Catholicism

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Newsweek: Core doctrine of Christianity is something 'evangelists' may or may not believe

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In recent years, your GetReligionistas have had quite a few discussions of the following question: Should today’s Newsweek continue to be treated as the important newsmagazine that it once was?

Hear me out. I know that Newsweek contains some interesting and provocative commentary pieces and, every now and then, the magazine publishes an interesting essay on a news topic that appears to have been written by someone in the newsroom.

The day-by-day norm, however, appears to consist of quick-hit pieces based on the work of others, often showing signs of work by inexperienced interns. Some of these online pieces can be considered “aggregation” pointing readers to other sources of news and information.

Please don’t read that as an automatic put-down. GetReligion publishes its share of “think pieces” that introduce readers to articles we have seen linked to religion news. The goal is to write a worthy intro and then show readers bites of the article — clearly identifying the source — that lets them see key insights or information. At the end, we encourage folks to “read it all,” with a URL to the source.

The problem, to be blunt, is when there is evidence that the journalists doing this work have little or no understanding of the material they are “writing about.” Consider this overture in a Newsweek piece with this headline: “52 Percent of Americans Say Jesus Isn't God but Was a Great Teacher, Survey Says.”

A slight majority of American adults say Jesus was a great teacher and nothing more during his lifetime, which several Christian leaders say is evidence today's faithful are "drifting away" from traditional evangelist teachings.

As earlier reported by The Christian Post, the 2020 survey conducted by Ligonier Ministries, a Florida-based Reform Church nonprofit, found 52 percent of U.S. adults say they believe Jesus Christ is not God — a belief that contradicts traditional teachings of the Bible through the Christian church, which state Jesus was both man and God.

Nearly one-third of evangelicals in the survey agreed that Jesus isn't God, compared to 65 percent who said "Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God."

Where to begin?


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Words or deeds? Catholics will be discussing Joe Biden's actions during fall campaign

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Words or deeds? Catholics will be discussing Joe Biden's actions during fall campaign

In the summer of 2016, two White House staffers -- Brian Mosteller and Joe Mahshie -- tied the knot in a rite led by one of America's most prominent Catholics.

The officiant was Vice President Joe Biden, who later proclaimed on Twitter: "Proud to marry Brian and Joe at my house. Couldn't be happier … two great guys."

Leaders of familiar Catholic armies then debated whether Biden's actions attacked this Catholic Catechism teaching: "The marriage covenant, by which a man and a woman form with each other an intimate communion of life and love, has been founded and endowed with its own special laws by the Creator. … Christ the Lord raised marriage between the baptized to the dignity of a sacrament."

Conflicts between bishops, clergy and laity will loom in the background as Biden seeks to become America's second Catholic president. Combatants will be returning to territory explored in a famous 1984 address by the late Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York, entitled "Religious Belief and Public Morality."

Speaking at the University of Notre Dame, he said: "As a Catholic, I have accepted certain answers as the right ones for myself and my family, and because I have, they have influenced me in special ways, as Matilda's husband, as a father of five children, as a son who stood next to his own father's death bed trying to decide if the tubes and needles no longer served a purpose.

"As a governor, however, I am involved in defining policies that determine other people's rights in these same areas of life and death. Abortion is one of these issues, and while it is one issue among many, it is one of the most controversial and affects me in a special way as a Catholic public official."

It would be wrong to make abortion policies the "exclusive litmus test of Catholic loyalty," he said. After all, the "Catholic church has come of age in America" and it's time for bishops to recognize that Catholic politicians have to be realistic negotiators in a pluralistic land.

Cuomo also noted polls indicating that American Catholics "support the right to abortion in equal proportion to the rest of the population. … We Catholics apparently believe -- and perhaps act -- little differently from those who don't share our commitment. Are we asking government to make criminal what we believe to be sinful because we ourselves can't stop committing the sin?"


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Thinking with Ryan Burge about Twitter Democrats, nones and people who sit in pews

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As researchers have been noting for several decades now, the active practice of a religious faith — especially traditional forms of faith — is one of the easiest ways to draw a line between political and cultural conservatives and people who consider themselves liberals or progressives.

This has obvious implications for clashes between Democrats and Republicans, no matter what the insiders and activists say and do while on camera at national political conventions.

If you want to review some “pew gap” basics, click here for a file of GetReligion material on the topic or head over here for a recent post — “Concerning Republicans, Democrats and gaps in pews“ — by political scientist Ryan Burge of the Religion in Public blog (and a contributor here at GetReligion).

Religious “nones” and other skeptics skew liberal and, thus, favor the Democratic party. Meanwhile, religious believers — especially white Christians who attend worship once a week or more — have increasingly flocked to the other side of the political aisle.

So what else could researchers do to chart this fault line in American political life?

