Church & State

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It's true: Red and blue Americans literally don't know basic (religion) facts about each other

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Parson me, while I dig into my deep file of GetReligion guilt. In this case, for a week or so I have been trying to decide how to write a post about a Washington Post political feature in which the charts are absolutely crucial to understanding the material I want to discuss.

The graphics themselves are crucial to this post, because they contain information about religious and cultural issues that really didn't make it into the story.

In other words, to put this in GetReligion language, the religion-news "ghost" that I think will interest journalists and news consumers see can be seen more clearly in these charts than in the quotable material in the Post feature itself, which ran with the headline, "What a divided America actually hears when Obama speaks." I cannot, of course, cut and paste the charts over into this post.

So here's what needs to happen. First we will look at the opening of the piece and then you'll need to click over to the Post piece -- which we always urge readers to do anyway, to see context -- and look at the charts themselves. The overture for this long piece is as follows:

As President Obama spoke of the country’s deepening sense of alienation and anger last month, a teacher in Michigan listened, her eyes fixed on the stone-faced Republicans in the House chamber who in her view represented the problem. “Let’s get over the party lines and work together!” she tweeted during the president’s State of the Union address.
In Maryland, a retired lawyer was listening to the exact same words. He, too, was worried about the anger and division gripping the country, but as Obama spoke, his resentment toward the president only swelled. “Hearing him complain about political rancor is frankly nauseating,” he wrote.
The two tweets flashed across the Internet within seconds of each other, each in their own way capturing the country’s mood and the challenge facing the president in his final months in office -- not simply a partisan divide, but a deep mistrust that has become so entrenched that it seems to affect the very way Americans hear the president’s words and see each other.


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Both sides now: USA Today does a decent job covering LGBT flap in a Florida town

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Gol' durn, Florida is always full of surprises. In reporting a controversial school board meeting over LGBT rules, USA Today -- and its state affiliate Florida Today -- stuck pretty much to basic reporting, as opposed to editorial writing.

Even better, the national report is a nearly word-for-word re-post of the original Florida Today story, rather than some Beltway gloss. LGBT matters can get pretty heated, and so can school board meetings. So when they collide, it ain't always easy just to report. These stories do have a flaw or two, but they generally show a satisfying fairness and respect for all sides. We'll look at the flaws in a bit, but the top alone rates a hat tip:

MELBOURNE, Fla. -- Big crowds came out for a Tuesday evening meeting about a proposed non-discrimination and equal employment policy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in Brevard Public Schools.
After more than 90 LGBT policy opponents spoke to the school board, the board voted to kill the proposed policy, and said it would hold a public workshop on LGBT issues down the road.
Nearly 100 people signed up to speak at the meeting, and most of those who spoke were in opposition to the LGBT policy.
Friar Demetri Tsigas of Melbourne, a Greek Orthodox priest, said that the opposition of people of faith like himself was something school board members should heed. "You can see the spirit of the town here," Tsigas said.  "This is not San Francisco, folks. This is Brevard County."

Friar? That's off the mark. However, that statement is something of a surprise, starting the quotes with a Greek Orthodox priest, rather than the typical "fundamentalist" who is then held up to scorn.

It is crucial to note the ratio of people attempting to speak in opposition to the policy, as opposed to those who defended it. This was a very tense, charged meeting.


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Oh no he di-int! Major city's council shocked by prayer mentioning Jesus and the devil

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Government-sanctioned prayers at the beginning of public meetings don't typically draw a lot of attention. Generally, journalists sleep right through them. 

As you might imagine, it takes a humdinger of a prayer to grab the attention of a major newspaper like the San Antonio Express-News.

So, give Theo Wolmarans credit for that.

Wolmarans' secret for making headlines with his prayer? Hold onto your britches: He mentioned Jesus and the devil.

Stop the presses!

A local pastor who prayed Thursday at the start of the City Council meeting declared only two types of people exist on Earth — those who work for God and those who work for the devil.
The invocation, the standard kickoff to all Thursday council meetings, typically is an inclusive prayer.
Religious leaders from various denominations and religions are invited by individual council members and the mayor. The pastors, rabbis, imams and others mostly invoke God for his wisdom. Some mention Jesus in passing.
Rarely do they offer prayer that excludes entire groups of people. But Pastor Theo Wolmarans from Christian Family Church of San Antonio seemed to do just that in his brief invocation.
“Father, we thank you for the privilege we have for being your children. We know that there are many different races and colors and creeds and languages in our world, of which you are the creator of all of these,” he said during the brief invocation. “But even so, out of all of your creation are your children because only those who accept Jesus as their lord and savior are born into your family.
“And so, when you look down upon us today, you see two kinds of people only — those who believe in you and those who don’t know you. Those who believe in you are your children, and you work through your children to bring peace and love and blessing to the earth,” he said. “And the devil works through those who don’t know you to bring confusion and strife and division, the work of the enemy, because he came to steal, to kill and to destroy.”


