Indiana is a happening state this month as we near the end of March Madness. I grew up just a few minutes from Butler University, and you might remember that Young Master Pulliam is a proud alumn. It’s a thrilling time to be a Hoosier.

On a smaller scale a few hours north of Indy, a Mennonite liberal arts college is handling its own sports-related news. Back in February, we looked at stories that covered Goshen College’s decision to play the National Anthem at sporting events. The New York Times has picked up the news and covered the anthem’s first appearance.

The story is a pretty basic, straight-forward account, and the reporter does a nice job of quoting Mennonites and non-Mennonites, as the school accepts both. I especially appreciate the detail at the top of the story of how the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi was said immediately followed the anthem. However, the story lacks a few contextual details, like whether the college is officially connected to a Mennonite denomination and how its resistance to anthems originated.

Let’s also consider the following paragraphs, which contain vague terms applied in political contexts that make no sense in this case.

The plain-living Mennonites are Christians who descended from the same 16th-century Anabaptist group as the Amish, although they are typically more worldly, having evolved over the centuries into conservative and more progressive communities.

Goshen College, with about 1,000 students, would fall into the increasingly liberal category, much to the chagrin of students like Mr. Miller.

Plain-living, worldly, conservative, progressive, liberal mean what in this context? This is a classic example of when a reporter uses political terms without making any connections to doctrine.

The reporter also explains different events leading up to the change, but her examples seem vague.

Goshen’s board of directors and college administrators had debated the merits of this change in policy for years. There was precedent: Mennonite colleges in Kansas, Ohio and other states played an instrumental version of the anthem. The Goshen News called the decision “a gesture worth embracing.”

Still, some wondered if the move, to be reviewed in a year, was not prompted more by pressure from outside groups and critics, particularly a conservative talk-radio host who singled Goshen out for ridicule three years ago, prompting a flurry of angry calls and e-mail messages to the college. There was also the issue of a declining Mennonite student population and the need to recruit beyond members of the peace church.

Why not explain who this “conservative talk-radio host” is and when the comments were made (Mike Gallagher, 2008)? That wouldn’t take up any more space in the story. Also, when did these colleges in Kansas, Ohio and other states start playing the anthem? In the last few years or over several years?

The larger problem with the story is that it lacks historical context. The reporter acknowledges that the school is known for its pacifist Mennonite traditions, but it doesn’t explain those traditions or why they exist. Do the larger Mennonite denominations offer guidance on anthems?

Near Goshen’s back yard, an Indianapolis Star story gives a few more basic details.

The college is owned by Mennonite Church USA, an overseeing body that has not taken an official position on the playing of the national anthem. Division over the issue is apparent: Two other Mennonite colleges—Eastern Mennonite University (Virginia) and Heston College (Kansas)—still refuse to play the anthem while two others—Bluffton College (Ohio) and Bethel College (Kansas) do.

…College officials admit that the continued refusal to play the national anthem may have become a barrier to some students. College enrollment peaked at more than 1,200 students in the 1970s and 1980s but “we’ve been on about a 30-year decline,” said Jodi Beyeler, a spokeswoman.

Still, both stories could look more at the theology in the Mennonite tradition to see why its uncomfortable with the National Anthem in the first place. Exploring the roots of the school’s history would go a long way in explaining the tension between love of country and love of God. Just because a story is newsworthy, it doesn’t mean history is obsolete.

During the firestorm right after Rep. Bart Stupak approved the Senate’s take on health care reform, I posted an item here at GetReligion that asked some basic questions about a key religion element of the story.

The consistently pro-life Democrat said that the Senate bill (backed by an executive order from President Barack Obama) would not allow tax dollars to fund elective abortions, even though it did not contain the language that he had successfully added to the earlier House bill — language that was defeated in the Senate, to the joy of the defenders of abortion rights.

Thus, I asked:

… Was Stupak naive? … What, pray tell, is the difference between Stupak’s view of the Senate bill and that of the U.S. Catholic bishops? What are the facts in the legislation on which they disagree? … It’s clear that abortion-rights activists believe they have something to cheer about, because Stupak’s language was defeated.

Ever since then, I have been looking for mainstream coverage that returns to this issue and clearly explains the views on both sides. Note that I said explains the views. It is not enough for a story to simply say “this side is right,” without addressing the concerns of mainstream voices on the opposing side (think Catholic bishops or liberal mainline Protestant leaders).

I’m still looking. In the meantime, please consider the following material from a Washington Post op-ed page column by Kathleen Parker, the conservative that many conservatives have recently learned to semi-hate.

