I think that the typical reader understands what it means when a newspaper runs a “correction.” It means, “We messed up. We printed something that was inaccurate. Here is the correct information.”

A correction is what the leaders of the American Baptist Churches/USA requested at the start of this month, during that firestorm of coverage about the Southern Baptist mission workers from Idaho who were arrested in Haiti and accused of trying to rush 33 needy children over the border into the Dominican Republic.

The problem, of course, is that many journalists kept calling these mission workers “American Baptists.” Thus, the leaders of the actual American Baptists sent out a letter that said, in part:

While the people involved are Baptists from the United States, they are not American Baptists, a title belonging to the churches who are part of the American Baptist Churches/USA based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Please correct this. …

The Washington Post was one of the newsrooms that used the “American Baptist” label — several times, in fact. For me, it was just as important that the newspaper called these short-mission workers “American Baptists” — as in Baptists from America — without then identifying that they came from Southern Baptist congregations that were, yes, in Idaho (far from the South, in other words). Anyone who knows anything about America’s second largest religious body knows that the Southern Baptist Convention is now truly national.

Now, after nearly a month, the Post has printed the following:

A-section articles on Feb. 2 and Feb 5, about members of a U.S. Baptist group charged with kidnapping after they tried to leave Haiti with 33 children, referred to the group members as American Baptists. The group is associated with churches of the Southern Baptist Convention and is not part of American Baptist Churches USA.

Amen. Now, the only strange thing about this note is that the newspaper referred to this material as a “clarification,” not a “correction.” In other words, the Post team felt that it only needed to “clarify” its earlier errors, not “correct” them.

Here’s a typical definition of the word in question:

clar*i*fy …

v. clar*i*fied, clar*i*fy*ing, clar*i*fies …

1. To make clear or easier to understand; elucidate: clarified her intentions.
2. To clear of confusion or uncertainty: clarify the mind.

So the information was not inaccurate, it was simply unclear. It wasn’t wrong, it was merely hard to understand. The Post did not, in fact, make an error. So there.

Well, what is hard to understand? While it may have been unclear whether the newspaper was writing about “American Baptists” or “Baptists from America,” the coverage kept denying readers the crucial fact that the mission workers were linked to Southern Baptist churches, but not, I would add, the actual foreign mission agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. That’s crucial information.

OK, in newspaper terms, what’s the difference between a “correction” and a “clarification”? What are journalists trying to say when this particular hair is split?

It’s got to be hard being the Church of Scientology. Germany doesn’t want you; Wikipedia has banned your computers; protesters are trying to separate Beck from your fold; guys with samurai swords are challenging your guards; and all that Xenu talk just won’t go away.

Add to that the relentless, and outstanding, investigative efforts of Jedi reporters at the St. Petersburg Times and, yeah, you’d be ticked too. That’s why the Church of Scientology has decided to strike back:

After decades of digging into the Church of Scientology, reporters and editors at the St. Petersburg Times are accustomed to being denounced by its leaders.

But they find it unsettling that three veteran journalists — a Pulitzer Prize winner, a former “60 Minutes” producer, and the former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors — are taking the church’s money to examine the paper’s conduct.

While the journalists have promised an independent review, the Times has refused to cooperate, saying their work will be used to fuel the church’s ongoing campaign against the Florida paper.

“I ultimately couldn’t take this request very seriously because it’s a study bought and paid for by the Church of Scientology,” says Executive Editor Neil Brown. “Candidly,” he adds, “I was surprised and disappointed that journalists who I understand to have an extensive background in investigative reporting would think it’s appropriate to ask me or our news organization to talk about that reporting while (a) it’s ongoing, and (b) while they’re being paid to ask these questions by the very subjects of our reporting.”

Steve Weinberg, the former IRE executive, who has taught at the University of Missouri’s journalism school for a quarter-century, says he was paid $5,000 to edit the study and “tried to make sure it’s a good piece of journalism criticism, just like I’ve written a gazillion times… . For me it’s kind of like editing a Columbia Journalism Review piece.”

Yeah, if that CJR piece was about Beth McLean’s “Is Enron Overpriced?” article for Fortune and had been paid for by the former, phony energy giant. This is, to say the least, troubling. Especially because Weinberg is such a respected investigative journalist and author of “The Reporter’s Handbook,” a Bible for investigative basics.

