converts

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Eastern Orthodox converts, Russian spies, the FBI and the Bible Belt (#horrors)

, , , , , , , , , , ,
Podcast: Eastern Orthodox converts, Russian spies, the FBI and the Bible Belt (#horrors)

Yes, yes. I will confess my (possible) sin.

Several years ago some friends of mine in Bible Belt Orthodox churches said that there were times when they wished America could be ruled by the late Queen Elizabeth II, as opposed to the last couple of guys who have occupied the White House. We were discussing our frustration with America’s two-party binary political system.

I laughed and agreed.

Does this mean that I am a potential Russian spy and enemy of the state? That was one of the topics discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). We were discussing two mainstream news stories that seem to be connected in the minds of some mainstream journalists.

First, consider this Religion News Service feature: “Riding a wave of converts, one group aims to fuse Orthodoxy with Southern values.” Then read this Newsweek story: “Russia's Trying to Recruit Spies From U.S.” It may also help to check out this earlier GetReligion post: “Concerning the new converts to Eastern Orthodoxy — Are they MAGA clones or worse?”

But back to Queen Elizabeth II. We will get to the FBI in a moment or two.

The RNS feature focuses on a meeting of the small group of Orthodox converts — the Philip Ludwell III Orthodox Fellowship — down in the countercultural Bible Belt. I confess that I have never heard of this group, primarily since my East Tennessee parish is part of the Orthodox Church in America (which does have historic missionary ties to Russia), as opposed to the smaller Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (which formed in response to the birth of the Soviet Union).

The RNS feature notes: “Orthodox Christianity in the United States is a kaleidoscope of languages and cultures as diverse as Russia, Greece, Ethiopia, Syria, Bulgaria and, increasingly, the American South.”

That’s accurate. It’s hard to describe how complex Eastern Orthodoxy is in this country and that includes the growing number of Americans (like me) who have converted to the faith during the past four decades (a trend that began long before Orange Man Bad).

Now, concerning the inspiration for this small Orthodox network:

Philip Ludwell III, the fellowship’s namesake, became one of America’s earliest converts to Orthodoxy in 1738 and then translated Russian Orthodox texts into English. His family held government positions in the Carolinas and Virginia and shared ancestry with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, born nearly a century later.

Obviously, we are talking about folks who are fundamentalist Confederate clones or worse:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , ,

WSJ reporter dares to interview ordinary Eastern Orthodox converts in the Bible Belt

, , , , , , , , , ,
WSJ reporter dares to interview ordinary Eastern Orthodox converts in the Bible Belt

As you would expect, the recent Wall Street Journal feature on the rising number of converts to Eastern Orthodox Christianity was a big deal here in Orthodox circles in East Tennessee.

Why? The WSJ piece was built, in large part, on contacts with sources here in the Appalachian mountains and nearby. The headline: “Eastern Orthodoxy Gains New Followers in America — Ancient faith is drawing converts with no ties to its historic lands.”

This is not a new story, of course, since the “convert-friendly era” of Orthodoxy began in the 1980s and ‘90s. But, for reasons explained in the WSJ piece, there is enough novelty linked to this trend — especially when contrasted with stark mainline Protestant decline — that the topic has made a few headlines every five years or so.

What this new piece does better than others, I think, is note the paradox found in American Orthodoxy — that some churches are growing rapidly, while others are plateaued or in decline. Consider this statement of the “trend,” which is described as a “small but fast-growing group of Americans from diverse backgrounds who have embraced Orthodoxy in the past few years.” Here is an important background passage:

Eastern Orthodoxy is one of the two parts of the Christian world that emerged from the Great Schism of the 11th century, a split with the Roman Catholic Church caused principally by disagreement over the authority of the pope. Its members belong to a family of churches with historic roots in Eastern Europe, Russia and the region of the eastern Mediterranean. … 

The Eastern Orthodox population of the U.S. is dominated by immigrants from the church’s historic lands and by their descendants. But in recent years, aided by more widely available information on the internet, the church has been attracting more attention from people with no ancestral ties to Orthodoxy, a trend that appears to have accelerated following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Some pastors across the country report growth of their flocks by 15% or more in a single year owing to conversions, defying an overall trend of decline similar to that in other denominations.