I realize that we do not cover editorial columns as news here at GetReligion, so this tests our normal limits. Still, Parker offers some explanatory language that seems especially sober and clear (at least to me). I am sure that many will disagree. However, if you choose to leave comments knocking her explanations, please offer some URLs to link to factual material — mainstream sources, please — to back your case. This is one of the only pieces I have seen that even addresses the issues raised by the U.S. Catholic bishops and others in mainstream groups that oppose the federal funding of abortion.

Read it all. Meanwhile, here is a key chunk of her column, which follows an explanation of why an executive order cannot override a statute:

… Of course the bill doesn’t explicitly state that it appropriates abortion funding. In fact, it takes pains to use terminology that seems to explicitly forbid it. But other areas are swampier. And, indeed, funds could be used to pay for abortion under circumstances that predictably will evolve.

History and precedent tell us this much. For one thing, the Hyde Amendment is a rider that must be lobbied and attached each year to the annual Labor/Health and Human Services appropriations bill. Under its terms, the amendment applies only to those funds.

Rather than following the usual course of funding community health centers (CHCs) through the Labor/HHS budget, the health-care-reform measure does an end run around Hyde by directly appropriating billions of dollars into a new CHC fund. Because the Obama administration’s “fix-it” bill did not include the abortion-ban language proposed by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), those billions appropriated to CHCs simply are not covered by Hyde.

The president’s executive order, she notes, was supposed to handle this problem by extending the Hyde language to cover community health centers. However, it presidents could do that, then there wouldn’t have been annual wars fought on the Hill during the George W. Bush years to pass the Hyde Amendment. When you are talking about controlling money, you need an act of Congress. As one expert says, “That’s Civics 101.”

Parker continues:

It is telling that the nation’s largest abortion provider — Planned Parenthood — is claiming “victory” because “we were able to keep the Stupak abortion ban out of the final legislation and President Obama did not include the Stupak language in his executive order.”

Several supporters of the bill have argued that this debate is otherwise irrelevant because abortions aren’t performed at CHCs. While currently true, this doesn’t mean that CHCs wouldn’t like to offer abortion among their reproductive services. Under the new law, they can. There’s nothing to stop them.

Here’s why. By statute, CHCs are required to provide all “required primary health care services,” defined to include “health services related to … obstetrics or gynecology that are furnished by physicians.” Federal courts long have held that when a statute requires provision of health services under such broad categories, then the statute must be construed to include abortion unless it explicitly excludes it. Voila.

Journalists note: This points toward the next step in the evolution of this story. The local hook may be as close as the sidewalks in front of your local community health center or the telephones at your local chapter of the Right To Life Committee (or the local Catholic diocese, or a megachurch that gets online bulletins from Focus on the Family, etc., etc.)

There is no reason for the story to go away, especially since a majority of Americans continue to oppose the use of tax dollars to fund abortions and, rest assured, GOP leaders (whether they have constructive views on health care or not) will be preparing to shout those statistics from coast to coast in the next round of congressional elections.

Stay tuned.

Photo: President Barack Obama signs a stimulus bill sending new funds to community health centers across the nation.

It appears that ace Vatican reporter John Allen isn’t the only person who noted problems with the New York Times’ recent attempt to link Pope Benedict XVI to a particularly sickening story of priest abuse.

We looked at Allen’s critique already. The Times said the fact that only 20 percent of abuse cases went to trial was a mark of “inaction” by the office Benedict oversaw when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. But Allen said that most Vatican observers would say that allowing bishops to handle cases instead of sending them all to trial was much more favorable to the victims. Allen summed up his take on the situation in a new op-ed for the Times:

After being elected pope, Benedict made the abuse cases a priority. One of his first acts was to discipline two high-profile clerics against whom sex abuse allegations had been hanging around for decades, but had previously been protected at the highest levels.

He is also the first pope ever to meet with victims of abuse, which he did in the United States and Australia in 2008. He spoke openly about the crisis some five times during his 2008 visit to the United States. And he became the first pope to devote an entire document to the sex-abuse crisis, his pastoral letter to Ireland.

What we are left with are two distinct views of the scandal. The outside world is outraged, rightly, at the church’s decades of ignoring the problem. But those who understand the glacial pace at which change occurs in the Vatican understand that Benedict, admittedly late in the game but more than any other high-ranking official, saw the gravity of the situation and tried to steer a new course.