Generally speaking, I’d love to see CJR tell the story behind the St. Pete Times’ recent stories about the church’s leader and, to give context, the paper’s long history of covering the organization, based in nearby Clearwater, Fla. But funding such media-criticism journalism with money from the chief critic who is the subject of the media outlet’s attention — that just doesn’t pass the smell test. Is the freelance journalism pool so dry that former Pulitzer-Prize winners need to take assignments like this to pay the bills?

That issue aside, this move raises other questions more central to the Godbeat. Questions of power and politics and the external pressures against a dwindling stable of reporters dedicated to the coverage of religion.

What should reporters do when religious organizations push back by prying into them? It’s a discomfiting reality that, given the right occasion, journalists and media outlets can become not the newsgatherers but the newsmakers. And when that happens I hate to see the hypocrisy that often follows. We journalists sure know how to dish it out, but it’s hard to take it. And so we get tighter-lipped than the very people we write about.

But what’s happening with the Church of Scientology and the St. Pete Times is different. Editor Neil Brown didn’t mind talking with The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz. They just don’t want to cooperate with the reporters acting as agents of the church (and, as mentioned, we can argue about whether they are independent agents).

Few religious organizations have the same combination of pop culture popularity, money and public scorn as the Church of Scientology, so this isn’t likely to become a trend. But other organizations followed this model, it could present some real problems for the Godbeat.

Earlier in the week I linked to the Washington Post story headlined “‘God gap’ impedes U.S. foreign policy, task force says.” Some readers will be delighted to see that it’s bylined by Godbeat fave David Waters. Here’s the lede:

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and “uncompromising Western secularism” that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The council’s 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious “capabilities gap” and recommends that President Obama make religion “an integral part of our foreign policy.”

We’re frequently talking about the need for journalists to understand how religion plays a major role in foreign affairs. I thought it was interesting that, according to this report, it’s not just the media but diplomats and foreign policy wonks who could heed the same advice. I was curious what readers thought of the article so I did something that is almost always a bad idea: I visited the story’s comments page. Sifting through the subliterate rantings and ravings of the masses there, it became apparent that many readers thought that the Council wanted the United States to promote Christianity.

I thought the article clearly explained simply that the Council wants U.S. foreign policy leaders and operatives to understand how religion is important in other countries. And I’ve yet to see a Washington Post story where the comments indicated that readers understood it very well. Anyway, it seems obvious that even though our country has no established religion, the same doesn’t hold for other countries and foreign organizations.

But this other story I read on the report could also be misconstrued, I think. Here’s how the piece, from CNN, begins:

Religion is a growing factor in world affairs, but the U.S. government tends to view it through the lens of counterterrorism. That’s the conclusion of a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

I don’t think the second clause of that first sentence makes much sense. And I don’t think that it’s fair to say that the first sentence is the conclusion of the study. The Post piece goes through the recommendations from the study and gives a different perspective, as evidenced from the excerpt above.

The CNN piece notes that the report discusses some of the positive world trends being led by religious groups. But it also includes these paragraphs:

“Religion has played a negative role in U.S. foreign policy in the past, especially in relations with the Muslim world,” notes Thomas Wright, executive director of studies for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the report’s project director.

The strategy of engaging religious communities is not trying to circumvent the First Amendment, observed Wright.

“The separation of church and state is vital and must be preserved in foreign as well as domestic policy,” Wright said.

I think that there’s an issue with the set up to these quotes. I could use more assistance in understanding what Wright means by the phrase “negative role.” And I think that the second point — about separation of church and state — is fantastic to include as a clarifying matter but could be further clarified for the average reader.

We’re certainly getting our fill of “The Star Spangled Banner” from the Winter Games, but a private college in Indiana will soon begin playing the National Anthem before sporting events for the first time.

The most solid coverage comes from the Goshen News and Associated Press. Here’s the AP take on how the college recently announced that it will begin play an instrumental version of the “Star Spangled Banner” before campus sporting events.

The decision to reverse the ban on the anthem is aimed at making students and visitors outside the faith feel more welcome, but it has roiled some at the 1,000-student college who feel the song undermines the church’s pacifist message and puts love for county above love for God.