I must be candid and note that here was another reason that this WSJ article created quite a buzz — it contrasted sharply with last year’s NPR piece: “Orthodox Christian churches are drawing in far-right American converts.”


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Thinking about post-Christian Europe? The Pillar looks for God in the Netherlands

, , , , , , ,
Thinking about post-Christian Europe? The Pillar looks for God in the Netherlands

There is this old saying that when America sneezes, Europe catches a cold — or something like that.

That’s true, these days, when it comes to many issues in economics and politics.

But I have always thought that this equation works the other way around when it comes to issues of culture, morality and faith. The trends we see in the European Union seem to make it across the Atlantic sooner or later. If this is true, European trends in Catholicism, and other faiths, are worth watching.

This brings us to another “think piece” for journalists (and news consumers), this time care of The Pillar, a must-follow independent news and commentary site covering many things Catholic. The headline: “Finding God in the Netherlands.”

But, before we get there, let’s pause to recall a famous 1969 radio interview, or sermon, offered by Father Joseph Ratzinger, who would eventually become Pope Benedict XVI. Readers will often find the full text under this title, “What Will the Church Look Like in 2000?” Here are two large chunks of this famous, many would say prophetic, material:

From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, it will be seen much more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision. As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.

There’s more, a few lines later:

The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek. The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. One may predict that all of this will take time.

This brings us to the long feature at The Pillar written by Edgar Beltran, a philosopher and political scientist from Maracaibo, Venezuela, who is doing Philosophy of Religion graduate work at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Concerning the new converts to Eastern Orthodoxy: Are they MAGA clones or worse?

, , , , , , , , , , ,
Concerning the new converts to Eastern Orthodoxy: Are they MAGA clones or worse?

Yes, to all of those who have written — I have seen the National Public Radio feature that ran with this headline: “Orthodox Christian churches are drawing in far-right American converts.”

It would be hard to imagine a more vicious, one-sided propaganda piece than this one and, if you want to see a blow-by-blow breakdown, read this post by Orthodox convert Rod Dreher: “The Cathedral Vs. The Orthodox Church.”

Rod is using the term “cathedral” as a reference to a particular set of elite media and cultural institutions on what used to be called the “left.” Needless to say, NPR — like the editorial pages of The New York Times — plays a crucial doctrinal role in this cathedral. Dreher (a close friend for nearly 30 years) notes, right up top, concerning this NPR sermon:

… I concede that it is based on a kernel of truth: some outsiders are finding their way to Orthodoxy, thinking that it will be the far right at prayer. A friend who attends a large parish told me last year that they are seeing some young men showing up with that in mind, only to find out otherwise. Let me be clear at the start of this essay that I concede that this phenomenon is not invented out of whole cloth.

In my own small parish, we have seen a surge of young inquirers, but they are coming not with far-right politics in mind, but because they are looking for something more stable and deeper than the churches they had been attending. And yes, it is true that some come because they correctly sense that Orthodoxy is much less likely to surrender to the wokeness that is infesting many Protestant and Catholic congregations. Note well, though, that to NPR, all of this is “far-right.”

Veteran GetReligion readers will know that I am a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, as well — coming from a Texas Baptist family with several members in the center of Southern Baptist life. If you want to know more about my own journey, see this lecture/essay from 2006: “What do the converts want?”

When people ask why I converted, my short response is that I was seeking a beautiful, conservative, ancient form of Christian tradition that didn’t include ties to American fundamentalism. Since my conversion 23 years ago, I have talked to — conservative estimate — several hundred converts in various settings, including my own parishes.