When I read the original Times story by Laurie Goodstein, it struck me as an attempt to latch onto the European media’s current feeding frenzy on the Pope. The story was about Father Lawrence Murphy’s sexual abuse against deaf children in Wisconsin and all hinged on supposed inaction by then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s office. And many critics are saying it wasn’t well researched. Over at First Things, George Weigel says that the sources used for the story were tainted:

Rembert Weakland is the emeritus archbishop of Milwaukee, notorious for having paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to satisfy the demands of his former male lover. Jeff Anderson is a Minnesota-based attorney who has made a substantial amount of money out of sex abuse “settlements,” and who is party to ongoing litigation intended to bring the resources of the Vatican within the reach of contingency-fee lawyers in the United States. Yet these two utterly implausible—and, in any serious journalistic sense, disqualified—sources were those the Times cited in a story claiming that, as cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [CDF], Joseph Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, had prevented sanctions against Father Lawrence Murphy, a diabolical Milwaukee priest who, decades before, had abused some 200 deaf children in his pastoral care. This was simply not true, as the legal papers from the Murphy case the Times provided on its Web site demonstrated (see here for a demolition of the Times’ case based on the documentary evidence it made available). The facts, alas, seem to be of little interest to those whose primary concern is to nail down the narrative of global Catholic criminality, centered in the Vatican.

I disagree that the sources are disqualified. However, Weakland’s resignation under scandal probably should have been disclosed more prominently. And I think his own involvement in a sex scandal means he shouldn’t be relied on so much. As for the attorney, perhaps it would help to discuss his financial interest in the matter but I tend to think that people understand how lawyers are compensated.

But there’s another criticism of the story’s sourcing. Father Thomas Brundage, then-presiding judge for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, presided over the canonical criminal cases involving Father Murphy. You can read his entire statement here but he takes issue with part of the reporting:

With regard to the inaccurate reporting on behalf of the New York Times, the Associated Press, and those that utilized these resources, first of all, I was never contacted by any of these news agencies but they felt free to quote me. Almost all of my quotes are from a document that can be found online with the correspondence between the Holy See and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. In an October 31, 1997 handwritten document, I am quoted as saying ‘odds are that this situation may very well be the most horrendous, number wise, and especially because these are physically challenged, vulnerable people.” Also quoted is this: “Children were approached within the confessional where the question of circumcision began the solicitation.”

The problem with these statements attributed to me is that they were handwritten. The documents were not written by me and do not resemble my handwriting. The syntax is similar to what I might have said but I have no idea who wrote these statements, yet I am credited as stating them. As a college freshman at the Marquette University School of Journalism, we were told to check, recheck, and triple check our quotes if necessary. I was never contacted by anyone on this document, written by an unknown source to me. Discerning truth takes time and it is apparent that the New York Times, the Associated Press and others did not take the time to get the facts correct.

Additionally, in the documentation in a letter from Archbishop Weakland to then-secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone on August 19, 1998, Archbishop Weakland stated that he had instructed me to abate the proceedings against Father Murphy. Father Murphy, however, died two days later and the fact is that on the day that Father Murphy died, he was still the defendant in a church criminal trial. No one seems to be aware of this. Had I been asked to abate this trial, I most certainly would have insisted that an appeal be made to the supreme court of the church, or Pope John Paul II if necessary. That process would have taken months if not longer.

Well that’s an even more effective argument against using Weakland as a source, I guess. (To abate means “to end.”) He goes on to say that he has no reason to believe that Ratzinger was involved “at all” and that the changes made by Ratzinger’s office meant that sexual abuse cases began to be handled “expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved.” He notes, like Allen, that Benedict has repeatedly apologized to the victims and instead of blaming him for inaction, he should be credited for being a strong and effective leader.

It sounds like some of the more informed voices on this matter are saying the same thing about then-Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict. That their view is in such contrast to the narrative the Times story promoted does point to problems.

And it’s not just the Times. The Associated Press ran a story about how the mentally unstable man who shot Pope John Paul II believes that Benedict should resign. I’m not entirely certain why that’s newsworthy.

To their credit, sort of, the Associated Press put up an article noting a few of Brundage’s claims. To me, it reads somewhat defensive. And it ignores Brundage’s claims that he wasn’t interviewed in stories that quoted him. Instead, it says he merely “disputed” the attribution of “quotes from documents with his name handwritten at the top”:

He said he didn’t know who wrote those documents or under what context, but he didn’t disagree with any of the information in them.

See! No problem! I always find it interesting how reporters can sort of get whipped up into a frenzy when investigating certain people or organizations but get downright nuanced and meek when looking at problems with journalism.

UPDATE: Father Brundage now says he must have been mistaken about whether or not he was asked to abate.

“Nazi scandal engulfs Human Rights Watch.” Not a headline you would expect to ever see. But there it was in The Sunday Times of London. And all I could think was: Not again.

No, not again. This headline poorly described a broad feature about Human Rights Watch by focusing on a scandal that broke in September, when Marc Garlasco was forced out after his fanfare for Nazi memorabilia was revealed — an incident that followed questions and online coverage last year of fundraising in that citadel of human rights defense, Saudi Arabia, and of the organization’s Israel problem

Kind of makes you wonder who’s watching Human Rights Watch. (I bet you didn’t expect to see that line in this post.)

