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Wut happened? Tensions behind World's move to push Olasky out of his editor's chair

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Wut happened? Tensions behind World's move to push Olasky out of his editor's chair

First things first: Readers need to know that Marvin Olasky has been a friend of mine for yearly three decades. If I was dangling off a cliff, I’d trust Olasky to hold the rope.

Through the years, Marvin and I have disagreed on many journalism issues and had some stimulating debates. For example: He was dead right when, in the first years of Internet life, he predicted that life in the digital world — think social media in particular — would undercut old-school standards of balance and objectivity in journalism. In GetReligion terms, think “Kellerism” and much of today’s New York Times.

Back to the present, and a pretty solid Times piece that is lighting up Twitter. Here’s the double-decker headline:

His Reasons for Opposing Trump Were Biblical. Now a Top Christian Editor Is Out.

A clash over culture and politics comes to World, a groundbreaking journalistic institution that covers evangelical Christians.

There is, of course, no way to leave Donald Trump out of this story, with Olasky submitting his resignation (he was planning to retire next summer) after a coup in the World board after several years of tensions. Among the hot-button issues, readers learn, were COVID-19 masks and voter fraud (#DUH).

As I said, the story is pretty good, with Olasky — rare, this — portrayed in the elite press as a good guy. However, there is one statement that I need to challenge right up front:

At one level, Mr. Olasky’s departure is just another example of the American news media sinking deeper into polarization, as one more conservative news outlet, which had almost miraculously retained its independence, is conquered by Mr. Trump.

Has the newsroom at World been “conquered by Trump”?

I would say that we do not know that, yet. It’s clear that the World board signed off on the creation of an ambitious World-branded commentary website — without Olasky’s approval as editor. But do we know that the news team will not bravely carry on with its work?

We do not know that, do we?


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New podcast: Indie fundamentalist near Nashville shows how to punch Washington Post buttons

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New podcast: Indie fundamentalist near Nashville shows how to punch Washington Post buttons

For decades, I have felt a strange mix of anger and mild amusement whenever I heard news consumers, when complaining about something that upset them, say that journalists write and print “bad” stories “just to sell newspapers.”

“Bad,” of course, meant stories that they thought were biased, inaccurate or simply silly, perhaps something that in our digital age would be called “clickbait.” Of course, clickbait is clickbait because there’s digital evidence that readers consistently click on certain types of stories, which increases traffic and that helps the newsroom generate money (sort of like selling more newspapers).

Produce enough stories that please the faithful readers of a given publication — down South we call this “preaching to the choir” — and you can turn those readers into digital subscribers. That’s the Holy Grail, the ultimate goal, in the business-model crisis that has dominated American journalism for a decade or more.

This brings me to this unusual Washington Post headline that I saw the other day: “Evangelical pastor demands churchgoers ditch their masks: ‘Don’t believe this delta variant nonsense’.”

Now, was this pastor the leader of an important congregation somewhere in Beltway-land? Well, the answer is “no.”

If he wasn’t local, was he a prominent member of a major, powerful evangelical Protestant denomination or network of megachurches? Again, “no.” Was he connected, somehow, to an influential evangelical college, seminary, publishing company or parachurch ministry? A third time, “no.”

In other words, to ask the question that drove this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, why did editors decide that this story worthy of coverage by a reporter at the Post? (Click here to tune in this episode.)

Well, I think it’s safe to say that this stereotype-packed piece of simplistic, shallow, clickbait was produced because it punched all kinds of buttons that pleased digital niche-audience Post subscribers. In other words (I feel guilty typing these words), they did it to sell newspapers. Here is the overture:

Since the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, Greg Locke, the pastor at a Nashville-area church, has repeatedly called covid a hoax, undermined emergency mandates and refused to comply with guidance from public health officials.


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New podcast: 'Screen' culture tied to loneliness; can clergy build bridges with same tech?

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New podcast: 'Screen' culture tied to loneliness; can clergy build bridges with same tech?

The coronavirus pandemic has created a wide variety of religion-beat stories — from empty local pews to the U.S. Supreme Court debating how many people can occupy local pews. And sometimes it feels like all roads during this crisis, for better or worse, lead to the internet.

Yes, we had lots of ground to cover in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Empty local pews have, in some cases, led to near-empty offering plates. Leaders in religious groups that were struggling before COVID-19 — look for closing congregations, seminaries, colleges and even cathedrals — are now hearing the demographics clock tick, tick, tick even louder.

We’re talking about huge stories, but they are also stories that are hard for journalists to cover, simply because they require information at the local, regional and national levels.

