Church & State

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Presbyterians, Baptists, Churches of Christ: Do denominational affiliations matter in Tennessee Bible debate?

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I'm typing this on a lazy Friday afternoon after eating a rather filling lunch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy at my mom and dad's house in Texas.

Frankly, I'm a little drowsy and could use a nap.

So I can't swear that I'm thinking totally clearly or that my questions about a news report on Tennessee's governor vetoing a bill to make the Bible that state's official book will be relevant to anyone except me. But since I get paid the big bucks to do so, I'll go ahead and ask.

As you may recall, I first posted on the Tennessee debate last week.

In recent days, Godbeat pro Holly Meyer and her colleagues at The Tennessean have done some excellent coverage on the issue.

However, the story that sparked my questions was produced by The Associated Press.

The AP's lede:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Republican Gov. Bill Haslam on Thursday vetoed a bill seeking to make Tennessee the first state to designate the Bible as its official book.
Haslam, who considered entering a seminary before deciding to join the family truck stop business after college, said in his veto message that the bill "trivializes the Bible, which I believe is a sacred text."
The bill had narrowly passed both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly after sponsors said it aimed at honoring the significance of the Bible in the state's history and economy, as opposed to a government endorsement of religion.
"If we believe that the Bible is the word of God, then we shouldn't be recognizing it only as a book of historical and economic significance," Haslam said.


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Baby steps: AP shows improvement in reporting religious-objections bill in Missouri

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Well, it appears that a mainstream journalist went out and found one minister to quote in religious liberty story.

They usually don’t quote any in news articles like these. So an Associated Press article on a new religious-exemption bill in Missouri is a tiny step in the right direction.

The piece, carried by the Charlotte Observer, reports the new storm a-brewing over a religious objections bill in that state. The top of story focuses on a business-heavy backlash:

More than 60 businesses including some of Missouri's biggest corporate names joined a coalition opposed to state legislation that would protect businesses objecting on religious grounds to same-sex marriages, the latest sign of a backlash against such proposals across the country.
Agricultural giant Monsanto, prescription drug benefits manager Express Scripts, and pet food maker Nestle Purina are among employers to join the recently formed Missouri Competes, according to gay rights advocacy group PROMO, which released the list just hours before a House committee heard testimony from business, sports and religious groups. Dozens crammed in the Capitol basement for the late-night hearing.
The formation of the coalition comes amid business pushback to legislation in other states protecting those opposed to gay marriage.

The article has much to recommend it. AP quotes an equal number of sources on each side. It uses terms like religious-objections legislation instead of the usual "religious freedom," in sarcasm quotes.  


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The Atlantic on Texas cheerleaders: In this case, old-time religion comes across as reasonable

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Four years after a group of East Texas cheerleaders took on their school district to fight for the right to have religious-themed banners at their school football games, Atlantic Monthly takes a trip into flyover country to talk to the girls.

Some of these young women have already graduated from high school and have been able to get a wider perspective on their battle. I thought the magazine’s take on it all had very little snark and some actual respect for these teenagers. Kountze, by the way, is just north of Houston.

So here's how this lengthy piece started:

The cheerleaders in Kountze, Texas, have been painting Bible verses on the banners they hold up at football games for nearly four years. Players line up on Friday nights behind a big stretch of unrolled butcher paper, busting through it as they run onto the field. Instead of a negative slogan, along the lines of “Kill the Tatum Eagles,” the girls wanted to write messages that were more positive, ones “that were really encouraging and honorable to God,” as one of them put it. They proposed this at their cheer camp in the summer of 2012. After the moms who sponsored the club got sign off from the school principal, the girls made their first signs, sporting messages like “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” from Philippians, or “A lion, which is strongest among beasts and turns not away from any,” a Proverbs verse. (Kountze High is home to the Lions.)
Ever since, they have been embroiled in the high-profile legal battle those banners sparked. Early in the 2012 season, the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the Kountze Independent School District’s superintendent alleging that the district was violating the Constitution by allowing a student group to hold up religious messages at a school-sponsored event. After consulting counsel, the superintendent told the town’s high-school principal to shut down the Bible-verse banners. Some of the girls and their parents decided to sue the district and won a temporary injunction. Since then, the case has been bouncing around the Texas state-court system, mostly on a series of procedural claims. The Texas Supreme Court heard the case and sent it back to the Court of Appeals in January; that court is set to consider the case again any day now.