You typically only hear about the New York-based organization when a reporter needs a quote on Darfur or the treatment of women in places like Saudi Arabia or oppression of dissidents in industrializing nations. But The Times traveled across the pond Sunday for a lengthy profile of HRW that, before moving onto other trouble’s at HRW and concerns over its criticism of Israel, opens with Garlasco:

By day, Marc Garlasco was HRW’s only military expert, the person that its Emergencies Division would send to conflict zones to investigate alleged war crimes. He wrote reports condemning the dropping of cluster bombs in the Russia-Georgia war, the alleged illegal use of white phosphorus by the Israeli army in Gaza and coalition tactics that he said “unnecessarily” put Iraqi or Afghan civilians at risk. An enthusiastic source of quotes for the media, he was incessantly on the phone to journalists.

But by night, Garlasco was “Flak88”, an obsessive contributor to internet forums on Third Reich memorabilia and an avid collector of badges and medals emblazoned with swastikas and eagles.

A lavishly illustrated $100 book he compiled and self-published is dedicated to his grandfather, who served in the Luftwaffe. On members-only sites such as Wehrmachtawards.com he was writing comments like “VERY nice Hitler signature selection”; “That is so cool! The leather SS jacket makes my blood go cold it is so COOL!”

An interest in Nazi memorabilia does not necessarily suggest Nazi sympathies — but it is hardly likely to play well in the salons where Garlasco’s employer might solicit donations.

No kidding.

I’ve seen no other coverage of this story recently. Garlasco was, after all, forced out months ago. But the politics blogger and DC correspondent for the Jewish AP — AKA the JTA — reviewed the efforts of Times reporter Jonathan Foreman. The most surprising line, especially from a journalist whom I really admire, was this:

Sometimes gut-level reactions get the better of us (myself included): Garlasco’s hobby was weird, icky, off putting — but did it say anything, really, about his professionalism?

Actually, I would argue it does. But I would also argue that whether a Nazi hang-up really says anything about Garlasco’s “professionalism” is moot.

Who cares if he has a firm handshake and is great at doing the work HRW hired him for? Carrying the banner for a human rights organization isn’t just about efficiency but also appearances — the appearance that you are willing to fight to good fight for human rights. How then could any Jews reconcile someone’s hobby of collecting Nazi mementos with his desire to see a mutually beneficial resolution to conflict in Gaza?

PHOTO: Via Flickr

The headline on the MSNBC version of an Associated Press report out of Michigan was blunt:

Christian militia target of FBI raids?

As you would expect, the top of the story backed that up.

ADRIAN, Mich. — The FBI said … that agents conducted weekend raids in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio and arrested at least three people, and a militia leader in Michigan said the target of at least one of the raids was a Christian militia group. …

Michael Lackomar, a spokesman for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, said one of his team leaders got a frantic phone call Saturday evening from members of Hutaree, a Christian militia group, who said their property in southwest Michigan was being raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Meanwhile, a corresponding story at the New York Times took a slightly different approach, at least in the early presentation of basic facts. The headline on this report said:

Militia Charged With Plotting to Murder Officers

Then the story begins like this:

CLAYTON, Mich. — David B. Stone Sr. and his wife, Tina, made no secret about the fact that they were part of a militia, neighbors say. The couple frequently let visitors in military fatigues erect tents in front of their trailer home at the intersection of rural dirt roads, and the sound of gunfire was routine.

“In Michigan, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal to be in a militia,” said Tom McDormett, a neighbor. He added: “They would practice shooting, but that’s not a big deal. People do that all the time out here.”

But last Saturday night, Mr. McDormett watched through binoculars as the police raided the Stones’ home, tearing off plywood from the base of their two connected single-wide trailers to search under the floors. By Monday, the Stones were in green prison garb in a federal courthouse in Detroit, two of nine defendants facing sedition and weapons charges in connection with what Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called an “insidious plan.”

There is, of course, a big difference between these two headlines, and the top paragraphs in the two stories. The difference is the word “Christian.” The edge in the AP story is that this is a “Christian” militia group, not merely a generic militia group.

There is, of course, no way around that using that label, to one degree or another, to describe a group of people who wear their approach to Christianity on the sleeves of their fatigues. There is no way to avoid the word “Christian” in this story, just as there is no way to avoid discussing the Islamic beliefs and motives of the members of many militant Islamic groups around the world. At some point you have to quote people when they offer, in their own words, their own justifications for their own acts.

It’s painful, but it’s the facts. The Times report introduces the word “Christian” rather carefully, linking it with a crucial adjective.

In an indictment against the nine … the Justice Department said they were part of a group of apocalyptic Christian militants who were plotting to kill law enforcement officers in hopes of inciting an antigovernment uprising, the latest in a recent surge in right-wing militia activity.

