Evangelicals

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Plug-in: Dirty words enliven the week's religion news, and not for the first time

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Fasten your seatbelt, dear reader.

There’s cussing up ahead.

That’s right: R-rated language made it into the religion news. Again.

Before we cite the specifics, let’s consider this guidance from the Associated Press Stylebook — aka “the journalist’s bible” — on obscenities, profanities and vulgarities:

Do not use them in stories unless they are part of direct quotations and there is a compelling reason for them.

In this week’s examples, the words in question showed up in coverage of “Disloyal: A Memoir,” a new book by Michael Cohen, “President Trump’s longtime fixer,” as the Wall Street Journal described him.

The Journal reported:

Mr. Cohen describes the president as lacking either faith or piety and recounts him disparaging various groups, including his own supporters. In 2012, after meeting with religious leaders at Trump Tower, where they asked to “lay hands” on Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen recalls his asking: “Can you believe that bull****?…Can you believe people believe that bull****?”

Note: The asterisks were not used in the actual Journal news story.

The White House dismissed the book’s claims as “lies” by “a disgraced felon and disbarred lawyer.”

But whether the quote is fact or fiction, the notion of Trump uttering a profanity is not difficult to believe.

After all, the future president was caught on videotape delivering the famous “Grab-em-by-the-p****” line. And Politico wrote last year about Trump irritating evangelicals by “using the Lord’s name in vain.”

Perhaps more surprising — then again, maybe not given recent allegations — was the quote Reuters attributed to Becki Falwell. She is the wife of Jerry Falwell Jr., the prominent evangelical leader who recently resigned as president of Liberty University.

The book ties Falwell Jr.’s 2016 endorsement of Trump to Cohen “helping to keep racy ‘personal’ photographs of the Falwells from becoming public.”


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Rust Belt religion: Do political reporters get that Catholics are the key voters in 2020?

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“White evangelical Protestants,” “white evangelical Protestants,” “white evangelical Protestants.”

“Catholic voters,” “Catholic voters,” “Catholic voters.”

World without end, amen.

The closer we get to Election Day 2020, the more we are going to see these terms in the news.

The assumption is that the “Catholic vote” is especially crucial to Democrat Joe Biden, since he is a life-long Catholic who is seeking to become America’s second Catholic in the White House. Meanwhile, journalists continue to be obsessed with President Donald Trump’s popularity among white evangelical Protestants, who played such a crucial role in his rise during the GOP primaries in 2015.

However, if you look at the swing states that put Trump in office, it was clear that Rust Belt Catholics — blue-collar Catholics in particular — were crucial voters four years ago.

During the past couple of years, our own Richard Ostling has been stressing that political-beat reporters really need to get over the whole “white evangelicals” thing and accept that, as is so often the case, Catholic voters will be the key swing voters this time around.

If readers and scribes need more input on that point, please consider this recent Pittsburgh Post-Gazette think piece by Mark J. Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. The blunt headline: “Catholics, not evangelicals, will make or break Trump.” Here is a crucial chunk of that essay:

In 2016, Mr. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — states with heavy concentrations of Catholic voters — by merely 107,000 votes combined. Although since the 1980s the U.S. national vote and the Catholic vote component have tracked very closely to each other in each election cycle, 2016 was an exception: Hillary Clinton handily won the national popular vote and Mr. Trump won the majority of Catholic voters. Exit polls had Mr. Trump holding a 52%-to-45% edge among Catholics.

Two critical things happened that helped Mr. Trump: his populist economic appeals to white working class voters in those key states, and the widely predicted “Latino surge” never materialized.


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Thinking with Ryan Burge: What REALLY happens after people get 'born again'?

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I didn’t know it at the time, but it was one of those moments when America changed.

Well, that isn’t true. America didn’t change on this particular night early in Jimmy Carter’s campaign for the Democratic Party nomination to seek the presidency. It was a moment when American journalism changed, when lots of reporters in East and West Coast media centers were forced to wrestle with the term “born-again Christian” for the first time.

The number of born-again Christians in American didn’t change, just because a major political figure applied the term to his own status as a believer. But this term — rooted in church history and doctrine — moved into a political context, which meant that it became a real thing for many journalists.

I’ve told this story before, but it’s relevant once again — because of a fascinating new think piece by political scientist Ryan Burge, a GetReligion contributor, about what happens (and what rarely happens) after a person claims to have been born again.

Hold that thought, while we head back to 1975.