Since college President Jim Brenneman announced the decision in January, more than 900 people have joined the Facebook group “Against Goshen College Playing National Anthem,” hundreds have signed an online petition protesting the move, and letters sent to administrators and the campus newspaper have overwhelmingly voiced opposition to the change.

I do wish reporters didn’t feel like they have to point to a Facebook page to make you feel like there’s tension involved. In a few years, it’ll come across as “OMG, look at the AOL chat forums that are forming.” In a column, Mark Tooley writes about a seemingly more substantial dissent from people outside of the college, including Duke University’s Stanley Hauerwas.

Even without a larger controversy, the story is still compelling. Other reporters should take note how reporter Carly Everson does a nice job of fitting the God vs. country ideas in a larger context.

Mennonites, whose church is rooted in a 16th-century movement in Europe known as Anabaptism, also believe singing a “hymn of allegiance” like the national anthem implies a deeper loyalty to country rather than to God, Roth said. However, Mennonite Church USA—which represents the largest and most mainstream group of Mennonites in the U.S.—does not specifically prohibit the anthem.

Goshen College officials say discussions about whether to change the policy began in September 2008 when the athletic department asked Brenneman to reconsider the school’s stance. Brenneman said the teams often bore the brunt of criticism about the policy because the anthem’s absence is most visible at sporting events, where it has become part of American culture.

Of course, colleges generally don’t overturn decades-old traditions for no reason. The reporter connects the decision to conservative talk show host Mike Gallagher, who featured the issue on his show. However, the reporter does not explain what was said on the show, so I suppose we’re supposed to guess?

Nevertheless, I’m glad the story is being covered because it involves ideas about higher education, love of country, love of God, and then where they fit in some hierarchy. I’d love to know whether other Mennonite high schools or college play the Star Spangled Banner or how they’ve resolved this issue. The Chronicle of Higher Education and Insider Higher Ed merely mention the hullabaloo, but where’s the substance from the higher ed pros?

The top image shows the Oude Kerk, a church in Amsterdam. The second image came from Wikimedia commons.

As controversies about the d-word go, this one is actually pretty mild. In this case, the “devout Christian” is not a mother who stood by while the queen of her alternative religious groups allegedly starved her young son to death (or worse) and then watched his tiny body stuffed into a suitcase with mothballs and fabric softener.

No, this time around we’re talking about God, the devil and Ronald Reagan — in about that order.

Here’s the top of the Los Angeles Times report to set the context:

Arthur Mijares never saw it coming when he filed the federal paperwork to change the name of Contra Costa County’s most famous landmark from Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan.

It’s not that he’s such a big fan of the 40th president of the United States. It’s just that he believes, as a devout Christian, that naming a peak of such beauty and importance after the devil — even in Spanish — is “derogatory, pejorative, offensive, obscene, blasphemous and profane.”

“I just happen to be an ordinary man that worships God,” Mijares said by way of explanation. “He gave me this task in my prayer time. I said, ‘Lord, they’re going to think I’m a loon.’ “

Mijares didn’t know the half of it.

Now, it appears that thousands of people think that this whole changing-the-mountain-name thing is pretty stupid and they are willing to say so in loud and, we are told, profane voices. That’s fine. There’s some good information there.

But how do we know that the accursed Mijares is a “devout Christian” and what does that have to do with the story? Well, he believes in God, he prays and he kind of likes Reagan.

Yup — that sounds like a “devout Christian” to me.

Actually, it sounds like pretty typical, vague American religious stuff to me. Dig around here at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and you’ll see what I mean.

In other words, this vague information may or may not indicate that he is a devout Christian. There may be other information that shows this and shows that this label is relevant to the story. However, this information is not in this story.

Otherwise, it’s a pretty solid and detailed report. I liked this detail about the infamous — but popular — name:

The twin-peaked Mt. Diablo, which dominates the East Bay landscape, is a sacred site to the Golden State’s Native American tribes. The Miwok believed the mountain was originally an island, “from which Coyote and his assistant, Golden Eagle, made the world as we know it,” according to American Indian Quarterly’s fall 1989 edition.

Its name has long swirled with controversy. As legend has it, in 1805, Spanish soldiers were chasing a band of Bay Miwok who had escaped from a mission and apprehended them in a thicket at the base of a dramatic mountain. Darkness fell, and the Miwok disappeared. When day broke, the mountain was shrouded in fog, and the soldiers realized that they’d been duped. So they dubbed the area Monte del Diablo, Thicket of the Devil.

