human rights

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Bonus podcast: Jimmy Carter plays a big role in 'evangelical' history in America (updated)

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Bonus podcast: Jimmy Carter plays a big role in 'evangelical' history in America (updated)

Apparently, it’s time for people to start taking vacations.

The Lutheran Public Radio team that produces the “Crossroads” podcast week after week is taking some time off. Thus, there is no GetReligion podcast in this slot today.

At the same time, I am headed due west with my family for a week or more. However, several weeks ago I was a guest on the Engage 360 podcast created by Denver Seminary, the campus where I taught media studies classes in the early 1990s. The topic — the legacy of former President Jimmy Carter — was directly linked to many discussions on this weblog about evangelicals, journalism and American politics IApple podcast link here).

The question, of course, is this: WHICH legacy of Jimmy Carter?

In this podcast, we really didn’t spend much time on Carter the politician — even though his arrival as a centrist Southern Democrat was important. He has continued to evolve toward more progressive positions on moral and social issues (like his party), but not to the same degree. Hold that thought.

We talked quite a bit about Carter’s impact on American evangelicalism and, in particular, the role he played in forcing American journalists to wrestle with the complex world of evangelicalism. When many evangelicals rejected the reality of Jimmy Carter the president, as opposed to the candidate, he also helped fuel the creation of the Religious Right.

Let’s start with journalism. As I have written before:

I'll never forget the night when an anchor at ABC News – faced with Democrat Jimmy Carter talking about his born-again Christian faith – solemnly looked into the camera and told viewers that ABC News was investigating this phenomenon (born-again Christians) and would have a report in a future newscast.

What percentage of the American population uses the term "born again" to describe their faith? … I mean, Carter wasn't telling America that he was part of an obscure sect, even though many journalists were freaked out by this words — due to simple ignorance (or perhaps bias).

I was a student at Baylor University at that time and, yes I was active as a volunteer in the Carter campaign.


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To cover Qatar World Cup, journalists will have to understand both soccer and Islam

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To cover Qatar World Cup, journalists will have to understand both soccer and Islam

The World Cup in Qatar kicks off in less than a week. It is likely to be the most controversial soccer tournament in FIFA’s history, something that has dogged the host nation since being awarded the tournament in 2010.

The controversy is largely tied to the Muslim country’s beliefs and mores. It’s about human rights, welcoming LGBTQ fans, drinking alcohol and modest dress. It’s as much a cultural and societal issue as it is a sporting one. It is also, of course, a religion-news story.

The focus of the news coverage so far has been around what could happen on the field as much as off of it.

Qatari officials have labeled much of the negative coverage either racist or Islamophobic. Either way, this could be the first global sporting event in history where religion, and understanding it, will be a major part of the overall context of this competition. Even the World Cup’s official mascot is an homage to Islamic garb. And did you notice the Pride logo for the 2022 team USA kit?

I explore many of these themes and issues in my new book on the history of the World Cup. With over a billion followers, Islam is the second-largest religion in the world after Christianity. Muslims are forbidden from drinking alcohol since the Prophet Muhammad, to whom Muslims believe the word of God was revealed in the Quran, spoke against it. This is key for sports editors and journalists to understand when it comes to Qatar 2022 coverage.

For example, Qatari officials have said beer will be sold inside the venues and drinking will be allowed inside designated areas, such as fan zones, hotels and restaurants. I was asked that very question months ago when I was booking my trip to Doha. At the same time, billboards have been put up across the country with quotes from the Prophet Muhammed.

The Associated Press, with bureaus across the globe, put together a great explainer under the headline, “Islam in Qatar explained ahead of FIFA World Cup.” This is a must-read for editors and reporters as well as fans and visitors. Here is how it opens:

Qatar is a Muslim nation, with laws, customs and practices rooted in Islam. The country is neither as liberal as Dubai in the United Arab Emirates nor as conservative as parts of Saudi Arabia. Most of its citizens are Sunni Muslim.


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Looking for life-and-death updates on Asia Bibi? You need to turn to European media

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Here is the religion news question that haunted me over the long Thanksgiving weekend: Why is the unfolding story of threats to Asia Bibi of Pakistan a major story in England and Europe, but not here in the United States? (Click here for recent podcast linked to this topic.)

Let me be more blunt: Are journalists on this side of the Atlantic waiting for you know who — Donald Trump — to address this tense, deadly situation in a tweet?

OK, I will be more blunt: At what point will leaders of the pro-Trump evangelical niche show up at the White House and demand that this Christian woman — cleared of blasphemy charges, but now in hiding, trapped in house arrest — be granted asylum? What if the president sent his own private plane to Pakistan to retrieve her? Maybe this would be awkward with the violent drama on the US-Mexico border?