What’s different about this piece is that the cheerleaders and their more activist parents are portrayed as unlikely newsmakers who stumbled into this national drama and are doing their best to stand up for student self-expression.


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Amid a barrage of slanted reporting, a smart, helpful take on religious freedom legislation

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Missouri. Georgia. North Carolina. Mississippi. Tennessee. Louisiana. 

Those are just a half-dozen of the states where recent legislation pitting gay rights vs. religious freedom has produced high-profile debates.

As any casual reader of GetReligion knows, much of the major media coverage has been incomplete and slanted (read: left leaning), with a few notable exceptions.

Most of our critiques focus on easy-to-spot crimes: The failure to give both sides a voice. The bias that using scare quotes shows. The editorialization that occurs via framing. 

Journalism 101 stuff, in other words.

So many news organizations struggle to cover this subject matter at even a basic level (much less provide context that includes, say, the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act). Given that low bar, we are even more surprised when we come across a story that truly advances the topic in an insightful way.

Enter religion writer Kelsey Dallas of the Deseret News National:


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Strike up the banned: The Bible is among the most-challenged library books, RNS reports

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Secularists often chide evangelical Christians for nursing a persecution complex, but you know the old saying: Just 'cause you're paranoid …

And the paranoids among us won't be reassured by a new report thatthe Bible was one of the most challenged books in libraries last year.

The holy book, says the Religion News Service, sits among other books that many church people would reject:

(RNS) What does the Bible have in common with "Fifty Shades of Grey" or one of John Green’s best-selling young adult novels?
For the first time in nearly a decade, the Bible made the list of the American Library Association’s 10 most frequently challenged books last year.
The 2015 list was released Monday (April 11) as part of the ALA’s 2016 State of America’s Libraries report. It includes books that have drawn formal, written complaints from the public because of their content or appropriateness, according to the ALA.
The Bible, which came in at No. 6, was challenged for its "religious viewpoint," the ALA said.

The story reveals a trend since 2009 of growing complaints about books in libraries that contain "religious viewpoints," the article says. Sounds like the RNS writer, Emily McFarlan Miller, asked some penetrating questions.

What about before 2000? Well, back then, most complaints were about "sexually explicit material, offensive language or being unsuitable for the intended age group," the article says. Today, the growing edge is over religious content.

From the list, though, ALA seems to include sexuality in what constitutes a religious viewpoint:


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What?!? Pope Francis (again) backs right to conscientious objection for believers

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Time for a pop quiz on some facts linked to a major religion-news event from last year.

OK, gentle readers, do you remember Kim Davis?

That's a dumb question. Of course you remember the infamous Kentucky county clerk who, citing a faith-based conflict of interest, asked that other state officials be allowed to sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples, in her place.

Next question: Do you remember that whole Pope Francis visiting America thing? It was a blitz of headlines that lasted for days. Then, on the flight back home to Rome, the pope was asked a question about Christians (wink, wink) being allowed to decline to cooperate with same-sex union rites. In an "On Religion" column at that time, I noted the crucial Francis remarks:

Pope Francis said he could not address all such cases, thus avoiding a reference to Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who secretly met with the pope in Washington, D.C.
"If a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right," said Francis. "Conscientious objection must enter into every juridical structure because it is a right, a human right. Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying 'this right has merit, this one does not.' …
"If a government official is a human person, he has that right."
Rather than discuss current events, the pope added: "It always moved me when I read, and I read it many times, … the Chancon Roland, when the people were all in line and before them was the baptismal font -- the baptismal font or the sword. And, they had to choose. They weren't permitted conscientious objection. It is a right and if we want to make peace we have to respect all rights."