The court filing said the group, which called itself the Hutaree, planned to kill an unidentified law enforcement officer and then bomb the funeral caravan using improvised explosive devices based on designs used against American troops by insurgents in Iraq. …

The Hutaree — a word Mr. Stone apparently made up to mean Christian warriors — saw the local police as “foot soldiers” for the federal government, which the group viewed as its enemy, along with other participants in what the group’s members deemed to be a “New World Order” working on behalf of the Antichrist, the indictment said.

Later, we learn that the Hutaree’s online publications stress religious issues more than secular politics. Their nominee for Antichrist status, for example, resides in Europe — not in the White House. This is precisely the kind of details that readers need.

It’s painful to read, but there’s more:

Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a liberal-leaning nonprofit group that tracks far-right networks, said the Hutaree’s philosophy was drawn from a populist strand that fuses fear of a conspiracy to create a one-world government with a belief that a war is imminent between Christians and the Antichrist, as described in the Bible’s Book of Revelation. …

The Hutaree Web site features the motto “Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive” and a video showing rifle-toting men in camouflage running through woods and firing weapons. “Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment,” the Web site says, adding, “The Hutaree will one day see its enemy and meet him on the battlefield if so God wills it.”

So where do we go from here?

If the goal is to learn more about the role that religion plays in this group’s view of the world, I think it will be crucial for the Times to talk to conservative theologians who are very familiar with these kinds of beliefs and have rejected them. Too often, the press heads to academic institutions on the left side of the academic, political and religious aisle and then asks the experts from these institutions to interpret the beliefs of people from groups on the outer edges of the right-wing world. This is something like asking scholars at Pat Robertson’s Regent University — alone — for insights into what went wrong with the liberal rebels at Jonestown.

It will also help to ask specific religious questions: Did these people go to church? Are they Pentecostals, independent Baptists, fringe Presbyterians or what? What religious books were found on the premises? Did this group have its own self-appointed clergy? Where did those clergy study, if they went to seminary? Had the Hutaree leaders become independent operators, perhaps after being tossed out of traditional churches or Christian organizations because of their extreme beliefs (as has been the case in almost all cases of violence against abortionists and abortion facilities)?

Clearly, religion is a major part of this story. Talk to experts on both sides and search for the kinds of facts and details that shed light as well as heat. Don’t be afraid to ask doctrinal questions and then seek explanations. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is in the Nicene Creed. This not a subject that traditional Christians are afraid to discuss, because all creedal believers are “apocalyptic Christians.” That does not mean that their beliefs resemble those being proclaimed by the violent militants holed up in the wilds of Michigan.

The banner headline on Page 1 of the Chicago Tribune blared the disturbing news: “Charity ripped for ‘hire’ calling.”

Monday’s deck head elaborated: “It requires new employees to be Christians — a policy that is driving away workers and reawakening federal funding issues.”

So immediately, it’s clear: Something truly awful is happening, and the Tribune has the scoop on it:

A prominent refugee resettlement organization has enacted a policy that requires new employees to be Christian, triggering an exodus of Chicago staff members who denounce it as religious discrimination.

The former director of the Chicago office of World Relief, a global evangelical Christian charity that receives federal funds to resettle refugees, said she was forced out in January because she disagreed with how the policy was implemented. The agency also has dismantled mental health services for refugees in Chicago after losing staff and funding because of the hiring rule, officials said.

“As a Christian, I feel it is my duty to advocate for the most vulnerable,” said former legal specialist Trisha Teofilo, who also left because of the policy. “I believe Jesus would not promote a policy of discrimination.”

Discrimination.

That’s the key word in this story.

Early in the story, the Tribune makes it clear — as one-sided stories tend to do — that this is a story about discrimination, not a story about religious freedom:

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the hiring policy is legal. But opponents, including current and former employees, say it is hypocritical for an agency to discriminate when its mission is settling refugees — many of whom have fled religious intolerance in their home countries.

“It’s legal, but it’s ridiculously wrong and un-Christian,” said Delia Seeburg, the director of immigrant legal services in World Relief’s Chicago office. She plans to leave for a new job next month.

Only near the end of this 1,300-word piece does the Tribune offer any inkling that perhaps there might be another side to the story — that there might be employees who went to work for World Relief because of its Christian environment:

The Rev. Brad Morris, the interim director brought in from Nashville, Tenn., after Embling’s departure, said the hiring policy has nothing to do with the services provided and that he doesn’t see a conflict.

“I don’t believe it’s discrimination. It’s an internal hiring policy,” he said. “Corporations want to hire people who are in line with who they are and what they stand for. One of the reasons I came to work with World Relief was it was a Christian organization to begin with.”