One more blunt thought: Is part of the problem that Bibi is Catholic, not evangelical? I keep watching the headlines for evidence that Pope Francis might intervene. Right now, the main news on that front consists of fake photos circulating online claiming to show a Bibi meeting with the pope. Let me stress: The reports are fake.

For those seeking an update, here is the top of a recent Daily Mail report. Do I need to note that this outlet is considered “conservative” news?

Asia Bibi may have escaped the hangman, but her freedom comes with a heavy price. Today, when she should be reunited with her five children, she is being hunted across Pakistan, forced to scuttle under cover of darkness from one safe house to another in fear of her life.

It is a desperate situation — and one not helped by Britain which refuses to offer the mother-of-five sanctuary.

Last month the Supreme Court in Pakistan decided that Asia, 52, who spent eight years on death row, had been falsely accused of blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed. While most of the country erupted in fury at her release, nowhere did the anger burn more fiercely than in her home village of Ittan Wali, 40 miles south-east of Lahore, where her extraordinary ordeal began. Following news of her reprieve, women took to the streets to protest, a bus was torched and children ran riot.

Until now, beyond a few sketchy details, little about Asia’s persecution has been forthcoming.

The Mail team sent reporters to Bibi’s home village and came back with plenty of harrowing details about her history and the current crisis.


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Syrian Christians: Targeted in Aleppo, still being ignored in the New York Times

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Despite all the reports of atrocities, news out of Syria can still shock. And not always for the battlefield events; sometimes for the callous, clueless coverage in media like the New York Times.

Numerous outlets have reported that some Christians have been beheaded or crucified, others ejected en masse from ISIS territory. Two Orthodox archbishops have been kidnapped and many believe that one, or both, are already dead (at the hands of rebels with past ties to U.S. agencies). And irreplaceable churches, monasteries, sacred art and libraries have been systematically demolished.

Just as shocking, none of that is in the latest "in depth" on the war in the Times.

The article deals with the ongoing war over Aleppo, Syria's largest city. It mentions the Sunni-linked Al-Qaida and the Shia-linked Hezbollah.  It looks at the army of President Bashar al-Assad and Russian air power.

What of the estimated half-million Christians, including 40,000 still in Aleppo? Silence. Everything in the Times story is about strategy and alliances, with religion pushed backstage as if it plays no role in this drama whatsoever.

Granted, the barrel bombs and gas attacks don’t ask about religion. The Times says much about the generalized suffering:

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The battle for Aleppo -- Syria’s most populous city -- is once again raging, once again trapping hundreds of thousands of civilians, once again rallying fighters seeking an advantage in the five-year-old civil war.


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Do American newspapers have the time, space and patience to cover Saudi Arabia?

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Do American newspapers have the time, space and patience to cover Saudi Arabia?

How do you handle a "friend" as frustrating as Saudi Arabia? What kind of news coverage does this "friend" deserve, week after week, in the mainstream American press?

Yes, those are scare quotes meant to signal doubt because Saudi reciprocity seems to me as shaky as that of any of Washington's so-called allies.

Its religious, political and social values are opposite those of every Western democracy, including, of course, the United States. The ruling family, the House of Saud spends billions to spread its ultra-conservative brand of Wahhabi Sunni Islam across the Muslim world and is at the center of just about every intra-Muslim conflict across the Middle East, the latest -- but certainly not the most inconsequential -- of which is Yemen, where the long-building Shia-Sunni confrontation could reach a horrific climax.

But even as its policies toward women are criticized continually in the West, the same Western nations rush to do business with the ridiculously oil rich, theocratic monarchy -- putting profits before principles at virtually every opportunity.

That's why the spate of stories the past several weeks concerning the Swedish foreign minister's publicly calling out the Saudis on political and women's rights were to my thinking a refreshing change of pace. Not only did Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom criticize policies, she directly blamed the Saudi royal family for the state of affairs, a rarity in the coded language of international diplomacy.

What? You say you're not familiar with this story?


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The Coptic ghost in those potential flights from Egypt

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Am I surprised that The New York Times has published a story on the possibility that freethinking Egyptians are beginning to flee their troubled nation or, at the very least, to debate whether it is time to do?


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Watching for religion ghosts in the news flashes from Egypt

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A few journalistic thoughts while I continue to watch the waves of news coverage rolling in from Egypt:


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Attention liberals: Blasphemy cases on the rise in Egypt

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As I have said numerous times, I cannot imagine how hard it must be to cover the aftermath of the Arab Spring in a land as complex as Egypt, especially in news articles of a thousand words or less.


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Bloodshed in Saudi Arabia, for some non-religious reasons

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Some of the world’s most important religion-news stories are also the hardest for your GetReligionistas to write about because they happen over and over and over. Are we supposed to do a post a week on some of these topics? Criticize the same holes in mainstream stories again and again?


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