Details are great. Your GetReligionistas are very fond of them. We are less fond of vague, irrelevant labels.

But you knew that already, right?

Earlier this week in Haiti, a group of Christians ran a group of Vodou followers away from a pavilion where they were trying to conjure spirits as part of a memorial service to honor their deceased brethren. The Christians pelted the worshipers with rocks and accused the Vodou followers of being responsible for dangerous aftershocks that had hit Haiti since the devastating earthquake a month ago.

Religion is a major theme in all Haiti coverage these days and it’s difficult to cover Vodoun perspectives as well as the Catholic and Evangelical perspectives. Let’s look at three different stories covering the violent attack. Here’s the lede for the AFP account:

Haiti’s supreme voodoo leader vowed “war” on Wednesday after Evangelicals attacked a ceremony organized by his religion honoring those killed in last month’s massive earthquake. …

“It will be war — open war,” Max Beauvoir, supreme head of Haitian voodoo, told AFP in an interview at his home and temple outside the capital.

I was intrigued to learn that Haiti had a supreme Vodou leader. It was my understanding that there was no one central authority leading practitioners there. But this excellent NPR story from a month ago makes the same claim, saying Beauvoir is “the supreme servitor of Voodoo, or the highest priest, in Haiti.”

I enjoy reading Jason Pitzl-Waters’ The Wild Hunt blog for news analysis from a Pagan perspective. He says that Beauvoir is a very important figure in Haiti but that, despite his claims to the contrary:

Vodou has no “supreme chief” that all Vodouisants, Mambos, and Houngans bow before. Beauvoir leads a faction, a group of practitioners who have acknowledged him as their leader, and is not a Vodou “pope”.

I’m reminded of a New York Times profile of Beauvoir from a few years ago that called him just that — “pope.” Pitzl-Waters urges reporters to reach out to other influential figures in Haitian Vodou.

The next story to look at is this Associated Press account of the violent encounter. The report includes some perspective from the Evangelical group, which is good. The Evangelical that is quoted says that the Christians were preparing for prayer when the Vodouists “came and took over.” The article describes some of the non-religious tensions that have erupted (a food convoy was attacked by 150 machete-wielding men):

Religious tension has also increased: Baptists, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, Mormons and other missionaries have flocked to Haiti in droves since the earthquake to feed the homeless, treat the injured and jockey for souls. Some Voodoo practitioners have said they’ve converted to Christianity for fear they will lose out on aid or a belief that the earthquake was a warning from God.

“Much of this has to do with the aid coming in,” said Max Beauvoir, a Voodoo priest and head of a Voodoo association. “Many missionaries oppose Voodoo. I hope this does not start a war of religions because many of our practitioners are being harassed now unlike any other time that I remember.”

I find it fascinating that the first article begins with a call to war by Beauvoir while the second article has him saying he hopes it doesn’t come to war. I’m not saying that both quotes aren’t accurate but it kind of reminds you how much power a reporter has in shaping a story.

As to the first paragraph, it is definitely true that Vodouists take issue with some evangelism efforts. That was true even prior to the earthquake. And it’s important to get that perspective into a story. But the phrase “jockey for souls” really isn’t an appropriate way to describe the evangelism efforts. Leave that loaded language for others. Assuming we’re not talking about riding horses, jockeying implies trickery or clever manipulation. That’s certainly not how those engaged in the evangelical work would describe what they’re doing. And even if there is some manipulation going on, it’s unfair to tar all relief workers and missionaries with that description. And more than that, the use of the word “jockey” is so unbelievably condescending to the Haitians. Just because people have not had all the advantages that people in an average newsroom have had doesn’t mean that they’re ill-equipped to consider their spiritual lives. Fact is that hardship can be a great crucible for focusing on the higher things.

Perhaps the best report I read on the violent conflict was actually a captioned series of photos from Getty Images. It certainly doesn’t tell the whole story but it shows the strong emotions on various sides of the event. One of the images is pictured above.

