, , , , ,

Science v. creationism 2.0 -- but this time, RNS stays at arm's length

, , , , ,

Gold star for follow-up in the Religion News Service's story on scientist Bill Nye's visit to the Ark Encounter theme park. But a half-star for trying to do it by remote.

When last we saw Bill with  Ken Ham, the developer of the replica of Noah's watercraft, they were debating creationism versus evolution.  As I wrote on Friday, RNS' onsite story outperformed national media like The New York Times.

What a great opportunity to lengthen its lede, eh? Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. The follow-up just pulls public statements, creating a follow-up with a detached, superficial feel to it.

Here is how the article tells it:

And it was "like the debate all over again but more intense at times," according to a blog post by Ken Ham, president and CEO of Answers in Genesis. Ham also posted on social media about Nye’s visit, which occurred on Friday (July 8).
"Bill challenged me about the content of many of our exhibits, and I challenged him about what he claimed and what he believed," Ham said on Facebook. "It was a clash of world views."

Just a Facebook post? (Actually, Ham also posted the story on Answers in Genesis.) Well, hmm. What content did they discuss? On what topics did they most challenge each other?  

Good questions for a phone interview, no? But if RNS tried one, it doesn't say. Further down, the article has Ham quoting Nye saying "not crazy to believe we descended from Martians." Ham answers, of course, that it's no more crazy to believe that "we descended from Adam and Eve."

And what did the "Science Guy" say about the visit? We get another non-answer:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Hey CNN, God sure would help explain former trafficked orphan's 'journey of hope'

, , , ,

Via Twitter, @mrsangrygrandma does a bit of ghostbusting for us, wondering about this new feature from CNN:

@GetReligion CNN mentions the pastor and faith-based org that trafficked boys, but what about whistleblowers' faith? http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/12/us/given-kachepa-orphan-trafficked-choir/index.html

If you're new to GetReligion, "holy ghosts" are — as our own Terry Mattingly explained at this journalism-focused blog's beginning — those "facts and stories and faces linked to the power of religious faith" that so often fail to show up in mainstream news reports.

Need an example? The piece shared by the reader above is, unfortunately, a classic one.

Let's start at the top:

(CNN) Dr. Given Kachepa strides confidently into his practice, greeting a 17-year-old patient who's come in to have her braces tightened.
"Hello. How are you?"
Life in the United States is quite different now for the 29-year-old Kachepa, compared to how it started as an 11-year-old orphan.
From his office, filled with fading family photos and handicrafts from his native Zambia, he reflects on how he first bought in to the allure of the American Dream.
"I came to the United States without a dollar in my pocket," says Dr. Kachepa. "The only thing I had was hope."

Keep reading, and CNN shares how Kachepa fell victim to a pastor who turned out to be a human trafficker. But eventually, his shattered hope was restored by a loving foster mother:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Yes, reporters ignored that Gospel of John flub in President Obama's speech in Dallas

, , , , , , ,

Clearly, President Barack Obama knew that if he was going to speak during a public memorial service in Dallas, it would be wise -- metaphorically speaking -- to bring a Bible and to quote it early and often. Obama did precisely that.

After all, former President George W. Bush was also going to be speaking during this event and, since he is a native who speaks Texan, you just knew that he would be quoting scripture. Sure enough, he did.

But if you are looking for news reports that explored the biblical elements of this important Obama address you will need to do some digging. In fact, there are fewer biblical references in the relevant news reports than there were in the early hours after that speech, for a very interesting reason. Hold that thought.

At the top of the news media food chain, the current version of the New York Times report on the speech at least mentions, vaguely, that the Bible played a role in this interfaith memorial rite:

DALLAS -- President Obama said on Tuesday that the nation mourned with Dallas for five police officers gunned down by a black Army veteran, but he implored Americans not to give in to despair or the fear that “the center might not hold.”
“I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem,” Mr. Obama said at a memorial service for the officers in Dallas, where he quoted Scripture, alluded to Yeats and at times expressed a sense of powerlessness to stop the racial violence that has marked his presidency. But Mr. Obama also spoke hard truths to both sides.

Now, after reading that, I expected to see some biblical quotations in the news coverage. However, they didn't make the cut into the final version of the Times story. Yes, there is a reason for that -- as noted by one M.Z. "GetReligionista emerita" Hemingway.