Well, if you spend much time in the Twitter-verse, you know that lots of people in blue and red zip codes have radically different takes on the whole religion thing. This leads us to a fascinating think piece Burge wrote the other day for Religion News Service entitled, “By their tweets you will know them: The Democrats' continuing God gap.” Here is some material drawn from the overture:

Despite being a party that includes Black Protestants, who are some of the most religious Americans, and Hispanic Catholics, one of the few religious groups in the U.S. to be growing, Democrats still have troubles when it comes to talking about faith.

They have struggled to mobilize the religious left into a voting block and have troubles connecting with white Christian voters, the majority of whom supported President Trump in the last election.

And while Democrats do have the support of the so-called “Nones" — the growing group of Americans who have no religious affiliation — that group does not include particularly enthusiastic voters. …


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'Catholics are under attack': Is it a valid news story if a U.S. senator claims this is true?

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Is it news if a sitting United States senator pens a letter to the U.S. Justice Department?

It depends on a number of factors. Let’s also say that the letter in question is made public by the senator’s communications department via the Internet and on social media. Is it a news story then?

This depends, of course, on what the letter says and whether it is connected to facts that journalists can seek out and report — if they are willing to do so.

Is the story linked to nasty political partisanship? Does it involve President Donald Trump? Does it involve religion, sex and maybe even money?

This post isn’t some esoteric exercise in press freedom or news judgement. It’s about something real that is plaguing the national press in this country at this very critical moment in time.

A letter of this very kind was written and made public on August 11 by Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy (no relation to the Kennedy’s of JFK and Massachusetts fame). The letter in question had nothing to do with Russian election interference or the disappearance of mail boxes. Those topics would have been covered immediately and extensively.

Instead, the letter was about the surge in vandalism targeting Catholic churches and statues, a story that the vast majority of pros in the national press (as I have noted in this space before) have ignored. The reasons for that vary greatly, but my best hypothesis is that it just doesn’t resonate among secular newsroom editors and reporters who don’t have a high regard for Catholics or religion in general in the importance in the lives of everyday Americans.


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Democrats embrace interfaith America, while a few DNC caucuses cut 'under God' from pledge

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Did the Democrats “get” religion or not?

Certainly, lots of headlines coming out of this week’s virtual Democratic National Convention had strong faith elements.

But a different storyline gained attention, too.

The words “under God” were left out of the Pledge of Allegiance at the DNC’s Muslim Delegates & Allies Assembly and its LGBT Caucus Meeting, as first reported by David Brody, the Christian Broadcasting Network’s chief political analyst.

“NOT the way to win rust belt culturally centered Dems,” Brody tweeted.

Victor Morton of the Washington Times noted:

The phrase was not part of the Pledge when Congress first officially codified it in 1942 (it dates back in various forms to 1906). It was added in 1954 under a bill signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty … In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war,” Eisenhower wrote.

Brody stressed that when reciting the Pledge during main sessions, the Democrats said the words “under God.”

But the exclusion of those words by certain Democratic caucuses, he suggested, harkened back to 2012 when Democrats came under fire for removing “God” from the party platform. At the request of then-President Barack Obama, the party reversed that decision.

Eight years later, former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign — in what Biden calls “a battle for the soul of America” — has put an emphasis on winning over religious voters.


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Behind the #WhiteJesus wars: Lessons to learn from ancient Christian iconography

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Behind the #WhiteJesus wars: Lessons to learn from ancient Christian iconography

For modern skeptics, the 6th-century icon hanging in the Orthodox monastery in the shadow of Mount Sinai is simply a 33-by-18-inch board covered in bees wax and colored pigments.

For believers, this Christ Pantocrator ("ruler of all") icon is the most famous image of Jesus in the world, because the remote Sinai Peninsula location of St. Catherine's Monastery allowed it to survive the Byzantine iconoclasm era. The icon shows Jesus -- with a beard and long hair -- raising his right hand in blessing, while holding a golden book of the Gospels.

This Jesus does not have blond hair and blue eyes. "Christ of Sinai" shows the face of a wise teacher from ancient Palestine.

"When you talk about ancient icons, you are basically talking about images of Jesus with long hair, a beard and some kind of Roman toga. That's just about all you can say," said Jonathan Pageau of Quebec, an Eastern Orthodox artist and commentator on sacred symbols.

In the early church, he added, believers "didn't ask other questions -- about race and culture -- because those were not the important questions in those days. … Once you start politicizing icons there's just no way out of those arguments. You get into politics and dividing people and then you're lost."

In these troubled times, said Pageau, many analysts are "projecting valid concerns about racism and Europe's history of colonization and the plight of African-Americans back into issues of church history and art that are centuries and centuries old. It's a kind of category error and everything gets mixed up."

But that's what happened when debates about some #BlackLivesMatters activists toppling Confederate memorials -- along with attacks on Catholic statues and even insufficiently "woke" Founding Fathers -- veered into #WhiteJesus territory.

"Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy," tweeted Shaun King, author of "Make Change: How to Fight Injustice, Dismantle Systemic Oppression, and Own Our Future."

