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Post-Zionism seems to baffle The Washington Post

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It comes as no surprise that Jordanian officials believe that Israel bears responsibility for tensions over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But is it proper for The Washington Post to believe it, too? 

The Post is well within its rights to make this assertion on its editorial page. I may disagree with its arguments, but opinion journalism is designed to offer these arguments. The classic model of Anglo-American journalism, however, mandates a news story offer both sides of a story equal time.

I have my doubts about a recent article by the Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief entitled “Relationship between Israel and Jordan grows warier amid tensions in Jerusalem." My reading of this piece leaves me wondering if it is unbalanced, incurious, incomplete or lacking in context. Could it have been written from an editorial mindset that blames Israel first?

Or is there something more at work here?


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Your weekend think piece: Demographics are destiny, the liberal Jewish edition

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On the surface, there is no religious component to the following question: "Why do some people choose to have children, while others do not?" The same thing is true if you ask, "Why do some people choose to have more than 2.1 children, while others do not?"

But if you know anything about polling linked to demographics, you know that it's impossible to answer those questions in real life -- in a majority of cases around the world -- without running into religious beliefs and practice. Look at it this way, if one Catholic family has one child and another has seven, the odds are very high that family No. 2 goes to Mass way more often than family No. 1.

Several years ago, The Weekly Standard (yes a conservative journal) did a highly fact-driven think piece -- "America's One-Child Policy" -- that contained the following paragraph that remains as relevant today as when it was written:

... (In) a world where childbearing has no practical benefit, people have babies because they want to, either for self-fulfillment or as a moral imperative. "Moral imperative," of course, is a euphemism for "religious compulsion." There are stark differences in fertility between secular and religious people.
The best indicator of actual fertility is "aspirational fertility" -- the number of children men and women say they would like to have. Gallup has been asking Americans about their "ideal family size" since 1936. When they first asked the question, 64 percent of Americans said that three or more children were ideal; 34 percent said that zero, one, or two children were ideal. Today only 34 percent of Americans think that a family with three-or-more children is ideal.

So here is the thesis statement that I think, on many stories linked to contemporary religion (think coverage of the declining number of Catholic priests in North America), journalists need to think about.


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Yes, it does appear that Americans lack faith in politicians who lack faith

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Yes, it does appear that Americans lack faith in politicians who lack faith

The intriguing question of atheists who seek public office in America is currently being fictionalized on the TV drama “The Good Wife,” which achieves decent ratings though viewers never know when an episode will start because CBS won’t plan around Sunday football games. Lead actress Julianna Margulies has scooped up award after award for her portrayal of Alicia Florrick, the estranged but never-quite-divorcing wife of the Illinois governor.

At the moment, the atheistic Alicia (Margulies herself is quoted as saying “I’m not really religious”) is running for chief prosecutor of Chicago. The Constitution says in article 6 that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States,” but that law doesn’t control individual voters’ choices.

During the 2012 campaign, Gallup asked whether respondents would vote for “a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be” an atheist. Only 54 percent said yes, the lowest standing of any group, compared with 58 percent saying yes for a Muslim, 68 percent for a gay or lesbian, 80 percent for a Mormon, and virtually total acceptance for a Jewish, Hispanic, Catholic, female, or black president.  In 1958, only 18 percent would vote for an atheist. 


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Christmas gift for The Telegraph: Atheist content to copy and paste

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'Tis the season to attack the season, at least in American Atheist country. So here they go with the newest round of billboards sneering at Christmas, this time in the Bible Belt.

The atheists knew it would get a sleighful of media coverage, though with varying degrees of friendliness. But some media, likeThe Telegraph, settled for copy & paste of the atheists' release material.

The summary lede is conventional enough:

Atheist activists are taking their campaigns to the Bible Belt this Christmas with a provocative billboard campaign that is expected to stir controversy in America's religious heartlands.
The giant advertising hoardings in the Tennessee cities of Memphis, Nashville, St. Louis and Fort Smith, Arkansas show a mischievous-looking young girl writing her letter to Father Christmas: "Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is to skip church! I'm too old for fairy tales," she writes.

Then the story starts lifting content, with almost no rewriting, from the American Atheists. Here's a paragraph from the atheist's webpage:

“Even children know churches spew absurdity, which is why they don’t want to attend services. Enjoy the time with your family and friends instead,” said American Atheists President David Silverman. “Today’s adults have no obligation to pretend to believe the lies their parents believed.  It’s OK to admit that your parents were wrong about God, and it’s definitely OK to tell your children the truth.”

Now here's one from the Telegraph:


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Divine Liturgy alongside the pope of Rome or in presence of pope? (updated)

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Any list of the defining moments of Christian history -- if not the history of religion on Planet Earth, period -- would have to include the Great Schism of 1054.

That's the split, of course, between the Orthodox East and the Catholic West and there is hardly anything that you can say about the who, what, when, where, why and how of that schism that will not lead to a millennium or two of debate. It's complicated. 

However, it's pretty easy to understand that the Church of Rome and the churches of Eastern Orthodoxy are not in full Communion -- with a big "C" -- with one another. The primary symbol, and reality, that demonstrates this is that their clergy cannot celebrate the Eucharist together.