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Playing the Trump card: Newspaper spots evangelical 'identity crisis,' with little evidence

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"New school" evangelicals lean toward Donald Trump. Old-liners like Ted Cruz. That shows a "crisis" among evangelicals.

A guy in Washington said so. That's good enough for a newspaper advancing the South Carolina primary. Even if its own report doesn't bear that out.

Evangelicalism, "like the Republican party itself, finds itself in the midst of an identity crisis," the Kentucky-based Messenger-Inquirer declares confidently. That "fact" will split their votes between "new school evangelicals," who lean toward Trump, and more traditional believers who prefer Ted Cruz.

Dang, this newspaper is pretty sure of itself:

In new school churches, altars are often replaced by elaborate stages with light shows that rival backdrops from "American Idol" performances. Holy water fountains are converted into jacuzzi-sized baptism pools. For the purveyors of this flashier packaging of Christianity, it's all part of an effort to shepherd disenfranchised Christians back to Jesus, much in the same way that Trump is able to convert his own celebrityhood and financial success into a political following that attracts first-time voters.
"There's a self-identifying factor these new school evangelicals have with Donald Trump," said Dean Nelson, chairman of the Douglass Leadership Institute, a socially-conservative Christian coalition network based in Washington D.C., that is not affiliated with any candidate.
Cruz, meanwhile, is going after more traditional evangelicals, many of whom frown upon the material trappings of the emerging new school movement. Nelson said that they focus more on the Bible's teachings and place less emphasis on personal wealth. It's a church culture, Nelson said, that's more akin to ultraconservatives like Bob Jones and they're more likely to be conservative hard-liners on social issues, just like Cruz.

What's wrong with this appraisal? Well, gee, what isn’t?


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Looking ahead to Justice Scalia's funeral, with a flashback to wisdom from his son, the priest

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Looking ahead to Justice Scalia's funeral, with a flashback to wisdom from his son, the priest

So what mattered the most in the end, the contents of Justice Antonin Scalia's heart or his head?

Where did the work of the Catholic believer (some journalists called him a "fundamentalist") end and the fierce advocate of Constitutional "originalism" begin?

At mid-week, when host Todd Wilken and I recorded or next "Crossroads" podcast -- click here to tune that in -- I was still wrestling with the following quote from Notre Dame University law professor Richard Garnett, which was featured in a Time magazine think piece about Scalia's impact on American law and culture.

“A big part of his legacy will be how navigated the relationship between one’s deeply held faith commitments and one’s role as a judge,” Garnett, of Notre Dame, says. “For him, the way to navigate that relationship, it was not to compromise one’s religious faith or water it down, it was to distinguish between the legal questions the judge has the power to answer and the religious commitments that a judge has the right to hold, just like all of us do.”

In other words, something like this? "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." That is never an easy task.

While the news media remains focused on the political fallout after Scalia's death, I think it will be interesting to note the fine details of what is sure to be a grand funeral service in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. We know that President Barack Obama will be missing, but how many bishops, archbishops and cardinals will find their way into the "choir"? To what degree will the service -- as the justice desired -- focus on basic Christian beliefs about eternity, as opposed to hints about legal wars in the here and now?


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Turn, turn, turn: It's time to take religious stock of the Obama Era

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Turn, turn, turn: It's time to take religious stock of the Obama Era

As journalists look back to take stock of President Obama’s legacy, religious aspects deserve some attention. The Washington Post’s “Acts of Faith” blog posted an example January 12 from  Peter Manseau, co-founder of the pleasantly skeptical KillingTheBuddha.com, who scanned America’s history of pluralism in last year’s “One Nation Under Gods.”

Pursuing his book’s theme, Manseau proposed that this president “has embraced a more inclusive approach to religion than any of his predecessors.” But in making himself “the nation’s pluralist-in-chief” Obama “seems to have had an opposite effect in much of the country.” As his presidency wanes, he “leads a nation more divided along religious lines than at any other time in recent history.”

All of Manseau’s assertions are open to debate and worth pursuing by journalists.

Biographical recap: The president’s father Barack Senior, who abandoned Barack Junior, was born Muslim in Kenya but was an atheist as an adult. (Nonetheless, under a strict interpretation of Islamic law the son is automatically a Muslim, and in certain jurisdictions would be subject to execution as an apostate for forsaking his birth religion.)

