UK

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Here's a solid religion information source for office, home libraries and (of course) newsrooms

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Here's a solid religion information source for office, home libraries and (of course) newsrooms

Here are some interesting facts about war-ravaged Ukraine you might not have heard:

* The nation was 97% Christian in 1900, slumped to 60% when atheistic Soviet Communists held power, and has rebounded to 86%. But in one survey only 20% of Ukrainians said religion is “very important” for them.

* The Orthodox Church historically under the Moscow Patriarchate has 13.5 million members. But even before the current Russian invasion, the young rival Orthodox Church of the independent Kyiv Patriarchate had gained a bigger following of 16 million.

* Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Protestants, though a small minority, have so thrived since national independence in 1991 that Ukraine is known as Eastern Europe’s “Bible Belt.” Pentecostal believers who once survived in the underground church are now a force in civic affairs.

* Despite electing the first Jewish president, anti-Semitic incidents still occur.

* Regarding morals, “domestic violence is a massive problem,” especially in COVID-19 times, with complaints up 40% in the first half of 2020 compared with 2019.

Why mention these newsworthy pieces of information?

That’s a sampling of the sort of data about each of 233 countries you’ll find in the brand-new “Global Christianity: A Guide to the World’s Largest Religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe” (Zondervan Academic, $29.99 paperback). This valuable and inexpensive resource updates key information from the 2019 edition of the invaluable “World Christian Encyclopedia” (Edinburgh University Press, list price $270 with discounts online).

The new book’s editor is Gina Zurlo — https://ginazurlo.com; gzurlo@gordonconwell.edu) — co-editor of the “Encyclopedia” and co-director of the independent agency that produces it, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.


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Elizabeth the Great: Why do many journalists choose to edit faith out of her Christmas talks?

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Elizabeth the Great: Why do many journalists choose to edit faith out of her Christmas talks?

The Queen is dead. God save the King.

It’s hard to edit the religion content out of that equation. However, when journalists are asked to deal with the death of the queen who was, it can be argued, the most famous woman of the past 100 years, there are plenty of important, “real,” issues to deal with other than the state of her soul and her Christian faith.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening watching the BBC Global coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, as opposed to, shall we say, American “telly.” The BBC focused on the death of one of the greatest, if not “the” greatest, monarchs in Great Britain’s history. There were many references to her Christian faith. American television, for the most part, offered discussions of the death of a great celebrity. If I have been too harsh with that judgment, please send me some quality URLs.

How to approach this totally justified tidal wave of coverage? I think the easiest way to search out the religion-beat content is with two specific online searches.

First, search Google News for “Queen Elizabeth” and “Christmas.” Elizabeth the Great was known, of course, for her dignified and timely Christmas addresses — an essential part of the season for Brits and those who love all things British. The vast majority of the mainstream-media obits for the queen contain references to her Christmas talks — sort of.

What did she say in these very personal messages? That’s the key.

This leads to my second Google News search, for “Queen Elizabeth” and “Christian.” This is where the mainstream press — unless I have missed something, somewhere — offer, well, something like this. In the religious press, readers will find many, many pages of content, such as this feature from Premier Christianity, a niche UK religion website: “Queen Elizabeth II served Christ.”

There was, however, this Washington Post feature with a hopeful title: “Queen Elizabeth II, in her own words: Her most memorable remarks.” After all, it did include a section with this title: “Annual Christmas speeches.” These talks were, readers are told, “peppered with words of wisdom, faith and occasionally personal reflections from the nonagenarian.” However, this is what the Post offered:

“In the old days the monarch led his soldiers on the battlefield and his leadership at all times was close and personal. Today things are very different,” she said in her first televised Christmas broadcast in 1957. “I cannot lead you into battle, I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else, I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.”


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Thinking about forced marriages (with the Forward), but also happy Catholic moms with lots of kids

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Thinking about forced marriages (with the Forward), but also happy Catholic moms with lots of kids

At first glance, this weekend’s two “think pieces” appear to clash.

But readers (and viewers) who dig deeper will find two radically different looks at important and valid stories linked to marriage and family life in very different traditional religious communities — Jewish, fundamentalist Protestant and Islamic.

There is much here for religion-news professionals, and news consumers, to ponder.

One story is dark and hellish, looking at the reality of forced marriages in a few religious groups. The other glows with positive images and voices, as mothers in the United Kingdom share stories from their lives in large, traditional, Catholic families.

First, let’s look at this piece from Simi Horwitz at the Forward: “In 21st century America, where arranged child marriages remain a scourge.” The overture:

Kate Ryan Brewer’s “Knots: A Forced Marriage Story” is one disturbing, though important, documentary, one that grows increasingly unsettling as three articulate and intelligent young women matter-of-factly recount their belittling, exploitive, and ultimately dehumanizing experiences in forced marriages. Mercifully each has escaped and forged successful, independent lives; one has become a recognized outspoken activist on behalf of victims.

