the SBC sits.


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Naomi Judd: Press reports covered the dark nights of her life, but not the Sunday mornings

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Naomi Judd: Press reports covered the dark nights of her life, but not the Sunday mornings

Journalists tend to remember symbolic details from many of interesting interviews — whether they are with superstars of various kinds or ordinary people who have seen remarkable things.

Exhausted after signing hundreds of copies of her “Love Can Build a Bridge” memoir back in 1993, Naomi Judd retreated to her tour bus parked behind the bookstore. She apologized for heading to the back room to get out of one of her famous stage dresses and into something from her farm outside of Nashville. The ground rules: no photos, but all questions were fair game.

At point in her life, she had already talked about some dark days and nights — from rape to a crisis pregnancy and beyond. But she hadn’t dug deeper into her childhood and the abuse that created the deep pools of depression that would eventually take her life.

But this was a woman who was driven to talk about her angels, as well as her demons. My favorite quote from that interview didn’t make it into the “On Religion” column that I wrote pre-Internet, but stashed deep in my file cabinets with pages of notes and transcripts.

Naomi Judd stressed that if people — journalists included — want to understand country music, and the relationship between the musicians and their fans, they need to remember that it’s normal, in a country music show, “to sing about Sunday morning, as well as Friday and Saturday nights.”

That’s what I went looking for in the coverage of her death and then the ceremony in which The Judds — Wynonna and Naomi — entered the Country Music Hall of Fame. Here’s the top of the Nashville Tennessean report on that event, as it ran in USA Today:

As Grammy-winning duo The Judds were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame Sunday evening, Wynonna Judd addressed the passing of her mother Naomi just one day earlier.

Following brief remarks from her younger sister Ashley, Wynonna spoke for roughly four minutes.

"It's a strange dynamic to be this broken and this blessed. … But though my heart is broken, I will continue to sing," she said.

Wynonna said Naomi Judd, 76, passed away at 2:20 PM, and that she kissed her mother "on the forehead and walked away." She also stated that the last act she, Ashley and unnamed other family members did together was praying the Bible's 23rd Psalm. The crowd in attendance all recited the Psalm in unison with Judd to complete her speech.

That’s solid and hints at the atmosphere during the ceremony.

Truth is, Hall of Fame member Ricky Skaggs — who knew the Judds from the days before their rise to fame — took the audience to church, as he struggled to control his emotions through the entire speech-sermon.


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In terms of church history, should the United Methodist break-up be called a 'schism'?

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In terms of church history, should the United Methodist break-up be called a 'schism'?

When I moved to Denver in 1984, Rocky Mountain News (RIP) my work plunged me into the ongoing United Methodist Church battles over creed-level doctrines, the Bible and, of course, homosexuality.

The region’s defining institution was the Iliff School of Theology, a UMC authorized seminary that a former professor there once told me was “the single most liberal school in America that still bothers to call itself ‘Christian.’ “ In the late ‘80s, an Iliff student said he had encountered one professor who believed that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened, as an event in real time. I would doubt this seminary has become more small-o “orthodox” in the past third of a century.

If you were in Denver back then it was clear that the United Methodists were in the midst of a very slow train wreck and that a parting of the ways was inevitable. The question: Who would leave and who would control the assets of this large, but shrinking, denomination?

This brings us to a recent story in The Nashville Tennessean with this dramatic double-decker headline (behind a fierce paywall):

Methodists focus on Easter amid denominational schism and the tough decisions ahead

A new, more conservative Methodist denomination is set to launch May 1 after a years-long debate centered largely over LGBTQ rights.

People have been using the word “schism” for decades, when describing this conflict. I would like to argue that this technical term is problematic, in this case, and that recent events — especially the proposed “Reconciliation and Grace Through Separation” protocol — have made it even more so. I propose using the word “divorce,” in this case. Hold that thought.

There is much to praise in this Tennessean story, especially the many quotes from regional church leaders on both sides of this battle. However, the “schism” lens is easy to see. I think that with two or three extra sentences, readers would have a better idea what is going on in this conflict. It’s also important to know that the Southeast is a crucial region in this conflict (along with the core Midwest), in which there are many doctrinally conservative churches paired with bishops who are more progressive.

But let’s start with the term “schism.” Here is a helpful Britannica reference:

schism, in Christianity, a break in the unity of the church.


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