Baptists

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Podcast: Why are churches closing? There are many forces at work, but doctrine still matters

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Podcast: Why are churches closing? There are many forces at work, but doctrine still matters

For years, there was a simple answer to the old question: Why do some churches grow, while others shrink?

You simply bought a copy of the 1972 book “Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion” by the late National Council of Churches leader Dean M. Kelley and that provided information answering lots (but not all) of the big questions. It was crucial that this groundbreaking book was written by a mainline Protestant insider, as opposed to a Southern Baptist or Assemblies of God leader.

Of course, everyone knew that some churches grew because of location, location, location. Also, there were always a few liberal churches that grew because of talented preachers or other strengths. Like I said: Kelley answered lots of church-decline questions, but not all of them.

What about 2022 in post-pandemic church life? For starters, many churches will never be post-pandemic — because many congregations (and maybe denominations or communions) were changed forever and we will see more evidence of that in the next few years.

All of this is an overture to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) which focuses on a must-read feature story by Godbeat veteran Bob Smietana. The headline at Religion News Service: “For a small Chicago church, closing down was an act of faith.” This was a personal, heartfelt story for Smietana, since this was a congregation that he once called home.

Like so many pastors around the United States, the Rev. Amanda Olson has kept one eye on the Bible and another on the evolving religious landscape.

She knew change was coming to the church in America.

Yet she hoped her congregation might be spared the worst of it.

“Everyone thinks that churches are going to close,” said Olson, the longtime pastor of Grace Evangelical Covenant Church on Chicago’s North Side. “But nobody thinks it is going to be their church.”


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Thinking about missing pieces of Axios report on changes in Latino life, politics and, yes, faith

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Thinking about missing pieces of Axios report on changes in Latino life, politics and, yes, faith

GetReligion, as a rule, has never been interested in public-relations features.

So why lead the top of a weekend “think piece” with a Baptist Press story that is obviously the kind of glowing public-relations work that is a stable in church-market, denominational media of all kinds?

That’s easy to explain. You see, this feature — “Church ESL camp preps Hispanic elementary students for school year” — is a perfect example of a trend in the wider evangelical world that is linked to one of the most important political, and religious, stories in America right now.

Why is that?

Read the top of this story and think to yourself: This is an absolutely normal story in Southern Baptist Convention life at this point in time.

Fanny Baltanado planned to spend just six months visiting her new granddaughter in Texas when the unanticipated COVID-19 pandemic thwarted her return to Nicaragua. She would need to find a church home near Humble, Texas.

An adult English as a second language class attracted Baltanado in March to Cross Community Church, where she became a regular attendee and in August, helped the church teach ESL to local Hispanic elementary students in a back-to-school camp.

“For me, this was an amazing experience because we are able to bring the love of Jesus Christ to the people, especially kids,” Baltanado said. “I think they are the base of the society, and we need to help them to be more comfortable, to be more confident with themselves, because they are (in) difficult times.”

ESL classes ranked as a top community need when Del Traffanstedt and his wife Charmaine planted Cross Community Church in the majority Spanish-speaking Eastex-Jensen area of northeast Houston in September 2021. The couple learned of the need for the ESL camp for children after launching their first adult class in March, said Charmaine Traffanstedt, who directs the church’s ESL ministry.

What is the political angle in that local-church story?

Answer: Flash back a few days ago to my post that ran with this headline: “Axios looks at the hot political (of course) trend of Latinos becoming evangelical voters.”

I am returning to that topic again because (a) this truly is a story that news consumers will be hearing about as we head into midterm elections and beyond and (b) because I had an obvious “senior moment” when writing that earlier post.


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What is 'Fundamentalism'? Name 666 or so examples from recent news coverage ...

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What is 'Fundamentalism'? Name 666 or so examples from recent news coverage ...

THE QUESTION:

What is “Fundamentalism?”

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

After the Presbyterian Church in America decided in June to depart from the National Association of Evangelicals, The Religion Guy wondered in print whether some “evangelicals” are becoming “fundamentalists.” That raises how to define these two similar and historically interrelated versions of conservative Protestantism.

Back in 2019, a New York Times Book Review item by a Harvard Divinity School teacher called Jehovah’s Witnesses “fundamentalists” several times. Well, Witnesses do share certain “fundamentalistic” traits with actual “fundamentalists,” but the label was mistaken because it ignored Witnesses’ beliefs.

If the Ivy League theological elite and such an influential newspaper don’t understand the definition, we have a problem.

Yes, “fundamentalist” can apply in a generic sense to any old group with a certain hard-core outlook. But in any religious context it should designate only a specific movement of orthodox Protestants, prominent especially in the United States. The religious F-word should be applied carefully because, as The Associated Press Stylebook correctly cautions, it has “to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations.”

So here is the Big Idea: The AP advises, “in general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is irritated when offshoots that perpetuate its founding prophet Joseph Smith Jr’s polygamy doctrine are called “Mormon fundamentalists,” and now seeks to abolish its own “Mormon” nickname. Scholars of Islam similarly reject the common “Muslim fundamentalist” label for terrorists and political extremists.