It was easy to cover local clergypersons as they learned to mount smartphones atop camera tripods and stream worship services to their locked-down flocks (as opposed to megachurches that already had cameras and massive websites). It was also easier to cover black-sheep clergy that rebelled against social-distancing guidelines than it was to report on the remarkable efforts of leaders in entire denominations and religious traditions seek ways for their people to worship as best they could within constantly evolving (and often hostile) government guidelines.

Journalists, of course, were also being affected by lockdowns and, in some cases, budget cuts. This was an equal-opportunity crisis.

Let me give you an example of an important story that everyone knows is unfolding right now. Consider this Baptist Press headline: “Pandemic division causing pastors to leave ministry, pastoral mentor says.” Here is the overture:

Brian Croft jokes that masks are the new “color of the carpet argument” in churches, with similarly poor outcomes. Pastors are resigning from the stress “kind of in a way I’ve never really seen.”

The founder of Practical Shepherding transitioned from fulltime pastoring to lead the shepherding outreach fulltime in January, pulled by a need for coaching and counseling that has steadily increased among pastors over the past decade.

Then came COVID-19.


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SCOTUS flips script on COVID-19 worship bans, but Francis Collins of NIH urges closures

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First New York.

Now California.

With the addition of a fifth, solidly conservative member — new Justice Amy Coney Barrett — the U.S. Supreme Court has flipped the script on months of legal battles over pandemic-era worship gatherings.

“It is time — past time — to make plain that, while the pandemic poses many grave challenges, there is no world in which the Constitution tolerates color-coded executive edicts that reopen liquor stores and bike shops but shutter churches, synagogues, and mosques,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote last week as the 5-4 court blocked New York from imposing strict attendance limits on religious services.

Then on Thursday, the court “sided with a California church protesting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s pandemic-related restrictions on indoor worship services,” noted the Washington Post’s Robert Barnes. The brief, unsigned order returned the issue to lower court judges and “suggests the state’s ban on indoor services is likely to fall,” reported the Los Angeles Times’ David G. Savage.

In San Francisco, Catholic Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has complained that the city’s “treatment of churches is discriminatory and violates the right to worship,” as explained by the Catholic News Agency. For more details on the California battle, see Sacramento Bee writer Dale Kasler’s story this week on churches defying Newsom’s order.

In related news, the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas highlighted a clash over in-person classes in religious schools in Kentucky. And Boston.com’s Nik DeCosta-Klipa covered Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s concerns over “COVID-19 clusters stemming from religious gatherings.”

Here in my home state of Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt has refused to issue a statewide mask mandate that might help slow the spread of COVID-19. But he declared Thursday a day of prayer and fasting over the coronavirus, as reported by The Associated Press’ Ken Miller.

Amid a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths nationally, a top public health official Thursday “called on religious leaders to keep their worship spaces closed, despite rising protests from some church leaders,” according to NPR’s Tom Gjelten:


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In COVID-19 lockdown, should churches perform baptisms, and how?

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THE QUESTION:

With lockdowns in place, should U.S. churches do baptisms, and how?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

American religious congregations are implementing all sorts of accommodations during the COVID-19 crisis. Most are streaming services online to replace in-person worship till reopening is allowed. Under these conditions, many Protestant groups are allowing viewers to take Communion remotely by themselves at home during streamed services, which is not feasible for Catholic Mass.

Catholic priest Tim Pelc of St. Ambrose Church in Grosse Pointe Park, Michigan, even administered holy water via a squirt gun through car windows! And speaking of water …

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville, Ark., affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, follows the ancient custom of baptizing new members as part of the Easter Eve vigil. This year’s annual observance could not occur due to COVID. Now Pastor Clint Schnekloth is preparing to conduct the postponed baptisms during a live-streamed service, most likely on Pentecost Sunday, May 31. He hopes the video feed can allow close-ups of participants so members of the local congregation, and family and friends who live elsewhere, can “feel as if they are there.”

But how do we keep “safe” and honor the need for “social distancing,” Schnekloth wondered. He shared his thinking in a blog post for patheos.com. The first aspect to consider is that while some churches practice full immersion of the body (see below), Lutherans are among those who baptize infants or adult converts by pouring water three times over the candidate’s head. This occurs while pronouncing the triune names of the divine Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in accord with Jesus’ “great commission” in Matthew 28:19.

Schnekloth figures the only people allowed in the church building will be the pastor, those to be baptized, and minimum participants, all carefully spaced throughout the sanctuary. Each candidate in turn will come forward with the parents and any godparents to receive the sacrament at the font of water. After a baptism, the pastor will thoroughly wash his hands before the next one.

To be extra careful, the pastor and others may wear masks throughout, and perhaps a family member will conduct the actual baptism while the pastor stands apart.


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