Now, with that prologue, let's flash back to the recent meetings in Istanbul between Pope Francis and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Since I am Orthodox, lots of people have asked me what I thought about their latest statements on their desire for full unity, meaning Communion. My question, in response, was: Yes, the pope asked Bartholomew to bless him, but did either man kiss the other man's hand? There was also quite a bit of confusion about the rite they took part in at the Phanar.


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5Q+1 interview: Godbeat pro Lilly Fowler on covering faith and the front lines in #Ferguson

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"Everyone has an agenda."

That's one lesson Lilly Fowler said she has learned covering faith and the front lines in Ferguson, Missouri, the St. Louis suburb engulfed in racial unrest and sometimes violent protests 

Less than a year ago, Fowler joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as its full-time religion writer.

Born in Mexico and raised on the border of Arizona and Mexico, Fowler earned two master's degrees: one in theology from the University of Notre Dame and one in journalism from the University of Southern California. 

And she shared this personal note: "I like punk and psychedelic music!"

Q: What has been your role on the Ferguson story? What kind of hours has this required? 

A: I’m the religion reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, so my primary role has been to find the faith angles in Ferguson. But this has been an all-consuming story, with the entire newsroom working long hours, so I’ve often been deployed to cover stories outside the realm of religion. I recently covered Black Friday protests related to Ferguson, for example.

 


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Washington Post seeks an expert on 'homegrown American extremist' tied to Christian identity hate group

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Dig a little deeper.

That's a common refrain expressed here at GetReligion concerning mainstream media coverage of religion news.

When the Austin, Texas, police chief this week linked a gunman who shot up downtown buildings and tried to burn the Mexican Consulate with a Christian identity hate group, most news reports stuck to the barest of basic details about the group.

But the Washington Post dug just a little deeper, contacting an expert to provide insight on the Phineas Priesthood:

Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told The Post that the Phineas Priesthood is a “concept” that originated with “Vigilantes of Christendom,” which came out in 1990. The group takes its name from a story about the biblical figure of Phineas in the book of Numbers.
In the story, Phineas slays an Israelite man and a Midianite woman who were together in a tent. “To the extreme right, this [story] is a biblical injunction against race mixing,” Potok said. Phineas Priests would also use the passage to justify violent acts in the name of their beliefs.  “It’s very much a self-calling,” Potok said of those who would identify as Phineas Priesthood members.  “If you commit a Phineas act…you can be considered a Phineas priest.” 
In a backgrounder, the Anti-defamation league wrote that “the Phineas Priesthood is not a membership organization in the traditional sense: there are no meetings, rallies or newsletters.” The ADL added that “extremists become ‘members’ when they commit ‘Phineas acts:’ any violent activity against ‘non-whites.’” Potok noted that the affiliation does not have a national structure. ...
Its members identify themseves (sic) as Christians, however, “they are really not Christians in any sense that a christian (sic) would accept,” Potok added. Most mainstream American Christians, he said, would find a Phineas Priest’s reading of scripture to be “heretical."


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Press covers another 'women's reproductive rights' case, but most miss the unusual (thus, newsy) pro-life angle

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According to most news reports about the U.S. Supreme action involving Peggy Young and her case against the United Parcel Service -- such as the CBS News clip atop this post -- this was a pretty standard battle focusing on "women's reproductive rights." 

Most of these stories seemed to have been produced with a template. This was all business as usual, in other words. But was that the case at the court?

Listeners who tuned in the NPR report on the case heard the same oh-so-familiar storyline -- but with one brief reference to a twist in the plot. 

The online version of the NPR story began like this. Can you spot the religion ghost in this lede?

Women's reproductive rights are once again before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday. Only this time, pregnancy discrimination is the issue and pro-life and pro-choice groups are on the same side, opposed by business groups.

In other words, the big news here is that very unusual coalition created by this case. What's that all about? Who is involved on the pro-life side of that equation and why? 


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The missing angle in news of Obama's pick for top defense post, Ashton Carter: his faith

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The missing angle in news of Obama's pick for top defense post, Ashton Carter: his faith

The Washington Post's profile of Ashton Carter includes the eyebrow-raising detail that the longtime Washington insider, whom President Barack Obama is expected to nominate to succeed ousted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, "wrote an undergraduate thesis at Yale on the Latin writings of 12th-century Flemish monks." It also quotes Carter as saying:

Public service at senior levels in Washington is a little bit like being a Christian in the Coliseum. ... You never know when they are going to release the lions and have you torn apart for the amusement of onlookers.

Hmm… he is fluent in Latin, took an academic interest in the writings of medieval monks, and jokes casually about identifying with a Christian in the Coliseum. You think he might be… oh, I don't know… Christian?

The WaPo doesn't say. Neither does The New York Times in its profile of Carter. In fact, in a few minutes scouting the Interwebs, I couldn't find anything, anywhere, indicating that Carter had any faith, or no faith. 

I did, however, find a fact about Carter that, as of this writing, has been overlooked by all the print media covering his planned nomination: In the aftermath of 9/11, he was among the prominent endorsers of a "Declaration of Principles for a Presidential Executive Order on Prisoner Treatment, Torture and Cruelty" created by the Campaign to Ban Torture. (Click here to read the declaration.) According to its website, the campaign was:


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