The piece, which has an investigative tone to it without much to back it up, also insinuates that World Relief may be trying to proselytize its clients:

Greg Wangerin, executive director of Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, said the policy was troubling to many in the refugee resettlement community. World Relief handles 40 percent of U.S. arrivals.

“To impose one particular value of a given faith upon others who may be of other faith traditions and are important players in welcoming the stranger is going a bit too far,” Wangerin said.

Bauman said the agency has a strict rule against proselytizing, adding that the new policy may call for additional training on that point.

But Zeitoun worries about what might go on behind closed doors.

Now, that’s all pretty scary stuff: A Christian organization that receives federal funds may be indoctrinating refugees with different religious beliefs behind closed doors. But I’ve got a suggestion: How about providing a shred of evidence to back up such an accusation? If World Relief handles 40 percent of 40 U.S. arrivals, why not interview a handful of those refugees and ask: Did anyone preach the Christian gospel to you?

Don’t get me wrong: Employees are leaving. There’s obviously upheaval in World Relief’s Chicago office. This is news. My problem is not that the Tribune chose to do the story or play it on Page 1. My concern is that the paper takes one side and advocates for it.

Just imagine if the Tribune had decided to make this a story about religious freedom, not a story about discrimination.

In that case, how might this piece have read differently?

Well, for one thing, rather than the charged language of the Tribune story, it might have included more neutral phrasing such as this:

Recognizing the need of faith-based organizations to maintain an atmosphere of shared values and principles, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 permits them to hire based on religion. Such groups, largely philanthropic, range from soup kitchens and drug-counseling services to refugee-resettlement agencies.

Among these are organizations like World Relief, which provides aid to some of the world’s most vulnerable, and operates in the U.S., helping resettle refugees from all cultural and religious backgrounds.

Grounded in evangelical faith, the Baltimore-based organization receives up to 70 percent of its funding from government sources, with the rest from private donors, including churches seeking assurances that the religious values of those carrying out the agency’s work are similar to their own.

Staff members at the agency also say the work they do can be stressful and so they pray during meetings to help ease that stress — a practice they believe might make non-Christians uncomfortable.

Where’d I read that?

I saw it about three weeks ago in the Seattle Times — also on Page 1, if I recall — in a story that focused on a Muslim interpreter rejected for a job at World Relief. Same story. Much different tone and treatment. Dare I say, a much better attempt at journalism that treats all sides with fairness and respect.

We’ve written at length about our frustration with the overuse of political terminology to describe religious groups. The labels “conservative” and “progressive” might mean something in politics, but they have their limits when it comes to discussion of faith.

I thought of this issue when I began reading this Associated Press story headlined “Moderates forced out of top Islam Web site”:

CAIRO — The Qatari government has forced out the moderate leadership of a popular Islamic Web site and plans to reshape it into a more religiously conservative outlet, former employees of the site said Thursday.

In the first paragraphs, we learn that Sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi was widely respected and “a relative moderate” who put “diverse content” on IslamOnline. A few paragraphs later the reporter editorializes by saying that al-Qaradawi used a “realistic approach to the questions of Islam in the modern age.” But I wasn’t sure either what those things meant in practice or what a new conservative version would look like either.

But at least one side of that equation was answered with some nice specifics:

Al-Qaradawi is one of most influential voices in Sunni Islam, and has been criticized by more conservative scholars for allowing things like men and women to study together, encouraging Western Muslims to participate in their democracies, and condemning al-Qaida attacks such as Sept. 11.

Besides content on Islam, the site, which used to received of hits 350,000 hits a day, is known for covering interfaith dialogue, the arts, sciences and health. It has a fatwa section, where people can receive religious decrees on everything from banking questions to female masturbation.

Later we learn that the “conservative” leadership didn’t like the web site’s discussions on “women’s health, homosexuality, and films.” It’s helpful information but what would be even more helpful is understanding why they didn’t like it. Was it just that the discussions were permitted or that the answers were heterodox? It seems like this story would be a great avenue for exploring and explaining some of the divides in Islam. Even in a short story, a bit more information would do wonders.

But there’s another issue that confuses me. Isn’t Youssef al-Qaradawi a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood? Didn’t he end up supporting the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan? Why did 2,500 Muslims condemn him as a “sheik of death”? From a 2004 story:

The signatories describe those who use religion for inciting violence as “the sheikhs of death”. Among those mentioned by name is Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian preacher working in Qatar. The signatories accuse him of “providing a religious cover for terrorism.”

Last year Qaradawi raised a storm when he issued a fatwa allowing the killing of Israeli pregnant women and their unborn babies on the ground that the babies could grow up to join the Israeli Army. Last September, Qaradawi in a fatwa in response to a question from the Egyptian Union of Journalists said killing “all Americans, civilian or military” in Iraq was allowed.