Obama Junior was raised by a freethinking mother who taught her son about various religious paths. During their years in Indonesia he attended both Muslim and Catholic schools. Later, Obama was raised by grandparents who had been sometime Unitarians.

As an adult, the president-to-be converted to the liberal wing of “mainline” Protestantism. He was baptized at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, led by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, attended regularly, was married at Trinity and had his daughters baptized there.


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Did the Vatican lie about abuse reforms? GlobalPost says so, but doesn't shoot straight

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The Vatican didn’t talk. A critic talked. Guess how the story turned out?

USA Today's story, on a layman who says the church's effort to stem child abuse is a sham, is defensibly derogatory. As I've said often, you usually can't stop a story by stonewalling media. You only succeed in giving your foes the sole say.

That's one thing. It's another thing to link the commission piece with a previous story on an anti-abuse training session for bishops. It's still another thing not to make sure you have the latest info.

Here's the top:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — A member of a commission set up by Pope Francis to advise him on child abuse says the group is a "token body" exercising in "smoke and mirrors" that won’t help children stay safe from abusive priests.
Peter Saunders, the commission member, is now on a leave of absence as he considers whether to continue with an effort he says he has lost faith in.
Meanwhile, new Catholic bishops are still being taught they’re not obliged to report cases of child abuse by priests to the police.
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Francis set up with much fanfare in 2014, was supposed to issue guidelines for the Vatican on how to deal with child abuse. But the body was never consulted about the training for new bishops on exactly that topic.
These are just some of the signs that Francis’ reform efforts, and his pledge to clean up the Catholic Church’s most damaging crisis, seem to be unraveling before they’ve even really gotten started.

The article is a reprint from GlobalPost, a news site based in Boston. GlobalPost partners with older media including NBC News and NPR, as well as USA Today. The piece on Saunders is a spinoff of the site's yearlong investigation of accused priestly abusers, saying several from America and Europe were sent to "poor, remote parishes." GlobalPost evidently saw Pope Francis' visit to the continent as a good time hook.

Apparently, the news site also called Saunders, rather than wait for him to call them:


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Think pieces on Justice Scalia, funeral sermons, humility and the First Amendment

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The funeral of Justice Antonin Scalia this coming Saturday will be in the grandest possible setting that America offers for a Catholic who spend spent decades on the U.S. Supreme Court -- the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

As noted in a Religion News Service update, Scalia preferred the Latin Mass, so journalists will want to probe into the details of the service as they emerge. Another key question: Will Scalia's son -- Father Paul Scalia of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington (Va.) -- play a major role in the rite?

Who will speak during the funeral Mass? Whoever it is will want to read a fascinating letter that Scalia wrote to the Rev. James C. Goodloe after the funeral of Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. The subject: Appropriate sermons at funerals. Reporters will want to note an interesting question about Catholic canon law. Here is that letter:

CHAMBERS OF JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA
September 1, 1998
Dr. James C. Goodloe
Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church
1627 Monument Avenue
Richmond, Virginia 23220-2925
Dear Dr. Goodloe:
I looked for you unsuccessfully at the luncheon following the funeral yesterday. I wanted to tell you how reverent and inspiring I found the service that you conducted.
In my aging years, I have attended so many funerals of prominent people that I consider myself a connoisseur of the genre.


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It's impossible to praise or attack Justice Scalia without covering his Catholic faith

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This is an ironic day in American political life, a day in which lots of labels are being tossed around by journalists -- in some cases, once again, with little thought given to whether those labels are still relevant or accurate.

That thunderclap you just heard was, of course, the news that Justice Antonin Scalia had died. The timing is stunning, to say the least, with a White House race unfolding and a U.S. Supreme court schedule packed with major cases linked to the First Amendment and church-state issues.

There is too much coverage, already, to try to take a look at it all. But let me make a few suggestions for some guidelines for readers as they dig into the coverage.

Look for coverage that quotes Scalia's friends as well as his enemies. You will know that you're in good company, in terms of journalism, when you hit features that note that some of his fiercest opponents, when it came time to argue law, were also among his closest friends. 

Scalia was a conservative in several senses of that word, especially when it came to law and to faith. Yet, like the word "liberal," that is a word that is often of little use when discussing matters of law and now politics. Right now, an old-school First Amendment liberal, or literalist, increasingly looks like a cultural conservative.

So look for stories that refuse to pin simplistic labels on Scalia.

Then, alas, there is this early NPR piece, as a negative example. Yes, it involves use of the f-word that journalists love to use in ways that directly contradict the Associated Press Stylebook.

Also note that the written work of this justice -- famous and infamous for his use of wit and sarcasm -- is reduced to one of those shallow verbs that journalists use when, basically, they want to call someone simplistic or even dumb:


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