Back to Protestants.


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Podcast: Are many Bible Belt military families losing faith in the U.S. armed services?

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Podcast: Are many Bible Belt military families losing faith in the U.S. armed services?

On Feb. 1, 2004, GetReligion co-founder Doug Leblanc opened the digital doors here at GetReligion and our first post went live. The headline: “What we do, why we do it.”

I tweaked that post a bit in 2019, but left the main point intact. The key was that GetReligion was going to try to spot what I called religion “ghosts” in hard-news stories in the mainstream press. What, precisely, was a religion “ghost”? I raise this issue once again because this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) focused on a “ghost” question in a very important topic in the news. Hold that thought.

That first post opened with Americans sitting down to read their newspapers or watch television news.

They read stories that are important to their lives, yet they seem to catch fleeting glimpses of other characters or other plots between the lines. …

One minute they are there. The next they are gone. There are ghosts in there, hiding in the ink and the pixels. Something is missing in the basic facts or perhaps most of the key facts are there, yet some are twisted. Perhaps there are sins of omission, rather than commission.

A lot of these ghosts are, well, holy ghosts. They are facts and stories and faces linked to the power of religious faith. Now you see them. Now you don’t.

This brings us to a recent Associated Press report with this headline: “Army cuts force size amid unprecedented battle for recruits.” There are zero references to religion in this report, which is kind of the point.

Is there a religion “ghost” somewhere in this story? Here are some crucial paragraphs:

With just two and a half months to go in the fiscal year, the Army has achieved just 50% of its recruiting goal of 60,000 soldiers, according to Lt. Col. Randee Farrell, spokeswoman for Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Based on those numbers and trends, it is likely the Army will miss the goal by nearly 25% as of Oct. 1. …


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Americans who oppose abortion: Who are they in terms of demographics, faith and ideology?

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Americans who oppose abortion: Who are they in terms of demographics, faith and ideology?

It’s more than likely the most important Supreme Court case in my lifetime: the overturning of Roe v. Wade means that each individual state gets to decide if and how it will regulate abortion inside its boundaries. According to NPR, that means that at least 20 states will effectively ban abortion in the coming weeks.

When the draft of the Dobbs opinion was leaked back in early May, I put together a thread of graphs about abortion opinion from a variety of angles and came to a clear conclusion: an outright ban is not where most American are when it comes to the issue of abortion.

But, now that Dobbs has been decided and many abortion clinics have been forced to shut their doors across the United States, who are the ones cheering this decision the most? Put simply: who favors an all-out ban on abortion and how does this subset of Americans compare to the general public? That’s the aim of this post — a deep dive into a descriptive analysis of those who favor a total ban on abortion.

The data comes from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study. The statement is simple enough: “Do you favor or oppose making abortions illegal in all circumstances.”

When I post this question on Twitter, there is always someone in the replies who tries to parse this statement. They don’t know how to deal with the phrase “all circumstances.” [Editor’s note: See recent Pew Research Center poll for more information.]

After conducting surveys for more than a decade, I can say that the average survey taker spends about two seconds reading each question and just responds with their gut. In this case, they more than likely interpreting the question to mean, “I’m completely opposed to abortion.”

In the 2020 CES that equals out to just under 20% of the American population. In a sample of 61,000 folks, that equals out to 12,093 individuals (weighted). So, my N size is just fine to proceed with this analysis.


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Podcast: New York Times probes abortion 'abolitionist' movement, but buries the big story

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Podcast: New York Times probes abortion 'abolitionist' movement, but buries the big story

Where is the whole “life after Roe v. Wade” story headed? And while we are asking questions, shouldn’t we be saying “life after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” since that is now the defining U.S. Supreme Court decision?

Anyway, during last week’s “Crossroads” podcast (“America is splitting, says trending Atlantic essay. This is news? Actually, it's old news”), I predicted that we would be seeing more mainstream press coverage of crisis pregnancy centers — an old story hook that is, sure enough, getting lots of ink all of a sudden (see this Julia Duin post and also this one by yours truly).

I also predicted that major newsrooms would discover the abortion “abolitionists,” a small but loud flock of activists who reject all compromises in laws to restrict abortion, including exceptions for victims of rape and incest. The key: They want laws that prosecute women who have abortions, not just the people who perform abortions.

I made that prediction for two reasons, a good reason and a bad reason. First, this is a valid story, because these activists are making noise in some crucial settings (hold that thought). However, this story also allows blue-zone newsrooms to focus lots of attention on these specific anti-abortion activists (NPR reports here and then here) whose views are outrageous to most Americans, while downplaying efforts by moderate and even centrist pro-life groups seeking more nuanced legislation, mostly in “purple” states.

This brings us to this week’s “Crossroads” episode (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focuses on a New York Times story that ran with this headline: “Abortion Abolitionists Want to Punish Women for Abortion.” This story continues some important information. Please read it. However, it also downplays (this is strange) its most important information about the abolitionists, while dedicating lots of ink to yet another independent social-media preacher who provides lots of scary quotes. Let’s start with the overture:

Hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, a man with a wiry, squared-off beard and a metal cross around his neck celebrated with his team at a Brazilian steakhouse. He pulled out his phone to livestream to his followers.