Here's a hint, in the report at NBC News:

Invoking scripture and the nation's long civil rights struggle, Obama urged all of them to remember their shared goals of justice and peace.
He quoted from the Gospel of John: "Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth."


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Painful group memories and the news media's (potentially) curative powers

, , , , , ,
Painful group memories and the news media's (potentially) curative powers

I've been semi-detached from the dread, anger, loss, and pain that have dominated American and international headlines the past two weeks while my wife and traveled across the Iberian Peninsula's north.

But only semi.

Full detachment is impossible for me (a) because of the electronic communication devices I take with me on vacation, and obviously (b) because of my obsessive newshound personality. The former allows me and the latter impels me to keep up -- at least to some degree -- with humanity's daily dose of self-inflicted trauma.

Spain and Portugal make it even easier for me to stay connected to this irrational state of affairs thanks to their particular histories. They abound with reminders of past injustices heaped upon the region's Jews, with which I fully identity. (Click here: I posted on this at the start of my trip.)

Human history seems a litany of communal hurts we never fully overcome. Not to mention that these hurts are continually updated.

In one Portuguese town -- Viana do Castello, just south of the Spanish border -- I parked next to a stone wall defaced by graffiti. The only parts of the scrawl I could decipher were the swastikas and the word "Sion," or Zion. I doubt the full message was complementary toward Jews or Israel.

Then there was this despicable anti-American, anti-Semitic and blatantly racist cartoon circulated by Spain's United Left political party, which holds eight seats in the nation's 360-member bicameral parliament (Click here for New York Times backgrounder). It was timed to coincide with President Barak Obama's brief visit to Spain last weekend. (Spain and Portugal now offer citizenship to foreign Jews of Sephardic ancestry, meaning those who can prove their families were forced out of Iberia during the Inquisition.)

I mention my experience as a prelude to commenting on a story published by The New York Times that reported international Muslim anger at perceived insufficient Western outrage and compassion toward terror attack victims in Bangladesh, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey during the just completed Muslim holy month of Ramadan.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

What is this? Houston Chronicle reports on 'costly economics of fetus disposal'

, , , ,

It's time for another entry in our series of posts on "What is this?"

Not familiar with that category? Here's how our own Terry Mattingly described it a while back:

Several years ago, your GetReligionistas created a new item in our archives list of news "categories." As faithful readers know, we focus on hard-news material produced by mainstream news organizations. The only time that we write about editorial columns, op-ed pieces, academic essays or the like is when they focus directly on issues in our home turf – religion-beat news.
However, every now and then people would send us URLs for items published by religious wire services, denominational magazines or non-profit sources linked to religious causes that – from their point of view – focused on a valid news story that wasn't getting mainstream-press ink. After pondering this dilemma for a while, we began using a "Got news?" headline slug and created a new category.
Now it's time for another category, one that we have been pondering for quite some time. The headline slug is, as you see above, "What is this?" We seriously considered "WTF?" but decided that didn't mesh well with the sober tone that we strive to maintain around here. 

This latest item appeared in the Houston Chronicle with this headline:

The costly economics of fetus disposal

The lede:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , ,

Why did Des Moines Register default to wire copy on a hot trans story in Iowa?

, , , , , , , ,

It sounds as if the state of Iowa just dodged a bullet -- or a bunch of lawsuits -- having to do with whether churches must obey transgender bathroom rules.

Some background: On July 4, one Des Moines church filed a federal lawsuit saying the state’s human rights law is being newly interpreted to mean pastors can’t preach against transgender rights from their pulpits and that churches will be forced to allow visitors to use church bathrooms consistent with their gender preference instead of birth.

ABC-TV News ran a piece on this July 5. The Des Moines Register ran a long piece about this on July 6. More recently, it updated the controversy: 

DES MOINES, Ia. -- An Iowa Civil Rights Commission brochure that some churches interpreted to mean they must abide by transgender bathroom rules and muzzle ministers who may want to preach against transgender or gay individuals has been changed, the commission said Friday.
The brochure, which was last updated in 2008, led a Des Moines church to file a lawsuit Monday and a Sioux City church to threaten one if the commission didn't change its policy that the churches alleged censored them unconstitutionally.
The commission said Friday it revised the "Revised Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity Public Accommodations Brochure" to make it clear places of worship are generally exempt from Iowa's antidiscrimination law except when they're open for voting, providing a day care facility or other non-religious activities. It also said it regretted any confusion the brochure may have caused.

