Evangelicals

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Meltdown flashback: Once more into the New York Times 'spiritual crisis' breach

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Please hang in there with me for a moment, or several moments. There is much to discuss and it will require more than one post.

I was going to write a post this morning about the much-discussed letter to readers from New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and executive editor Dean Baquet. That's the letter that is being interpreted as a mild act of journalistic repentance, stating, sort of, that the Times team -- after missing the whole Donald Trump and middle America thing -- promises to go back to doing basic news coverage, rather than advocacy journalism.

The problem, however, is that this is not what the letter actually says. It says the Times needed to turn "on a dime" in order to react to election night developments, but that the newsroom then did what it has "done for nearly two years -- cover the 2016 election with agility and creativity." Then there was this:

As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you. It is also to hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.

So there is the issue once again. The Times leaders believe that they have been producing journalism that shows understanding and, dare I say, respect for "all political perspectives and life experiences" in America, as opposed to here in New York City (I am writing this while looking out a window towards the World Trade Center). #REALLY

I wanted to write a post about this remarkable letter, but then it hit me. In a way, I have already written a recent post about this issue -- back on August 1. So before we look at new materials linked to the Times culture, religion news and the newspaper's critics, please let me do something that I have never done before in the nearly 13-year history of this blog -- republish a whole post and urge you to read it. Then we will move on in the days ahead.


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Trump and the media meltdown: Have elite journalists spotted any religion ghosts yet?

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Trump and the media meltdown: Have elite journalists spotted any religion ghosts yet?

Maybe it was just too much to ask our nation's top political journalists to see the facts.

I mean, they have had to wrestle with the fact that -- to be blunt -- Hillary Rodham Clinton is not on her way to the White House for a very simple reason: Not enough Democrats voted for her.

It wasn't the danged white evangelicals. They may have helped in Florida (look for Latino evangelical votes there too) and North Carolina, but a Democrat doesn't lose Wisconsin and Michigan because evangelicals rushed to the polls and took over.

No, as I said in my post the other day -- "Working-class folks: What Bill Clinton knew, and Hillary Rodham failed to learn" -- Hillary Rodham Clinton lost because lots of working-class, labor-family people (male and female, it turned out) who have long been Democrats didn't think she cared about them and their futures. Many of them were Catholics, including good-old cultural Catholics who don't show up in the polls all that much.

I interviewed EWTN anchor Raymond Arroyo about all of this more than a week before Election Day and one of his quotes proved to be spot on. He told me that he was hearing from the Rust Belt a lot and he told me what lots of Catholics were telling him. Thus, that "On Religion" column ended like this:

What now? Arroyo offered this Election Day advice: Watch Catholic men in the Rust Belt.
"Lots of working-class Catholics aren't sure if they're Republicans or Democrats these days," he said. "They keep swinging back and forth. ... What I hear them saying is: 'I'll go in that voting booth and make a choice, but I'm not talking about it. I'll go behind that curtain and do what I have to do.' "

As you would imagine, "Crossroads" host Todd Wilken and I talked about all of that and more when recording this week's podcast. Click here to tune that in (and sorry for the delay, with some technical complications.)

Meanwhile, journalists have been wrestling, as you would imagine, with the whole "How in the heckfire did we miss this story?" puzzle.


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Some matters religious Americans, and journalists, might ponder as Trump era begins

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Some matters religious Americans, and journalists, might ponder as Trump era begins

Donald Trump’s narrow Electoral College victory came accompanied by a narrow popular vote loss and some worrisome exit polling.

Yes, 60 percent of voters had an “unfavorable” opinion of the President-elect, 63 percent did not deem him “honest and trustworthy,” 60 percent said he’s not “qualified” for the job and 63 percent felt he lacks the needed “temperament,” while 56 percent were either “concerned” or “scared” that he might win. (Hillary Clinton’s numbers were nearly that dismal.)

Religious believers and journalists concerned for their nation should  contemplate whether a President has ever entered office with anything like that poor reputation.

Campaign 2016 was the ugliest since -- when? 1824? 1800? It damaged the stature not only of Trump but loser Hillary and husband Bill, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, even the Libertarians, the FBI and the Department of Justice, the American political system, and -- yes -- religious elements.

Amid the rubble, we also find all those caught-off-guard pundits, mistake-ridden pollsters, and news outlets whose prestige and influence are eroded by sensationalism and partisanship.

Some writers continue to proclaim the imminent demise of the Religious Right, that movement of evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics, Mormons, some Orthodox Jews and other activists. As with frequent assurances that Trump could not possibly win the nomination or the presidency, that’s wishful thinking. Such efforts will persist as long as the issues do, for instance palpable alarm over religious freedoms.