The filmmakers assert that the practice of arranged marriages, often involving brides who are 15 or younger, continues almost unchecked and unchallenged. In fact, the only states that require the marrying parties to be at least 18 are Delaware, New Jersey, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Between 2000 and 2010, nearly 250,000 children in the U.S. were married, and 77 per cent were young girls wedded off to much older men. In some cases they were forced to marry their rapists in order to salvage their reputations and the family’s honor.


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UK ready to welcome waves of Hong Kong residents (Yes, BBC ignored religion angles)

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UK ready to welcome waves of Hong Kong residents (Yes, BBC ignored religion angles)

On the night of the Hong Kong handover to China, I walked through that great city’s old airport — noting the many residents who sat, passports in hand, preparing to leave. I was leaving after a small international gathering of journalists and academics focused, naturally, on religion and the news.

I talked to a few of the solemn people I saw that night in 1997. Some said they were leaving for good. Others said they were going abroad to explore the legal and economic hurdles they would need to clear if or when they decided to leave. I didn’t hear a single optimistic voice.

Like the people I interviewed for the two “On Religion” columns I researched during that stey, they said that they expected that, in a few years, the Chinese authorities would crack down on dissent, free speech and, yes, some mentioned freedom of religion. Here are those columns: “Silence and tension in Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong II: There’s more to life than $.”

I bring this up because of an important story that is unfolding, in slow motion, in the United Kingdom. Here is the top of a long BBC website story with this headline: “The Hong Kong migrants fleeing to start new lives in the UK.”

The UK will introduce a new visa at the end of January that will give 5.4 million Hong Kong residents — a staggering 70% of the territory's population — the right to come and live in the UK, and eventually become citizens.

It is making this "generous" offer to residents of its former colony because it believes China is undermining Hong Kong's rights and freedoms.

Not everyone will come. Some of those eligible to leave have expressed their determination to stay and continue the fight for democracy.

In the end, Britain estimates that about 300,000 will take up the visa offer over the next five years.

As you would expect, the story introduces a family that is already in the UK, exploring their reasons for making the leap. Any signs of religion here?

Readers are told that Andy Li and his wife Teri Wong moved to York in October, just after the announcement of plans for this policy change. They said, no surprise, that they were thinking about their children, daughter Gudelia, 14, and son Paul, 11.

"We feel that the things we treasure about Hong Kong — our core values — are fading over time," said Mr Li. "So we decided we needed to provide a better opportunity for our children, not only for their education, but also for their futures."


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After Brexit, will United Kingdom become an untied kingdom? If so, what about its churches?

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The British election December 12 was as dramatic as America’s in 2016. Some claim the smashing triumph of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives over Jeremy Corbyn and Labour means Donald Trump will be re-elected if U.S. Democrats likewise go hard left. Or not.

Whatever the U.S. ripples, the inevitable “Brexit” from the European Union is epochal for the U.K. 

Journalists should be pondering an equally historic possibility. Philip Jenkins, a Baylor University historian of religion whose Christian Century columns about overseas trends are always worth reading, posed the following on Patheos.com days before the Brits balloted.

What if Brexit turns the United Kingdom into an untied kingdom? What if the nation with the world’s fifth largest economy dissolves? What happens to ties between some of the churches that are involved?

In terms of history, not long ago we saw the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia break into assorted nation-states, and before that the Czechs and Slovaks split up.

England dominates the four segments of the nation officially named The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Jenkins contends that today’s supposed “British” government sees itself "only in terms of England” and he predicts in coming years “the nation of Great Britain will have ceased to exist.”

A crackup’s first stage would be the departure of Scotland after 312 years. In a 2014 referendum, an impressive 45 percent of Scots voted to quit the U.K. The potential break was further demonstrated in the Britain-wide referendum that backed Brexit when a lopsided 62 percent of Scots voted to remain in the European Union. The pro-independence Scottish National Party surged in last week’s voting. Jenkins claims Scotland’s breakaway is now “just a matter of time.”  

Northern Ireland likewise voted to remain in the European Union, by 56 percent.


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Thinking with N.T. Wright and Ryan Burge: Let's talk specifics of that 'evangelical' crisis

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If you follow top-tier American media, you know that retired Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright is in the news right now. This is the kind of thing that happens when British intellectuals come to the United States to promote their new books.

Wright is a theologian known around the world as an apologist for a traditional, ecumenical brand of Christianity, to the point that some have said that his pew-level apologetics can be compared with C.S. Lewis.So what’s are the hot topics for Wright, as he tours in support of his new book, “The New Testament in Its World”?

Wait for it.

Well, have you heard that 81% of white evangelicals in American just love Donald Trump? And that American evangelicalism is in a state of crisis?With all of that in mind, let’s make this an N.T. Wright weekend, with some “think piece” input from two religion-beat professionals who will be ultra-familiar to GetReligion readers — Sarah Pulliam Bailey of The Washington Post and Emma Green of The Atlantic.