Why is he not allowed to enter the United States? Here’s the BBC why he’s not allowed to enter the United Kingdom:

During his last visit in 2004, Dr Al-Qaradawi defended suicide attacks on Israelis as “martyrdom in the name of God”, during a BBC interview.

So while the term “moderate” is relative, it would help to understand more about why Al-Qaradawi is described as one by the Associated Press.

Quick! While we all read more and more about the horrific news out of Moscow, can we agree on something? Please, copy editors and reporters, lend me your ears.

In one of the early Washington Post foreign service reports, we read this background material about the terrorist attack:

After one clash in early March, security officials said they had succeeded in killing Alexander Tikhomirov, a charismatic young preacher known as Sayid Buryatsky, who had emerged as a major figure in the insurgency. Weeks later, authorities reported killing another rebel leader, Anzor Astemirov, who is believed to have made the original proposal to establish a fundamentalist Caucasus Emirate in the region.

Umarov declared jihad and embraced that cause in 2007, causing a rift in the long-running separatist rebellion in Chechnya and drawing support from other Muslim ethnic groups angered by the harsh tactics employed Russian security forces.

Once again, we have the f-word used in a news report in a way that does nothing to add factual material to the story.

Once again, let’s turn to the Associated Press Stylebook, the bible of mainstream journalism:

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.

Can we all agree that the subways in Moscow were not attacked by bands of very conservative Protestants who are willing to sign the Fundamentals of the Faith documents of the early 20th century? Note that the usage of the f-word in this story clouds another issue. What do the rebels actually want? Is a “fundamentalist Caucasus Emirate” the same thing as an Islamic republic? What kind? What form of government, rooted in what approach to Sharia?

At the same time, what in the world do the words “charismatic young preacher” mean in this context? Was this person a Muslim leader with some defined religious role? Was he simply a good public speaker? What are the facts?

We also are told that Russian leaders are convinced that they are dealing with a “separatist insurgency waged by Islamic militants.” That is highly familiar language, but when added to the vague terms used elsewhere it is hard to learn anything concrete about the religious, political or military nature of these acts.

Over at the New York Times, reporters and editors were able to deal with this developing story without using labels from American religious debates. One early report there makes a simple reference to conflicts blamed on “Islamic extremism in Chechnya and other parts of the Caucasus region in southern Russia.” Then later, we read:

The Russian government has sought to suppress violent Muslim extremism in the south since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Two brutal wars in Chechnya and a guerrilla insurgency gave rise to numerous bombings and acts of terror in southern Russia throughout the 1990s. Starting in 2002, Chechen separatists then began to export their bombing campaign to Moscow.

“Extremism” is another one of those vague words, but, when combined with “violent” we at least get some picture that the issue is rooted in tactics as well as beliefs. The word “separatists” is also helpful, in a political context, although, again, this simply raises the issue of what the rebels want to create when they achieve separation.

But the early Times report is much better, if only because of the words it declines to abuse, as well as the words that it uses.

When I stumbled across this story, I’ll admit my first thought was — “Just in time for Holy Week!”:

Pullman Risks Christian Anger With Jesus Novel

Now I’ll admit that despite the annoying trend of “contrarian” Christian stories around the time of Holy Week, I’m not entirely sure that’s what is going on here. The Pullman in question is Philip Pullman, author of the controversial His Dark Materials series of children’s books. Despite the controversy over the books’ anti-Christian themes, they sold lots and lots of copies. So if Pullman has a new book coming out, it’s news. Also, perhaps Pullman himself is launching the book near Holy Week to generate maximum controversy. In any event, it sounds like this book will also be controversial:

Bestselling British author Philip Pullman risks offending Christians with his latest book, a fictional account of the “good man Jesus” and the “scoundrel Christ.”

The 63-year-old, an outspoken atheist, angered some members of the Catholic Church with a thinly veiled attack on organized religion in his hugely successful “His Dark Materials” trilogy, the first of which was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster.

But “The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ” is a far more direct exploration of the foundations of Christianity and the church as well as an examination of the fascination and power of storytelling.

In the novel, Jesus has a twin brother called Christ who secretly records and embellishes his brother’s teachings.

Speaking about the book to an audience in Oxford on Sunday, Pullman acknowledged that it was likely to cause offence.

I have to say in an era of Dawkins, Harris, et al., this sort of thing doesn’t make me outraged so much as tempted to yawn, though I can see where this might be catnip to journalists. However, the supposition that Pullman “risks Christian anger” and “risks offending Christians” in the headline and the lede is, well, an awfully leading thing thing to hang the article on. Pullman doesn’t risk offense — he’s aiming for it. Or at least that’s what he says:

When one man said Christians would be upset to hear Christ referred to as a “scoundrel,” Pullman replied:

“I knew it was a shocking thing to say, but no one has the right to live without being shocked. Nobody has to read this book … and no one has the right to stop me writing this book.”