I would like to focus on the most obvious errors of omission and commission in the NPR piece — an important detail or two about the actual history of the “convert era” in “American” Orthodoxy, which began in the 1980s (click here for link to a crucial book). But first, here is the overture:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , ,

Tops in religion for 2021: Gallup spotlights America's downward Church Lurch

, , , , , , , , , ,
Tops in religion for 2021: Gallup spotlights America's downward Church Lurch

As Religion News Association colleagues vote on the top stories of 2021, here's The Guy's own pick for first place: Gallup spotlights the great downward Church Lurch in 21st Century America.

The polling organization, which is unmatched for data on trends that span decades — including a steady barrage of questions about religion — marked the Easter and Passover seasons by announcing that only a minority of Americans report membership in a religious congregation any longer.

Yes, yet again we confront those religiously unaffiliated "nones,” “nothing in particulars” and the long-emerging flock often called “spiritual, but not religious.”

The much-buzzed-about poll report, full details here, said membership rates held remarkably steady from the 73% in Depression-era 1937, when the question was first asked, through 70% in 2000. But now, self-reported affiliation has plummeted to 47% -- and a mere 36% for younger Americans in the Millennial generation. Equally significant, a three-year aggregate of 6,000 respondents in 2018-2020 also gave membership minority status at 49%.

This slump drew attention from media that rarely mention much less cover religion substantively. Assessing the many reactions, GetReligion boss Mattingly's post back in April — “Thinking with two key Southern Baptists: Concerning those scary Gallup Poll numbers” — astutely focused on two pieces by Baylor historian Thomas Kidd and the Rev. Russell Moore, who was soon to quit as president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. They analyzed Protestantism with little specific to Catholicism or other faiths. Links to both articles are included in Mattingly's post.

Note that responses in 2000 would not capture the potential negative impact of COVID-19 — which was hurting attendance and donations — on future membership counts.

So, what's happening?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cutting shrinking pies: The Baltimore Sun bravely looks into liberal pews seeking signs of life

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How long have journalists been writing stories about the decline of America's liberal mainline churches, both in terms of people in the pews and cultural clout?

I've been studying religion-news coverage since the late 1970s and I cannot remember a time when this was not "a story." For many experts, the key moment was the 1972 release of the book "Why Conservative Churches Are Growing" by Dean M. Kelley of the National Council of Churches.

You could argue, as I have many times on this blog, that the decline of the oldline left is a story that deserved even more press coverage than it has received. Why? Because the decline of the old mainline world helped create a hole in American public life that made room for the rise of the Religious Right.

Now we have reached the point, as "Crossroads" host Todd Wilken and I discussed in last week's podcast, where the story has become much more complex. While the demographic death dive has continued for liberal religious institutions (as opposed to spiritual-but-not-religious life online and elsewhere), we are now seeking slow decline in parts of conservative religious groups, as well.

What's going on? To be blunt, religious groups are growing or holding their own when they inspire believers to (a) have multiple children, (b) make converts and (c) live out demanding forms of faith that last into future generations. Yes, doctrine matters. So does basic math.

With this in mind, consider the brave attempt that The Baltimore Sun made the other day to describe what is happening in churches in that true-blue progressive city. Here is the overture and, as you read it, get ready for an interesting and, apparently, unintentional twist in the plot:

For a decade and more, Govans Presbyterian Church and Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church have labored in the manner of many mainline Protestant congregations: Working ever harder to provide spiritual resources for dwindling number of congregants.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

You think? There may be faith angles in all those stories about fading flocks in urban America

, , , , , , , ,

Frankly, it's one of the biggest religion-news stories in America these days.

You are going to be reading these news stories over and over in newspapers from New York City to Los Angeles and every major urban area in between. Thousands of people are involved, along with millions and millions of dollars.

We are talking about prime urban real estate -- specifically the sale of land (and sometimes the reuse of facilities) belonging to dying churches, synagogues and other religious institutions.

