Interviews

If a NFL coaching legend quotes scripture in a press conference, does it make a sound?

If a NFL coaching legend quotes scripture in a press conference, does it make a sound?

One more time.

For years, Bobby Ross, Jr., and I have written lots of posts about religion-shaped holes in mainstream sports coverage. Apparently, very few GetReligion readers were interested in this topic (as opposed to, let’s say, the American audience for a prime NFL game).

But we soldiered on. This brings me — one last time — to a curious case study involving my Baltimore Ravens (who are still in the Super Bowl hunt, at this point).

Recently, a commentator on one of the dozens of NFL commentary shows asked an interesting question: Why don’t we talk more about the ongoing success of John Harbaugh, the Ravens head coach since 2008? No one had a good answer.

But I will ask a related question: After the Raven’s 34-20 playoff victory over the Houston Texans, which video clip was easier to find? The one (a) with Harbaugh showing his dad-style dancing moves in the joyful locker room or the one (b) in which he opened his press conference, with a very serious tone of voice, with a favorite Bible quote?

Click those Google links and you will see that, once again, the role that Christian faith (Catholic, to be specific) plays in the life and work of this future Hall of Fame coach is a “conservative” news story. Period. The viral dancing moves are much more important.

Which element of these two elements of Harbaugh’s personality is the most important in his life and work? The most accurate answer is “BOTH.”

However, I suspect that Harbaugh would say that his faith is more important. This brings me to the point that Ross and I have tried to make about the faith-shaped hole in most sports news coverage (and Clemente Lisi has noted this in global soccer coverage, as well). We are not stating that it is automatically news when sports personalities talk about their faith. It is new when they consistently cite their faith as a crucial factor how and why they do what they do in their career and life.

In this case, Fox News (naturally) went with the basic facts: “Ravens head coach John Harbaugh recites Bible verse to open press conference after playoff win.”


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DeSantis' Catholic faith goes under the media microscope before '24 presidential primaries

DeSantis' Catholic faith goes under the media microscope before '24 presidential primaries

The presidential race is just starting to heat up. While it may still be early, candidates are popping up every few days and announcing their intention to seek the Republican nomination in 2024.

Among those seeking to dislodge the early favorite — polling shows that to be former President Donald Trump — is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. This is the same man who has become something of a conservative darling in recent years for relentlessly going after “woke” ideology. His battle with Disney is an example of a culture war fight DeSantis hasn’t been afraid to address in recent years.

DeSantis has been criticized for many things, from whether his wife Casey is “a problem” to confusion over the pronunciation of his last name.

As the past weeks have shown, DeSantis’ foray into national politics has come shone a brighter media spotlight on him, his family and beliefs.

Yes, Christian beliefs. It’s true that DeSantis is seen as possibly the only candidate in the ever-growing GOP primary field capable of defeating Trump and possibly even President Joe Biden.

This increased scrutiny — both by the mainstream and religious press — has included whether or not DeSantis, a Catholic, is personally devout. I tackled this very topic more than a year ago in a post that ran under the headline “As Florida’s DeSantis wages culture war, his Catholic faith isn’t news — unless it’s used to attack him.”

Here was the main thrust of my argument:


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Tim Keller sought 'winsome' Manhattan apologetics, a goal that became more difficult

Tim Keller sought 'winsome' Manhattan apologetics, a goal that became more difficult

If one looks up the word “winsome” in a dictionary, here is a typical example of what shows up, via Merriam-Webster: “generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence.”

However, a Google search for the term “winsome,” when combined with “Tim Keller,” opens up a window into a completely different world — one closely linked to debates about the meaning of the word “evangelical” in a Donald Trump-era culture.

Frankly, I am not going to go there. What I will do is urge GetReligion readers who visit Twitter to follow the #TimKeller hashtag and check out the waves of tributes in the wake of the passing of one of the most important American evangelicals — defined in terms of doctrine — in recent decades.