So, apparently the lawyers got involved and the state is backtracking. But wait: Since when is running a faith-based day care facility or preschool a "non-religious" activity? That's an angle worth exploring in depth.

But back to the original controversy:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

The preaching of Zakir Naik: When journalists turn the term 'evangelist' into an insult

, , , , , , ,

Let's walk through this one slowly, since it's a bit complicated. The big question here: Is there such a thing as a Muslim evangelist?

The bottom line: The word "evangelist" has deep roots in Christian tradition -- period. If you dig deep enough into the early church you find the Greek word "euangelion," which means "good news" or the Gospel, and that evolved into the Latin "evangelium."

Click your mouse a few times and you can find the word "evangel," which means, "The Christian Gospel" or "any of the four Gospels of the New Testament." Once again, the Greek and Latin roots are clear. "Evangel" evolved into "evangelist." If you look that up you find a variety of definitions, the most generic of which will be something like, "One who promulgates or promotes something enthusiastically." The main choices will resemble:

* Protestant minister or layperson who serves as an itinerant or special preacher, especially a revivalist.
* A preacher of the Gospel.
* Any of the writers (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) of the four Gospels.
* A person who first brought the gospel to a city or region.

During the evangelical and Pentecostal scandals of the 1980s, centering on the work of TV preachers such as Jim "PTL" Bakker and Jimmy "I have sinned" Swaggart, this term was stretched into "televangelist" -- even though most members of that tribe were not doing evangelism.

This brings us to a recent story in The Los Angeles Times that starts like this:

Authorities are investigating a Mumbai-based televangelist whose radical sermons are believed to have influenced at least one of the men who killed hostages in a Bangladesh cafe this month.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

In story about Muslim women art exhibit, follow-up questions are not on the menu

, , , ,

Ever taste only part of a good meal? An article on an art exhibit on Muslim women in the Tampa Bay Times feels like that.

The Times raises several tantalizing questions about Muslim women -- their garb, their self-image, their public image -- but doesn't follow up most of them. The result reads less like dinner and more like a canape. 

It's a timely and urgent topic because traditional Muslim women  face more profiling than so Muslim men. With headdresses variously covering their hair, or wrapping around their necks as well, women are instantly identifiable as non-Jews or non-Christians -- and non-secular people, for that matter. So "Loud Print," the show at the Carrollwood Cultural Center, has the potential to open some eyes.

The artist, Ameena Khan, seems acutely aware of the issues herself:

Khan uses her artwork to initiate conversations about Muslim women. Her paintings portray a diverse group of women wearing hijabs, a cloth wrapped around their heads. One of the most striking paintings shows a woman struggling to keep her head up because her yellow hijab is so big. It's meant to represent the struggles Muslim women face wearing a hijab in public.
Meant to keep Muslim women hidden, the hijab seems instead to draw unwanted attention and sometimes hateful comments, Khan said. 
"You have this burden that you're carrying around," she said. "That's all people see."

Sounds pretty evocative, but it stops short. If a woman's most prominent garb is a symbol of her religion, and if a hijab is meant to keep women hidden, how are people to see the individual underneath? How is she to express herself otherwise? The Times doesn't say.

It does explain the idea of starting a conversation about Muslim women -- partly. Interestingly, the artist did it via social media:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , ,

In the worst of times, the faith that sustains Dallas Police Chief David Brown

, , ,

Dallas Police Chief David Brown is a man of faith.

Even if you've followed the major media profiles of Brown in the wake of Thursday night's sniper ambush that claimed the lives of five officers in Dallas, you might have missed that.

Holy ghost, anyone?

With a notable, praiseworthy exception — and we'll get to that in a moment — the stories on Brown that I've seen have overlooked or downplayed the religion angle.

That's the case even with stories that are, otherwise, extremely compelling, such as this Washington Post piece highlighted by former GetReligionista Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

Yes, a quote in the Post profile cites Brown's "professionalism and faith," but that's as far as it goes.

Other stories leave out "faith" entirely:


Please respect our Commenting Policy