On that, future  Supreme Court appointments were “the most important factor” for 21 percent of U.S. voters but fully 56 percent of Trump voters.


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When will they learn? Media cluelessness about red-state life happened in 2004 and in ...

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I well remember the evening in 2005 when Pope Benedict XVI was elected. The news was announced at dusk in a rainy St. Peter’s Square. I was there and I well remember how so many of the Europeans –- particularly the French –- standing close by were swearing a blue streak when the new pope was proclaimed. Many newspapers talked about a climate of fear descending as the world awaited a reign of terror from the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened and Benedict, it turned out, became the first pope in hundreds of years to resign. He willingly give up power. He never did turn out to be the evil genius they accused him of being. And so, when I read all the doom about the coming President Donald Trump, I wonder if the same sort of dire predictions will prove false. (Of course, Cardinal Ratzinger already had tons of Vatican administrative experience.)

I’m also seeing the same wailing and gnashing of teeth that happened in November 2004 when George W. Bush beat John Kerry. The media elites were realizing there was a lot of red-state America out there that they weren’t getting.

Roy Peter Clark’s famous Nov. 4, 2004, “Confessions of an alienated journalist” essay in Poynter.org said it all:

It seems that the Democrats are insensitive to "moral values." This puzzles me because I think that opposing a war, or working for economic justice, or making health care more available in America all derive from a moral vision. Apparently, it is not the moral vision -- the set of faith and family values -- that helped re-elect George W. Bush.
I am now taking seriously the theory that we mainstream journalists are different from mainstream America. "Different" is too pale a word. We are alienated. We may live in the same country, but we treat each other like aliens. Maybe it's worse than that because we usually see and suspect the alien in our midst. The churched people who embrace Bush, in spite of a bumbling war and a stumbling economy, are more than alien to me. They are invisible.

I pitched a piece to Poynter that ran the following month that explained the media’s cluelessness about the other –- and mainly religious -- half of America.


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Spiritual visions: Behind the scenes of Donald Trump's 'inner circle of evangelical advisors'

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I've tended to brush aside Donald Trump's alleged spiritual awakening as political pandering (think "Two Corinthians" controversy).

As a husband and father, I couldn't bring myself to vote for a candidate who bragged about his ability to grab women by the ... well, you know what he said. 

But — now that Trump has been elected as the nation's 45th president — here's a serious question to ponder: Is there any chance that the foul-mouthed, womanizing billionaire really is a "baby Christian" who has embarked on a journey of faith?

That question came to mind as I read Time magazine religion writer Elizabeth Dias' excellent, behind-the-scenes account of Trump's pastoral team on Election Night:

In the dark hours of early Wednesday morning, moments after Donald Trump gave his victory speech to a cheering ballroom in New York, the president-elect paused backstage with Pentecostal pastor Paula White.
With vice-president-elect Mike Pence and their families nearby, White prayed over them, asking God to guide them in wisdom and to protect them in the days ahead. Just days earlier, White was traveling with Trump on his plane when he brought up how Harry Truman surprised everyone by winning against Thomas Dewey in 1948.
Now, Trump prepares to enter the White House after an upset of his own. For White, “God’s hand and purpose in this” is hard to miss—thousands of Christians, she says, joined her in three days of prayer and fasting in anticipation of the outcome. “I haven’t personally seen it since 9/11 when the body has really come together,” she says.

This is just the latest insightful reporting by Dias on the pastors at the center of Trump's campaign.


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Religious Trump reaction: RNS struggles to find a range of actual human voices

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When news spread that Donald Trump won the presidential election, I got the sense that the various elites -- cultural, political, mainstream media -- were reacting like Family Guy's Chris Griffin:  "Whaaaattt??"

The Religion News Service, at least, tried to gather responses from religious leaders, rather than have secular pundits opine about them. But that mechanical approach -- which tmatt likes to call post-Interview Journalism™ -- has weaknesses of its own.

It's not that RNS lacked effort. It compiled a long list of comments. A long, long list. Nearly 2,400 words, with 17 sources.

RNS also attempts some balance, backed up by numbers, as the top shows:

Some celebrated and congratulated the victor. Others prayed and called for unity. It was clear early on that evangelical Christians had been key to Donald Trump’s stunning upset.
Meanwhile, others including atheists and Muslims reacted in shock and vowed to defend against what one group termed “unconstitutional and undemocratic actions.”
According to exit polls, 81 percent of white evangelicals and born-again Christians cast their ballots for the reality TV star-turned-Republican presidential candidate.
It was a higher figure than voted for Mitt Romney (79 percent) in 2012, John McCain (73 percent) four years before that or George Bush (79 percent) in 2004.