Instead of looking at the tsunami of news coverage, I will simply note the obvious — Keller is receiving much, or even most, of this attention because he lived, worked, preached and wrote in New York City. If his career had unfolded in the Bible Belt, mainstream journalists would never have heard of him. Thus, here is the New York Times double-decker headline on its obituary (which ran quickly, but inside the print edition):

The Rev. Timothy Keller, Pioneering Manhattan Evangelist, Dies at 72

Shunning fire and brimstone, he became a best-selling author and founded Redeemer Presbyterian Church, which drew young New Yorkers.

The Gray Lady’s lede offered this:

The Rev. Timothy J. Keller, a best-selling author and theorist of Christianity who performed a modern miracle of his own — establishing a theologically orthodox church in Manhattan that attracted thousands of young professional followers — died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 72.

Yes, we can talk about the accuracy of the word “evangelist” in the headline. Once again, there are mainstream journalists who believe that is simply another way to say “evangelical.” Unless I missed something, Keller was not active in holding the kinds of public events — think Billy Graham “crusades” — normally associated with public evangelism. Were there some Central Park rallies with Keller sermons and altar calls that I missed? Please let me know.

What he was, of course, was a church builder and an “apologist” for small-o orthodox Christianity, of the Reformed form,” both in preaching and in writing — in books and a host of other forms.


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Yes, Southern Baptists are talking about '60 Minutes' (while Ryan Burge keeps doing the math)

Yes, Southern Baptists are talking about '60 Minutes' (while Ryan Burge keeps doing the math)

One thing is certain, if you follow political scientist Ryan Burge on Twitter. You are going to read quite a few things that you agree with and quite a few things with which you will disagree.

Here’s the key to that statement: It really doesn’t matter who “you” are. You can be a liberal mainline Protestant and you will read things that please you and things that infuriate you. Ditto, if you are Southern Baptist Convention leader.

If you are a religious “none,” in Pew Research Center terms, then Burge is mapping your life and beliefs, one chart after another. If you are a nondenominational, independent evangelical/charismatic leader, Burge was one of the first researchers who grasped that your world is now the fastest growing corner of the marketplace of American religion.

Burge makes many Southern Baptists mad. He also makes many Episcopalians and liberal mainliners mad, even though Burge is, himself, a progressive Baptist pastor/thinker as well as a political science professor at a state university. I would imagine, however, that leaders on the right and the left are learning that they are going to have to study the trends shown in all of those Burge charts on Twitter (and in his books).

To be honest with you, I can’t remember when I spotted Burge’s byline and I’m not sharp enough, in terms of computer skills, to spot the oldest item in the nearly 4,000 items that show up in a Google search for “Ryan Burge” and “Terry Mattingly.” I’m guessing 2018 or so. However, Burge has been cooperating with GetReligion for several years now, with me retweeting, oh, hundreds of his tweets with a “Yo. @GetReligion” slug. He also has allowed me to re-publish some of the essays he has written for the Religion in Public weblog (and for Religion Unplugged).

I bring all of this up for two reasons.

(1) Many news consumers who continue to follow legacy media may have seen him featured last night in a “60 Minutes” feature about the Rev. Bart Barber, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

(2) Burge and I recently agreed on the format for a new GetReligion feature that we will call “Do the Math,” in which he will take four or five of his data-backed tweets and then connect them to spotlight trends that journalists need to follow.


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Whether art or mere craft, old-school interviewing is a reporter's perennial linchpin

Whether art or mere craft, old-school interviewing is a reporter's perennial linchpin

The New York Times offers daily doses of clever self-promotion (and often self-congratulation) in a feature called "Inside The Times: The Story Behind The Story." One of these carefully curated items last week, "How Reporters Interview Celebrities," merits contemplation from other journalists.

Interviews are forever the linchpin of all original reporting. This opus tapped three specialists about dealing with show business personalities, a different challenge from typical interviewing. But some points have broad application.