You may also be interested in this Samuel Freedman piece that ran in a recent New York Times. He begins by noting Pat Robertson’s comments about Vodou in the aftermath of the earthquake:

Crude and harsh as Mr. Robertson’s words were, he deserved a perverse kind of credit for one thing. He actually did recognize the centrality of voodoo to Haiti. In the voluminous media coverage of the quake and its aftermath, relatively few journalists and commentators have done so, and even fewer have gotten voodoo right.

Freedman seems to think that any and all criticism of Vodou or its teachings is inappropriate and on its face false. However, the piece is written as a column and not a news article. For my part, I think religious groups can handle and respond to critical views and don’t need protection from that dialogue. Still, Freedman’s essay includes top-notch media analysis. You’ll want to read it.

If you’ve heard about the exclusive story that will be in tomorrow’s Haaretz’s Weekend Magazine, the news that for more than a decade a Hamas founder’s son served as a spy to Israel’s security agency, then you’ve almost certainly heard a component of the story that’s two obvious for the media to miss. In fact, this element of the story was its own story — and a good story at that — in 2008.

Back then, the news about Mosab Yousef was that the Hamas scion had converted to Christianity and admired the nation of Israel. You can imagine why this detail might be relevant. I say might because I can imagine several reasons. Let’s see how reporters have dealt with them.

In both the preview that Haaretz published yesterday and the story that the Times of London wrote based on that preview, it is mentioned twice that Yousef “famously” converted to Christianity, but there is no indication of why that matters — other than to possibly establish that Yousef had a falling out with Hamas. Here’s a portion from the Haaretz preview:

The exclusive story will appear in this Friday’s Haaretz Magazine, and Yousef’s memoir, “Son of Hamas” (written with Ron Brackin) will be released next week in the United States. Yousef, 32, became a devout Christian 10 years ago and now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion.

Yousef was considered the Shin Bet’s most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, earning himself the nickname “the Green Prince” - using the color of the Islamist group’s flag, and “prince” because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement’s founders. …

“I wish I were in Gaza now,” Yousef said by phone from California, “I would put on an army uniform and join Israel’s special forces in order to liberate Gilad Shalit. If I were there, I could help. We wasted so many years with investigations and arrests to capture the very terrorists that they now want to release in return for Shalit. That must not be done.”

OK … not sure yet about the whole Christianity thing, but I can venture some guesses.

Maybe the New York Daily News can help. No … just another mention of Yousef now being a “devout Christian.” (I’m not even going to touch the d-word in this one.) The Associated Press? Blast. Nothing.

It’s entirely possible that the Times, AP and NY Daily News reports about Yousef relied entirely on Haaretz for their facts, and therefore were left hanging when the Haaretz preview only tease the Christian confession. Not sure why that prevented one of these reporters from independently speaking with Yousef, though I doubt he’s listed in the phone book.

Yousef’s conversion, if it’s worth mentioning, must mean something, though. Right? This NPR interview with the Haaretz reporter, Avi Issacharoff, who wrote tomorrow’s exclusive suggests so:

“He’s very religious. You can describe it as a personal crusade. He’s going against Islam, against Hamas, against Allah, against the Quran, against everything that he was taught and trained to — and everything that he believed in once when he was a young man This is not a political issue for him between Israelis and Palestinians. This is a matter of civilization or religion — between Islam and the rest of the world.”

Thanks to Robert Siegel for asking the obvious: “Is this his motivation?” But where is the follow up? And are we supposed to believe that being a “very religious” Christian led Yousef to spy for the Jewish nation? There is a connection there, and I can make it, but it’s a logical leap that requires a few assumptions about the type of Christian Yousef is.

Here’s looking forward to tomorrow’s exclusive and hoping it offers a lot more details about Yousef’s Christian “crusade.”

We are aware Chrome users are experiencing a Korern.in Malware warning. We are currently investigating this issue. It does not seem to be anything installed on our server, but it could be something we have linked to or something a commenter may have linked to. We hope to have a resolution this evening.

In the course of our investigation, we may disable some of our posts from today. Rest assured this is temporary.

If you have further questions you can contact me at kkallsen@e101.com

UPDATE:

I found a virus script embedded from a bot computer. It would seem this bot computer gained access by brute force guessing of passwords. I have removed the script and notified Google and StopBadWare.org of the situation. I have instructed GR Authors to change their passwords and have also fortified some of our upload and FTP directories. I expect they will remove our “Attack Site Status” soon.