“We have delivered a huge blow to the enemy and to this industry,” the man, Jeff Durbin, said. But, he explained, “our work has just really begun.”

A brief pause: Why isn’t it “the Rev. Jeff Durbin”? This raises big questions: What evangelical body or denomination ordained this man? Where did he go to seminary? Does he have ties to institutions in mainstream evangelicalism?

OK, continuing.


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Dear religion-beat pros: Sometimes small religious denominations merit a bit of attention

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Dear religion-beat pros: Sometimes small religious denominations merit a bit of attention

With American public space monopolized by furor over abortion and also about sexual abuse in the huge Southern Baptist Convention, it seems eccentric to mention small Protestant denominations. But sometimes these flocks produce news and highlight developing trends that may merit news attention.

Consider actions in recent days by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and Christian Reformed Church (CRC). [Disclosure: The Religion Guy is a longtime CRC member though not directly involved in the matters at hand.] These two bodies, generally similar in terms of Calvinist theology, exercise influence in the wider American evangelical marketplace of ideas that far exceeds their modest numbers.

The CRC, founded in 1857, has declined to 205,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. The PCA, launched in a 1973 southern breakaway among Presbyterians has added northern go-getters to reach a U.S.-only membership of 378,000. More liberal “mainline” Presbyterians dropped from 4 million in 1970 to a current 1.2 million.

The CRC and PCA were the largest church bodies in the conservative North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council until 2002, when the council terminated CRC participation for allowing female pastors and lay officers. Both denominations remained members of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) until last week, when the PCA quit the cooperative organization. Oddly, NAE President Walter Kim (contact: walter.kim@trinitycville.org), a Harvard Ph.D., is a PCA minister who led an important PCA church in Charlottesville, Va., and is now its “teacher in residence.”

Politics is involved in all of this, of course.

The PCA cited Presbyterians’ Westminster Confession of 1646, which declares that church bodies deal only with internal religious issues and “are not to intermeddle with civil affairs” except in “extraordinary” cases. The NAE indeed addresses many societal topics. The PCA lamented its policy statements on the environment, immigration, the death penalty and, especially, support of proposed “Fairness For All” legislation to acknowledge LGBTQ legal protections in return for religious-liberty guarantees.

Yet the PCA itself has issued statements on abortion, AIDS, alcohol, child protection, education, homosexuality, medical insurance, nuclear power, pornography and race relations. Does PCA separation from NAE-style evangelicals move it toward what we used to call cultural and religious “fundamentalism”?


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Plug-In: Roe falls, plus the Supreme Court's four other biggest religion cases of 2022

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Plug-In: Roe falls, plus the Supreme Court's four other biggest religion cases of 2022

It happened.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

The Associated Press’ Mark Sherman reported:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years in a decision by its conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade. Friday’s outcome is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.

The decision, unthinkable just a few years ago, was the culmination of decades of efforts by abortion opponents, made possible by an emboldened right side of the court that has been fortified by three appointees of former President Donald Trump.

The ruling came more than a month after the stunning leak of a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicating the court was prepared to take this momentous step.

Read the full opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

• • •

I haven’t always paid close attention to the Supreme Court. But lately I do.

On days the nation’s high court releases new opinions, I vow find myself refreshing — again and again — the justices’ home page.

The court’s five biggest religion cases of 2022 have piqued my interest. The Dobbs decision, highlighted above, was not specifically about religion. But religious voices on both sides are a major part of the debate.

Here is where the other four religion cases stand:


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Plug-In: Sexual-abuse reforms top Southern Baptist actions in dramatic annual meeting

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Plug-In: Sexual-abuse reforms top Southern Baptist actions in dramatic annual meeting

In terms of making history, 1979 was a highly consequential year for the direction of the Southern Baptist Convention.

So was 1985. And 2021, come to think of it. No doubt I’m missing other important years.

Where might 2022 rank? For the second year in a row, the high-profile annual meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination produced major news.

Five key takeaways from this week’s proceedings in Anaheim, California:

1. Sex abuse reforms

In response to last month’s bombshell report on sexual abuse in the denomination, delegates “voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms,” as The Associated Press’ Deepa Bharath and Peter Smith report.

See related coverage by the Houston Chronicle’s John Tedesco and Robert Downen, two of the journalists whose 2019 “Abuse of Faith” investigation spurred the reforms.

2. Apology to victims

A day after that important vote, the Southern Baptists “approved a resolution Wednesday apologizing to abuse survivors and asking for forgiveness,” as Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and Adelle M. Banks report.

See related coverage by The Tennessean’s Liam Adams and the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Katherine Burgess.

3. New president

In “another win for abuse reform,” the Baptists elected Bart Barber, the pastor of a relatively small congregation in rural Texas, to lead the denomination’s crucial next steps, as Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt reports.

See related coverage by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Frank Lockwood and the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner, a former GetReligion team member.


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