From there, we get a smorgasbord of quotes. Here's a sample.


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Red counties and blue collars: As it turns out, folks in America's heartland still exist

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Help me out here, readers.

I have been traveling so much in the past few weeks that lots of things I have read and heard have merged into a kind of fever dream in my 60-something brain. Somewhere out there I saw an advertisement for a last-moment fundraiser by liberal comedians who described their program as "like the Blue Collar Comedy tour," only for "smart, moral people" -- or words to that effect.

Did I just dream that? It's a perfect statement of half of what happened last night and this morning. In the end, Hillary Clinton did not get enough votes from blue-collar Democrats and lots of other people who used to be in the old Democratic Party coalition that included the Midwest and large parts of the Bible Belt.

When I wrote my Election Day post about the religion and culture angles hidden in Tennessee's rural vs. urban divide, I didn't realize that I was, in effect, writing about the whole United States. Click here for a final NPR verdict on the numbers, with rural areas going 62-34 percent for Donald Trump and cities voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton to the tune of 59-35 percent.

City people are happy with America, just like London people were happy with life trends in the European Union. The people in depressed towns and smaller cities? Not so much. The 2016 election map, broken down by counties, is going to be Jesusland: The Sequel.

As the exit poll numbers roll out, we are going to find out all kinds of religion-angle things that we already knew.


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The Tennessean surveys a deep-red state: Might religion play big role in its political divides?

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So here I am in New York City on Election Day, typing away at my desk at The King's College near the corner of Broadway and Wall Street -- which means I'm about two blocks from a Trump tower in Lower Manhattan.

I imagine that things will get pretty wild in some corners of New York City tonight. However, my mind is very much on the past, present and future in the hills of East Tennessee. In other words, I'm thinking about politics and religious folks.

You see, East Tennessee is about as old-school Republican as you can get. Forget Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. East Tennessee's Republican roots go all the way back to the Civil War era (see this New York Times piece on "The Switzerland of America").

But there are at least two other Tennessees, symbolized by the other two stars on the flag. The hills are one thing, while Nashville and Memphis are radically different cultures.

Once upon a time, Tennessee voted for Bill Clinton. Soon after that, it turned its back on native son Al Gore. While the mountains are historically Republican, the political story in the rest of the state centers on the decline of old-guard Southern Democrats and the now dead Democratic Party coalition that included Bible Belt farmers and laborers, as well as urban elites.

Donald Trump will carry Tennessee with ease tonight, I imagine, but I have met very few old-school Republicans in the hills who are happy about that. I have, however, wondered about the deep-red tint of the rest of the state, other than blue patches in the big urban zones.

Thus, I read with great interest the Tennessean piece that ran with this headline: "Tennessee politics: State increasingly split along urban-rural lines." That headline tells you what editors in Nashville think.


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Painful think piece: Has the year of Donald Trump killed off traditional journalism?

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This weekend's think piece is not about religion-news reporting, at least not directly.

Rather, this Vanity Fair piece -- "Maybe the Right-Wing Media Isn’t Crazy, After All" -- is about the degree to which the loaded-dice political coverage of this year's White House race has pushed our elite media in a dangerous direction, towards open advocacy coverage in favor of Democrats and against Citizen Donald Trump, the sort-of Republican candidate.

It's crucial to note that the author of this piece is one Ken Stern, the former CEO of National Public Radio. This is not your normal wingnut critic of media bias. The thesis: Many elite newsrooms in mainstream journalism have become almost as unhinged as the alternative press on the right, making the latter -- tragically -- a more viable alternative source of news for millions of heartland Americans.

If that sounds familiar, it should. This essentially the point of view voiced -- over and over -- in the past decade or so by readers' representatives at The New York Times. At some point, the leaders of great Gray Lady simply started preaching to their choir, on many key subjects, and wrote off their responsibility to do accurate, balanced, respectful coverage of news and trends in much of America.

Yes, say hello to former Times editor Bill Keller and the doctrines of what your GetReligionistas call "Kellerism." This is where we make contact with many crucial stories in mainstream religion news, especially those related to marriage and sexuality.

Before I offer a slice or two of the Vanity Fair piece, let's flash back to "Is The New York Times A Liberal Newspaper" essay in 2004, written by readers' representative Daniel Okrent. He is focusing on how issues of morality, culture and religion are at the heart of most complaints about bias at the Times.

If you're examining the paper's coverage of these subjects from a perspective that is neither urban nor Northeastern nor culturally seen-it-all; if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide (devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans); if your value system wouldn't wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you're traveling in a strange and forbidding world.


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