The popular Internet scribe later added: "All murals and stained-glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down. … We can debate [whether] or not Jesus was real all day long. What I do know, is that white Jesus is a lie. And is a tool of white supremacy created and advanced to help white people use the faith as a tool of oppression. Also, they never would've accepted a religion from a Brown man."


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Biden 2020: 'Devout' Catholic? 'Cuomo' Catholic? 'McCarrick' Catholic? 'Pope Francis' Catholic?

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Biden 2020: 'Devout' Catholic? 'Cuomo' Catholic? 'McCarrick' Catholic? 'Pope Francis' Catholic?

Joe Biden is a Catholic.

This is a statement of fact, because of his baptism. Vice President Mike Pence is a Catholic, too, by the way. Each man — as is the case with all Catholics — is one Rite of Confession away from full participation in the sacraments of his church. What is Biden’s status? That’s between Biden and his confessor.

Now we get to the tricky question, during an election campaign in which — as always seems to be the case — Mass-attending Catholics are the crucial swing vote across the Rust Belt.

What is the accurate adjective to put in front of “Catholic” in the following equation? Joe Biden is a ______ Catholic. This question was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

If you read the mainstream press, the operative words appears to be “devout.” See this typical overture for a recent USA Today piece: “Donald Trump claims Joe Biden is 'against God;' Biden calls attack 'shameful'.”

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump unleashed another strident attack on Joe Biden over religion … saying his Democratic opponent, a devout Catholic, is "against God" and even religion itself — comments Biden denounced as “shameful.”

“No religion, no anything," Trump told supporters at a brief airport rally in Cleveland as he visited Ohio for an economic speech. "Hurt the Bible, hurt God. He’s against God, he’s against guns, he’s against energy, our kind of energy.”

Biden, who has often talked about how his Catholic faith helped him survive the death of his first wife and their daughter in a 1972 car crash, described Trump as a hypocrite making a cynical appeal to religious conservatives.

Trump’s oh-so-typical blast makes zero sense and was similar to the old claims that President Barack Obama was not a Christian. Obama was, of course, active in the United Church of Christ, an oldline Protestant denomination that has long helped define the bleeding left edge of Christianity in America.

So, again: Joe Biden is a ______ Catholic and constantly talks about the role that his faith has played in his life. Has anyone spotted Biden’s chosen adjective? I have not.


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Will Joe Biden's faith become a campaign issue as anti-Catholic attacks rise in America?

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The summer that has been highlighted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, protests and statue-toppling has placed a spotlight on everything that’s wrong with politics.

But there are more dark clouds for people in pews and at altars. As the coronavirus crisis worsens, Christians and people of all faiths must face one stark reality — the possibility that their faith will be further eroded by secular society.

The spread of the coronavirus has been a boon for some politicians. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has essentially run a stealth campaign from his home (and benefitted from this safe strategy in the polls), while President Donald Trump has risked one television interview after another in an effort to get his message out.

Trump is acting like a candidate on the ropes, not an incumbent. He appears to have no clear second-term agenda.

The virus, meanwhile, has also given some lawmakers the chance to act more authoritarian in the name of science, meaning churches can close but anti-racism protests can continue. While populism has suffered during quarantine lockdowns (no rallies!), more extreme forces may actually benefit in this election cycle and over the coming decade.

Totalitarianism, in any form, isn’t good for religious people. Neither is the political and cultural balkanization we are witnessing across the country. With three months to go before Americans cast their votes, the divisive nature of our politics will likely get worse.

How worse? During this time of cultural reckonings, some activists have tried to lump Catholic saints into the same category as treasonous Confederate generals. That has forced some Republicans to increasingly trumpet traditional Christian values, while Democrats get dangerously closer to Marxism.

That means that old-school religious centrists — and lawmakers prone to making compromises like former Sen. Joe Lieberman — will disappear from our national politics. These people will be forced to choose a side or remain largely absent from the U.S. political system.

Who will voters support?


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Do these issues matter? Trump utters religious slur while Harris underlines Biden's Catholic questions

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This week’s Joe Biden and Kamala Harris nominations are an appropriate moment to look at the religious angles that writers are encountering in the 2020 campaign.

To begin, a Wall Street Journal column by Brookings Institution political scientist William A. Galston observes that in today’s United States “the level of religious polarization is the highest in the history of modern survey research.”

Which immediately brings up the Quote of the Year. It’s hard to think of any remark by a U.S. president more invidious than Donald Trump’s characterization of Democratic opponent Biden: “No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God.”

Reporters seeking balance, and any Republicans who were embarrassed by this, could have noted that the 2020 food fight previously featured Democrats belittling the quality of Trump’s religiosity. Biden himself joined that chorus after the president’s walk from the White House to fire-damaged St. John’s Episcopal Church to hold a Bible aloft for the cameras: “I just wish he opened it once in a while instead of brandishing it. If he opened it, he could have learned something.”


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