Now, remember that meeting between Davis and Pope Francis?


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Stealing magnolias: Journalists join pro-gay groups against Mississippi's religious liberty law

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Last week, when Gov. Phil Bryant signed its religious freedom law, much of the news about Mississippi has been about reprisals. Business groups have vowed to boycott the Magnolia State. Showbiz figure Ellen DeGeneres swats the state, crying oppression. And Gov. Mario Cuomo of New York has banned "nonessential travel" to Mississippi.

All with mainstream media help -- dare I say encouragement?

Reuters writes up the alliance of business leaders and pro-gay groups urging the state to repeal the new law. First the story sets up Governor Phil Bryant as the whipping boy:

Bryant hailed the statute, the latest in a series of state laws opposed by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists, as designed to "protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions ... from discriminatory action by state government."
But top executives from General Electric Co., PepsiCo Inc., Dow Chemical Co. and five other major U.S. corporations, in an open letter, condemned the law as discriminatory. The letter was addressed to Bryant and the speaker of the Republican-controlled Mississippi House of Representatives.

The article is a near-textbook case of slurring by the numbers.

Partial quote in defense of the Mississippi law, with lots of quotes against -- check.

Sarcasm quotes around "religious liberty" bills, with none around "gay rights" -- check.

Ignoring religious leaders' viewpoints -- check.

Saying the law, and similar ones in other states, are "pushed by social conservatives" -- a twofer. There's the aggressive verb "pushed" along with the "conservative" red flag. Liberals, of course, never push. Nor are they identified here, although it should be obvious who is fighting the laws in question.

The main pinch of moderation is when Reuters reports:


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Surprise! Catholic League spotted other flaws in New York Times abuse story

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I will admit right up front that much of the following information is not shocking. The Catholic League upset at The New York Times? Never!

So here is the background. The other day I praised, in a modest sort of way, a Times piece about the clergy sex-abuse scandal that is still unfolding in the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, in Western Pennsylvania.

I raised questions, however, about some vague language in this report, especially focusing on legislation being pushed by Representative Mark Rozzi, a Democrat, who experienced abuse by a priest in his childhood. Concerning the legislation, the Times report noted, the time-frames defining windows of opportunity for new lawsuits:

These window laws can leave the church and other institutions open to legions of suits. Lobbyists with the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the insurance industry have pressed lawmakers to hold the line, and they were working the Capitol’s corridors last week.

Other institutions?

Often, people fighting sexual abuse of children and teens go after the church and fail to target abuse taking place in other major institutions, such as public schools. Thus, I argued that the key vague phrase in that Times passage was "and other institutions." So what other institutions are we talking about? I continued:


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Freedom from Religion Foundation: Will journalists investigate what they do?

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There are times when a headline just grabs your attention and this story was one of those times. “Satanic book, Bible sex tracts provided in Colorado schools,” the Associated Press headline read.

On second thought, the combo of Bible and sex is not astonishing as the Old Testament gets rather explicit in some places and I’m not talking just the Song of Solomon. When God was angry at profligate Israel’s insistence on worshiping idols, He used some pretty earthly images in describing their lustful ways.

However, I’ll not be critiquing the AP this time around. I’m going to address a part of the woodwork that news organizations aren’t even considering when they write about these topics.

DENVER (AP) -- It sounds like an April Fool's joke, but it's not.
Atheists provided pamphlets on topics like sex in the Bible, problems with the Ten Commandments and a Satanic activity book to middle and high school students in a rural Colorado district Friday, the result of a fight between Delta County schools and critics over whether it should continue to let everyone from Little League organizers to the Gideons distribute literature in schools.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is behind the literature. The Madison, Wisconsin-based group got involved after a mother sought help in December from the Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers, which contacted the foundation.
The woman was upset about Bibles made available in schools on tables designated for pamphlet and book giveaways, and there were also complaints that students who didn't take them were bullied, said Anne Landman, founder of Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers.


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