News organizations have to cover these stories, of course. It's an old doctrine of news, as well as real estate: Location, location, location. The question is whether editors and reporters will be interested in the totally valid religion-news angles in these stories, as well as the financial ones.

Yes, it's valid to focus these stories on newsy questions like: What happens next, in terms of the people and the properties? Who gets the money? What happens to the art, pipe organs, pews, altars, burial chambers and other items inside these sacred spaces?

However, journalists may also want to ask these kinds of questions: Why are some urban churches -- take New York City, for example -- closing while others are not? Why are there thriving churches in urban areas, while others are dying? Why do some have lots of members, converts and new children, while others do not? Might there be religious factors at play here, as well as relevant "secular" factors? Might demographics and doctrine be linked?

OK, I'll ask another question that some readers may be thinking: Do your GetReligionistas plan to keep noting these faith-shaped holes in all these real-estate stories, over and over and over? Good question: I think the answer is still "yes."

The New York Times recently covered religious real-estate issues in a pair of unrelated stories that ran August 6-7. Here is the overture to the first one, that ran with the headline, "Struggling to Survive, Congregations Look to Sell Houses of Worship."


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , ,

New York Times explores Big Apple Sufism; it is real Islam, you see, only with big changes

, , , , , , , , , ,

There is much to compliment in the New York Times feature about one of the more mysterious and complex streams of Islam, a story that ran under the headline, "Sufi Sect of Islam Draws ‘Spiritual Vagabonds’ in New York."

The story clearly states, as fact, that many Muslims reject Sufism and its willingness -- in some settings, at least -- to edit or mold Islam into forms that appeal to spiritual seekers in the early 21st Century, even in some of the edgier corners of New York City.

The the big idea of this piece is perfectly obvious, as stated in this summary statement well into this long story:

... For all its liberal trappings, Sufism cannot be detached from Islam. “Sufism isn’t just a label you wear; it’s a state of being,” said John Andrew Morrow, an Islam scholar and author. “You can’t pick and choose parts of Islam, and you can’t mislead sincere people, drawing them into Sufism without telling them this is fundamentally linked to Islam.”

That's the big question: Can you pick and choose?

The story does not hide the fact that people are, in fact, picking and choosing. There are clear elements of Islamic doctrine that have gone missing, as the Sufi converts in New York City have embraced this faith.

Again, the story does not hide this. In fact, it celebrates it.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Floods of Muslim converts to Christianity? The Daily Beast scratches the surface

, , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s not the first article out there about Muslim immigrants to German converting to Christianity but it’s almost certainly the most recent. But the Daily Beast, in reporting on the trend, predictably managed to link this trend to the U.S. presidential elections.

Which was unfortunate, in that the story of thousands of Muslims jettisoning their faith to become Christian is a continuing saga and a decent story in its own right.

Lots of outlets, ranging from the Daily Mail and the Times of Israel to Catholic World Report and NPR (click here for previous GetReligion posts) have reported on Muslims converting by the thousands, especially those from countries like Iran and Afghanistan and Pakistan where conversions from Islam into another religion means an automatic death sentence. This is the first time these folks have been able to choose their own religion or no religion.

We’re talking statistics like 600 Persian converts descending on one church in Hamburg. So, the Daily Beast has waded in with the inevitable political angle:

AMSTERDAM -- Hundreds of Pakistanis and Afghans have been lining up at a local swimming pool in Hamburg, Germany, to be baptized as Christians. In the Netherlands and Denmark, as well, many are converting from Islam to Christianity, and the trend appears to be growing. Indeed, converts are filling up some European churches largely forsaken by their old Christian flocks.
All of which raises a question, not least, for the United States: If American presidential candidate Donald Trump gets elected and bars Muslims from entering the country, as he says he will, would the ban apply to Christians who used to be Muslims? How would one judge the quality of their faith?


Please respect our Commenting Policy