So Bailey’s breakfast Q&A ran with this headline: “ ‘A wakeup call:’ British theologian N.T. Wright on the prosperity gospel, climate change and Advent.” Here’s a sample:

Q: How do you compare Brexit and Trump, and how British Christians understand American evangelical support for Trump?

A: The same sort of movement propelled both events. With Brexit, we did not see the white evangelical support Trump had. The churches are probably divided. They’re probably mostly Remainers [who wanted Britain to remain in the European Union].

In Britain, the word “evangelical” doesn’t mean what it means in America.


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Extraordinary actions by pope and Italy draw little USA ink, with the Alfie Evans story (updated)

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Once again, people who care about religion news have proof -- as if they needed more -- that not everything Pope Francis does and says is worthy of intense coverage by elite news media.

What's the overarching trend?

When Pope Francis sounds small-o "orthodox," it isn't news. When this pope sounds small-p "progressive," it's big news.

Yes, say hello to Dr. James Davison Hunter of "Culture Wars" fame.

The latest case is, of course, the struggle over the body and dignity of British toddler Alfie Evans who, as I type, is still alive and breathing on his own. His hospital room is surrounded by guards just in case his parents or anyone else attempts to carry him to the medical care that is waiting for him in Italy.

Italy? If you read European newspapers you would know all about that. News consumers here in America? Not so much. Here is the top of a short Associated Press update about this religious-liberty crisis:

LONDON -- The parents of a terminally ill British toddler whose case has drawn support from Pope Francis plan to return to the Court of Appeal Wednesday in hope of winning the right to take him to Italy for treatment.

High Court Justice Anthony Hayden on Tuesday rejected what he said was the final appeal by the parents of 23-month-old Alfie Evans, who suffers from a degenerative neurological condition that has left him in a "semi-vegetative state." ...

But Alfie's parents, who are backed by a Christian pressure group, have been granted a chance to challenge that ruling at the appeals court Wednesday afternoon.

A "Christian pressure group"?


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Welcome to the UnHerd scribes, who also think journalists should, you know, 'get religion'

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Now this is what you call an easy weekend "think piece" post.

I had not heard of the just-launched UnHerd blog over in England until a reader sent your GetReligionistas a URL for a post that was guaranteed to get our attention. More on that in a minute.

Here is the top of an article in The Spectator about the launch of this interesting new blog featuring news and commentary.

A new star is born today into the centre-right blogosphere: UnHerd. The latest brainchild of Tim Montgomerie, founder of ConservativeHome, it has launched with a mission statement to ‘dive deep into the economic, technological and cultural challenges of our time’. Its launch blogs show a wide mix of subjects: a YouGov poll revealing the low regard with which the public view traditional news media, Peter Franklin on why we should get ready for Prime Minister Corbyn, James Bloodworth on the crash ten years on and Graeme Archer on how meat-eating may come to be seen as barbaric by our grandchildren.
UnHerd is also marked out by its financing model. It has no paywall; all articles will be free to read with the costs covered by an endowment from Sir Paul Marshall. He is a former Liberal Democrat donor and a Brexit backer -- but, unlike the others, has not run away from the field.

Well, it was another early UnHerd post that caught the attention of a GetReligion reader and, thus, your GetReligionistas. The catchy headline on that short, but provocative, post by religion researcher Katie Harrison of greater London?

Why journalism needs to get religion

You can see how that might get the attention of folks at this here blog.

 


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The New York Times runs two Charlie Gard editorials, with one in the news pages

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At the heart of the tragic Charlie Gard case are two clashing values.

On one side: Doctors and UK officials who argue that they have the power to rule that cutting life support, and ceasing an further experimental treatments, is in the child's best interest.

On the other side are the stricken infant's parents, who believe that they should have the right to care for their child with their own funds and with the help of other doctors who want to treat him.

Pope Francis, of course, issued a statement backing the rights of the parents:

“The Holy Father follows with affection and commotion the situation of Charlie Gard, and expresses his own closeness to his parents. ... He prays for them, wishing that their desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end will be respected.”

It's impossible to understand this story without a clear presentation of the parental rights claim, which clashes with the rights articulated by UK officials and a specific set of medical experts. There are two essential points of view.

Editors at The New York Times know this, of course. They know this because one of their own columnists -- while expressing his convictions -- clearly described the standoff. However, it's interesting to note that the latest Times news story on this case covers the arguments of the state, but contains zero clear references to the parental-rights arguments. The pope is mentioned, for example, but the content of his words was ignored.

In other words, the Times ran two editorials: one an op-ed column and the other, alas, an unbalanced, advocacy news report in the news pages.

Columnist Ross Douthat opened his essay like this:


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