In fairness, the article does report this:

Pullman, who has received angry letters from people accusing him of blasphemy even before the short novel hits the shelves, was accompanied by security guards to the Oxford event to publicize his book.

It isn’t exactly surprising that Pullman would receive angry letters or that they’d accuse him of impiety or irreverence. But it’s also an undocumented assertion from Pullman and a far cry from a Rushdie-esque fatwa. It’s a bit much to be putting this all on supposedly angry Christians without producing any of them or explaining the need for security. Or, for that matter, balancing the story by talking to some Christian leaders or scholars and asking them what they think about Pullman’s work. In fact, the only outside perspective in the entire article is the “one man [in the Oxford audience that] said Christians would be upset to hear Christ referred to as a ‘scoundrel.’”

Without any outside perspective and the loaded language about allegedly offended and angry Christians, the article simply reads far too much like a “just in time for Holy Week” press release.

You know it’s hard out there for a Christian.

I’ve always felt plenty of guilt — I blame my Catholic and Jewish roots — for not feeling more persecuted for my Christian beliefs in the United States. But in many corners of the world Christians get all the persecution they can handle.

Earlier this month, Morocco expelled Christian workers who, according to the LA Times’ Babylon and Beyond blog, were accused of proselytizing to orphaned children. Seems likely if Christian-led orphanages in Morocco are anything like they are in sub-Saharan Africa. Let’s not forget the Christians massacred in Nigeria this month. And the historic communities in the Middle East — dwindling to the point of starvation.

But what about if we headed farther east?

In Malaysia, the AP reported this weekend that Muslims were protesting another cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. (This time Muhammad was depicted as a dog in several Swedish newspapers. That this keeps occurring gives rise to an entirely different discussion of religion in the media; GetReligion was there in the beginning.) But it turns out that Malaysia is site of a broader battle of religions, and it’s having ugly consequences for Christians in the predominantly Muslim country.

Under the vanilla headline “Religious tensions flare in Malaysia,” LAT veteran Mark Magnier an informative piece that opens with the firebombing of 11 churches and the canings of three Muslim teens who became pregnant out of wedlock. But I’ll skip that and go straight to the money quote:

“It hurts your international reputation,” said Kharis Idris, director of the MyFuture Foundation, which promotes multicultural engagement. “Church burning doesn’t sound good in any country. If it goes on, it will be bad for the economy. And if someone were to kill someone, all hell could break loose.”

An interesting choice of words, to say the least. I wonder if Idris spoke English proficiently or if the idea of hell breaking loose is pretty universal. Magnier went on to lay the groundwork:

The spark for the wave of violence was a successful challenge by the Herald, a Catholic weekly, of a government ban on continued use of the word “Allah” by Christians to describe God. The court has stayed its late-December decision pending a government appeal.

Analysts say the case has inflamed passions among politicians pandering for votes and extremists who have an interest in upsetting Malaysia’s delicate blend of religion and ethnicity.

King Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin referred to the controversy Monday in his annual speech to Parliament, calling on all parties to “avoid raising sensitive issues that could jeopardize public peace.”

This year Malaysia has seen the firebombing or vandalizing of 11 churches, two Muslim prayer halls, a mosque, the offices of the Catholic newspaper’s attorneys and a Sikh temple.

OK, now we’re talking. Magnier, a veteran of the LAT’s Far East bureaus, has this story running on all cylinders.

It’s framed within the prism of domestic and global politics, but he quickly takes us into the ground-level battle over the use of the name “Allah.” He visits with a priests who points in a Malay-Latin dictionary to that name being used for God; he also talks with conservative Muslims who fear the dual use of the term will confuse some Muslims and lead them to mistakenly convert. I don’t buy this argument, but it’s important that Magnier includes it because it is motivating much of what is happening in Malaysia.

Magnier than turns back to the teenage girls who were caned, the first time this had happened in Malaysia, and then to an odd incident than many saw as a bit of false-flag incitement:

After hog heads were tossed into two mosques, a rumor spread that it might have been done by extremist Muslims to spur outrage to their political advantage. Pigs are considered unclean by Muslims.

Again, Magnier quickly explains why such an odd act would in fact be offensive in a Muslim country. I assume most are familiar with the idea that pigs are unclean, but not everyone is, and so this too was an important quick addition to a nice detail within the story.

The only question really left unanswered, and it felt a bit intentional, was whether extremist Muslim groups were finding a foothold in Malaysia as they have in many neighboring or whether they were being repulsed.