Prepare thoroughly, which assures interview subjects of your professionalism and intent to conduct a knowledgeable discussion . Know what they have said in previous articles, which they may be anxious to explain or rebut. Inevitably you'll have some prickly questions, and a savvy subject will expect this and be prepared, but don't ask them early on.

The best strategy is often "simply to listen."

Those observations, of course, pertain to feature-writing with advance notice and a reasonable amount of time for the conversation itself — as opposed to breaking news stories where the reporter is scrambling and the interview must quickly get to the point.

How does this apply to the religion beat?

For one thing, the field has few celebrities. Over the decades The Guy has met with some, such as the Dalai Lama, Billy Graham, Mother Teresa or Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (soon to become Pope Benedict XVI). In those situations, never ever give way to awe, whatever your private reactions. (The Guy has observed this is a more likely temptation among people who do not work the religion beat.)

Even religious leaders who are highly influential within their own spheres typically do not have to deal with inquisitive journalists. They may feel (often for good reason) that representatives of the Mainstream Media will bring little understanding of faith or harbor slight scorn toward this aspect of human experience.


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Can someone write a decent article about Rob Bell? That LA Magazine piece wasn't it

Can someone write a decent article about Rob Bell? That LA Magazine piece wasn't it

It’s been awhile since we heard from Rob Bell, the Grand Rapids, Mich., superstar pastor whose 2011 book asking if hell is truly real got him booted out of evangelical Christian circles. He was quite the phenomenon a decade ago and then he disappeared for a time.

Turns out that, like many folks who live in the northern half of the country, Bell wanted to escape to a better climate — so it was off to California he went.

Los Angeles Magazine just ran a long piece on what Bell is up to now as he lives near the tony Venice Beach section of Los Angeles. The soulful photos look like, as one Twitter poster remarked, “like he delivers sandwiches for a hipster restaurant in Portland.”

Bingo.

The story begins with a casual mention about Bell having surfed that morning in Malibu. But (cue the flashback) 10 years ago:

… Bell was among the most prominent Evangelical pastors in America. His Michigan megachurch, Mars Hill, attracted over 10,000 worshippers a weekend. His debut book, 2005’s Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, sold half a million copies. And he performed annual speaking tours to packed theaters around the world. One newspaper called him “The next Billy Graham.” But that was before Bell went to hell.

In his fourth book, 2011’s Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell wondered aloud whether a loving God would really condemn billions of nonbelievers to eternal torment. The book sold half a million copies and landed him on the cover of Time. It led to friendships with the likes of Oprah Winfrey. But it also led conservative pastors to label him a heretic and a false teacher; it led to him leaving not just his church, but the church; it led to him questioning the faith that had made him famous. And it led him to Los Angeles.

Then he began a podcast in 2015.

More than 300 episodes and tens of millions of downloads later, the Robcast has helped to resurrect Bell’s career.


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Think piece that's tissue worthy: The Pillar goes inside one family's clergy sex-abuse hell

Think piece that's tissue worthy: The Pillar goes inside one family's clergy sex-abuse hell

This week’s think piece is more than think piece. It’s more like a shudder, shake your head and even weep piece. Then you can think about it.

I am referring to a long, first-person piece that ran the other day at The Pillar and it’s causing lots of buzz in Catholic online life, for good reason. The headline doesn’t really tell you what is coming: “Cleveland priest gets life. Victims’ mother: ‘God is with us'.”

The first-person voice is essential and steers this away from hard-news territory — even though there are facts and news hooks buried inside the narrative. That’s the “thinking about it later” or thinking about it on the re-read side of this piece.

It’s really long, but you have to start at the beginning, with this editorial note:

Cleveland priest Fr. Robert McWilliams was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, after the priest pled guilty to federal child trafficking, child abuse, and child exploitation charges.

McWilliams, 41, was ordained a priest in 2017. He was arrested in 2019, and pled guilty to federal charges in July of this year.