This would be a good time to remind you to be sure your antivirus software is running properly and up-to-date. I recommend using Microsoft Essentials or Grisoft Antivirus for Windows machines. If you are using a Mac you obviously don’t need or use antivirus.

Irony: The only browser that could have installed this virus was Internet Explorer 6.0 and 7.0, 7.5. If you use Firefox, Safari or Chrome you are surfing the web securely. Guess which browser does not warn you about malicious attacks?

One of the hottest recent stories down in Texas has been a series of church burnings. Authorities have now accused two men of arson in these cases and there are details in the life of one of these former Baptists that are interesting, to say the least.

For example, a Dallas Morning news report opens like this:

TYLER — One of two East Texas church arson suspects kept books on demon possession and atheism as well as assault rifles and guns, and may have left graffiti offering inside information about one of the attacks in a local store bathroom, according to court records.

Jason Bourque, 19, was under police surveillance on Feb. 13 when he went in the bathroom of a ranch store in Tyler, according to one search warrant affidavit filed in Smith County District Court. Investigators later found an upside-down cross topped with flames carved onto the store’s bathroom wall, the documents said. Beside the cross were the words “Little Hope was Arson,” an apparent reference to the first of 10 churches burned in the spree that terrorized three East Texas counties.

At the time, court records indicate, authorities had not released any information indicating that they suspected that the Jan. 1 fire at Little Hope Baptist Church in Canton was deliberately set. Court documents indicate that investigators had determined that the fire was arson, but that information “would not have been known to anyone else but the fire starter.”

Later, readers learn that the search of Bourque’s home found books titled Demon Possession and The Atheist’s Way. It also seems that he liked brown shoes, for what that’s worth.

In other words, the fact that he had interesting reading habits linked to religious studies may or may not have played a role in the alleged acts. Would the crimes be worthy of harsher sentences if these beliefs were part of his motives setting the fires?

A GetReligion reader — DaveG — thinks that journalists may want to think about that:

Just an observation. Notice that there is little to no mention of the Texas church arson cases being a hate crime. In fact, in an interview, a member of the investigation said they don’t have to be, since different churches of different denominations were targeted — and they were mostly white. That got me to thinking. If synagogues of different views were targeted, would we brush off the notion of a hate crime? If mosques that disagreed on various beliefs or actions were targeted, would we so easily dismiss the crimes as hate crimes? …

Here is the key section of the USA Today story mentioned in that letter, featuring quotes from Tom Crowley, the spokesman for the Dallas office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The Dallas Morning News reported … that Crowley said that though no motive is known, the fires could be set to cover up another crime. Non-religious items have been stolen from some of the churches, he told the newspaper.

“It doesn’t have to be a hate crime,” Crowley said, noting that a variety of denominations and non-denominational churches were targets. Most, but not all, have predominantly white congregations.

No matter what you think about the validity of hate crimes, this is an interesting issue. It appears to me that journalists must have raised this issue, which drew the response from the spokesman.

Still, the angle has not been discussed much in mainstream coverage, unless I have missed something. You have to think it would be a major element of the coverage if we were talking about synagogues, mosques or ethnic churches. Right?

Meanwhile, a blog at the Morning News has another interesting piece of color linked to these questions:

East Texas church arson suspect Jason Robert Bourque calls himself “Mr. Brightside” on his MySpace page, lists his religion as “Christian — other” and prominently displays this quote from the 19th century anti-Christian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche:

“Never give way to remorse, but immediately say to yourself: that would merely mean adding a second stupidity to the first. — If you have done harm, see how you can do good. — If you are punished for your actions, bear the punishment with the feeling that you ARE doing good — by deterring others from falling prey to the same folly. Every evildoer who is punished may feel that he is a benefactor of humanity.”

Well, I’ll ask the question: I wonder what church he does attend, if any? Maybe he’s just a post-denominational, “spiritual” person. Maybe.

A group of 13 clergy in Ohio petitioned the IRS to investigate the organization that owns a red brick townhouse on Capitol Hill. The C Streeters claim a tax exemption as a church but the clergy group say it’s more an “exclusive club for elected officials” than a church. I wasn’t elated with the early reporting I saw on the claim but this NPR story is particularly notable. Here’s how it begins:

The three-story, brick townhouse at 133 C Street SE sits a half-block from the Cannon House Office Building, roughly three blocks from the Capitol — the home-away-from-home for a regular contingent of fundamentalist Christian members of Congress, who can pray in the living room and walk to work.

Hey, reporters: Stop using the term “fundamentalist” to describe people you don’t like. “Fundamentalist” is a real word with a real definition. One that in no way applies to the people you’re using it on.

Here, for the eleventy billionth time, is how the Associated Press Stylebook explains when to use the term:

FUNDAMENTALIST The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. In recent years, however, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians. In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself.

Whatever else you want to say about the group behind C Street (and I’ve said unfavorable things myself), the group does not believe in separation from other Christians. Almost the opposite.

This NPR story mentions four members of Congress associated with the group. They include (according to their bios) a Baptist, a Southern Baptist, a Foursquare Gospel member and an Episcopalian. Which ones are the separatists, I wonder? And are fundamentalists normally known for being Pentecostal (as in the case of the Foursquare Gospel member) and at the same time not being Pentecostal (as in the case of the others)? If your fundamentalism permits both Pentecostals and Episcopalians, just how fundamentalist are you? Those needing a basic primer in fundamentalism could do worse than Laurie Goodstein’s “fundamentalism for dummies” piece that ran in the New York Times years ago.

I was alerted to the NPR story by a reader who sent a letter to the outfit after hearing the story broadcast on Morning Edition. He had a number of valid complaints. The story says most visitors and residents of the C Street house are Republican but it says nothing about the political views of the protesting group. The only members of Clergy VOICE who I saw quoted were members of the United Church of Christ (the rest are mainline, too):

“Is there public worship?” said the leader of the group of ministers, Pastor Eric Williams of the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. “Is it open to the public? Are there trained leaders who serve the church? C Street really has none of those marks that make it a church.”

I know nothing about IRS regulations or whoever else gets to define what is and what isn’t a church. And I’m very interested in the outcome of this case. But it just seems like basic reporting to tell us more about the theological and political views of the group hoping for an investigation. I couldn’t find anything official about Clergy VOICE (maybe they’re in a secret-off with the C Street folks), but some of the signers of the letter to the IRS have public views that could be explored and characterized. Not that anyone ever thinks mainline churches, much less the United Church of Christ, have a particular political bent.

The complaint from the Ohio clergy is that the C Street residence is not really a church. To explore that question, NPR discusses a series of scandals involving members of Congress affiliated with the group. Gov. Mark Sanford “said he’d turned back to C Street for help” after being caught in his extra-marital affair. As the reader who sent us the story noted:

I can certainly appreciate how one could question an organization’s qualification as a church if it offers help to a former member. Furthermore, to offer help to a publicly professing sinner would certainly go beyond the boundaries of a church.

Then the story talks about another member of Congress who had an affair while living at the house. Our reader notes: “Once again it is clear that C Street could not be a church since it houses sinners and hypocrites.” I’m not entirely sure what we’re supposed to think about the anecdote where one resident tries to reconcile two families that have been hurt by infidelity.

Anyway, and again I say this having no knowledge of what the law says about the merits of the complaint against the group, the story characterizes the C Street folks as being little more than a residentially based prayer group for some of the country’s top leaders.

While the vast majority of lawmakers who stay at C Street are Republicans, regardless of party, they are all followers of an intimate, high-powered — and some say closed — Christian network.

Some might suggest that prayer groups are, by definition, “intimate” and that prayer groups whose members consist of high-ranking government officials will, by definition, be “high-powered.”

I think our reader says it well in his letter:

I can’t help but notice the multiple charged words used in this story: “fundamentalists,” “powerful,” “secretive,” “scandal.” Now there may be important issues raised by these thirteen ministers regarding the boundaries between church and state and the tax-exempt status of religious organizations. And I have no preconceived notions of what C Street is or is not. But this piece paints a biased picture of the community (accentuating the political aspects of C Street not mentioning potential political issues with the complainants) and at best demonstrates an ill-informed (and at worst, biased) viewpoint of churches and conservative Christians.

Rex Barney, the old PA announcer at Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards, used to say “Give that fan a contract!” whenever a fan made a particularly good catch of a foul ball. I think we should have something similar for readers, such as the one I’ve quoted here, who do particularly good media analysis on their own time.