At his Nov. 9 sentencing hearing, the mother of four boys preyed upon by McWilliams urged a life sentence. That mother and her family told The Pillar their story.

The Pillar team also made the editorial team to change the name of the family and the victims, in order to protect their privacy.

In terms of the story itself, here are three moments — starting at the beginning:

“Ok. I love my Church, I love my family. I want my Church to be healed. Ok.”

When Rachel Christopher … begins to tell her family’s story, she usually starts with a few phrases — a litany, really — that remind her who she is, and what really matters.

This time, I think, she’s using them to remember why she is sitting down with a stranger — sitting down with me — to share the kind of painful memories that no parent wants even to imagine.

Rachel is telling the story of the priest who hurt her children.


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It's hard to write SBC news reports when key players keep hanging up their phones

It's hard to write SBC news reports when key players keep hanging up their phones

What are reporters supposed to do when key actors on one side of a controversy in a major religious group keep refusing to respond to calls and other contacts seeking their input and information?

I ask this because of the challenges that reporter Liam Adams is facing as (welcome to the religion-news beat) he tries to cover the legal questions and accusations swirling around the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention — America’s largest non-Catholic flock.

I can imagine a scenario in which some readers read this recent Nashville Tennessean story — “Resignations follow Baptist vote on privilege” (text is behind a high paywall) — and asked themselves: Hey, where are the quotes from people on the more conservative (if that’s the right word in battles over sexual abuse) side of this story? And why are there so many quotes from someone like Ed Stetzer, a hero of the current SBC leadership?

This story is so complex that it’s hard to pull out individual chunks of material, but lets try this long passage::

After two failed attempts at meetings on Sept. 21 and 28, the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee met for a third time Oct. 5 and voted to waive privilege. The committee acts on behalf of the convention when it is not in session.

In response, at least 10 executive committee members resigned either just before vote or shortly after — including some who are supporters of the Conservative Baptist Network. …

Conservative Baptist Network’s supporters on the executive committee all voted against allowing third-party investigators access to privileged files.

“It’s hard to see the correlation between the CBN and the objection to the waiver of privilege,” said Ed Stetzer, executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center. 'But there is clearly a correlation.'

In a news release last week, the Conservative Baptist Network said the group desired '“ruth and integrity.”


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Chris Hillman of the Byrds on fame, faith and the roots-music ties that bind

Chris Hillman of the Byrds on fame, faith and the roots-music ties that bind

The Byrds' classic "Turn! Turn! Turn!" didn't sound like anything on the radio when it hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1965.

For starters, the lyrics came from the Book of Ecclesiastes, noting "there is a season, and a time for every purpose, under Heaven. A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep."

What critics failed to realize, said Byrds co-founder Chris Hillman, was that covering the late Pete Seeger's classic was a logical move for musicians steeped in American roots music. Songs about struggle, glory, sacrifice and faith were common in early '60s folk concerts.

"Where did all of our music come from? Blues and Gospel. … White church, black church, the music all came from church," said Hillman, in a recent interview. "With the Byrds, we went right to that well. We didn't think twice about it. We didn't say, 'We can't do a Christian song.' "

Hillman's musical roots became more obvious as the Byrds ventured into what many started calling "country rock," especially with the landmark "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" album in 1968. Bluegrass, country and Gospel themes played a larger role as Hillman began writing songs for the Byrds and his later bands.

While the Byrds put him in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, it was Hillman's grassroots connections that made history, according to the legend who produced his "Bidin' My Time" solo project in 2017. The late Tom Petty said: "Chris was a true innovator -- the man who invented country rock. Every time the Eagles board their private jet, Chris at least paid for the fuel."

That musical and spiritual journey is clear in Hillman's recent autobiography, "Time Between," with its mix of rock lore and personal reflections. Rather than offering a tell-all about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Hillman focuses on lessons he learned along the way and his love for the musicians who, flaws and all, helped him.


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