… I'll never forget the night when an anchor at ABC News — faced with Democrat Jimmy Carter talking about his born-again Christian faith — solemnly looked into the camera and told viewers that ABC News was investigating this phenomenon (born-again Christians) and would have a report in a future newscast.

What percentage of the American population uses the term "born again" to describe their faith? Somewhere between 40 and 60 percent back then? I mean, Carter wasn't telling America that he was part of an obscure sect, even though many journalists were freaked out by this words — due to simple ignorance (or perhaps bias).

Actually, the percentage was almost certainly 40% in that era and I was wrong to assume that it had ever been higher.

Nevertheless, 40% is not a small chunk of the population and many of those believers are found among the 20% of Americans who consistently practice their religious faith in daily life. We know that because, for decades, the Gallup organization has been asking “born-again” and “evangelical” questions in its polling research.


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Global COVID-19 parables: What responsibility do faith groups have to the larger society?

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I’m a great fan of a magical sense of awe, that heightened state of awareness during which the transcendent feels most palpable. However, I am decidedly not a fan of magical thinking that denies the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.

I consider the latter delusional at best. The pandemic will not end because some — particularly those in positions of authority — wish it away. It can only be tamed, I believe, by limiting its spread until medical researchers develop a dependable vaccine or cure.

Until then, our responsibility as members of a highly interdependent society is to protect ourselves and each other via responsible social distancing and by always wearing a mask when adequate distancing is impossible. Anything less, in my book — speaking as someone who due to age and preexisting medical conditions is at great risk — is selfish and irresponsible.

Nor do I care whether the deniers are bikers in South Dakota, frat boys on any number of university campuses who can’t resist a keg or political libertarians who insist that their individual choices are at least as, if not more, important than the communal good in a national health emergency.

Ditto for the most sincerely devout of fatalistic religious believers who think their faith will protect them and their co-religionists. Or who insist that government — any secular government — lacks the authority to limit their religious expression in any way.

My news feeds have been replete with such examples. Here are three that have particularly aroused my pique. I consider each a clear example of self-aggrandizing, potentially deadly religious entitlement.

One story is from Israel and concerns a group of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews who have insisted on making their annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to a Ukrainian city where their deceased spiritual leader is buried. This, despite the probability that they’re likely to bring the pandemic with them.

A second from, South Korea, tells the tale of a megachurch that found itself at the center of a coronavirus cluster, which it blames on misleading figures released by government opponents.

The third involves the Rev. John MacArthur of Los Angeles’ Grace Community Church, who recently claimed that the number of American COVID-19 deaths is way below the generally accepted figures reported by mainstream news outlets. MacArthur claimed that there is no pandemic.


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Tips of the trade: How to cover religion news, even if this is not your regular beat

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The National Press Club, like others, is well aware that reporting staffs are shrinking. Thus, full-time religion-beat specialists are considered even more a luxury than usual.

Savvy newspapers will make sure someone cultivates the field at least part-time, as far as feasible. However, managers in too many news shops even neglect that necessity. Magazines are iffy. Radio and TV are even worse off. The Internet is a zoo.

What should writers do when they’re thrown into coverage about religion, which they may know little about -- and perhaps care little about even though sizable chunks of their audiences do care? Some guidance for such drop-ins and greenhorns might also provide good reminders for religion-beat specialists who will share shop talk September 24-25 at the Religion News Association conference (virtually this year). The RNA also posts a wealth of tips and resources on trending topics here at its ReligionLink website.

Religion can be pitfall hell, so The Guy’s No. 1 point is rather obvious, which is to make absolutely certain everything you write is accurate.

Don’t just assume what we think everybody knows. Articles often say the Catholic Church forbids priests to marry. Truth is, Catholicism forbids “most priests” to marry and in “most situations.” But what about the Eastern Rite clergy? Or men who swim the Tiber from Anglicanism?

Or take the respected columnist who stated confidently that whatever the Bible may teach on male homosexuality it says nothing about lesbianism. With a quick phone call or email check, almost any cleric would have cited Romans 1:26 and avoided an embarrassing correction.

The press club’s Journalism Institute helps out with advice from an interview with Elizabeth Dias, a full-time religion correspondent with The New York Times. (The video at the top of this post is a speech on related issues, drawn from her days at Time magazine — where The Guy worked for many years.)

Dias stresses the importance of simply “listening and asking open questions” with sources because the topic at hand “may be the most important part of their lives.” She explains that “religion at its heart is about people, not just ideas” so she spends more time talking with folk than “reading social media commentary.” On the latter point, The Guy would underscore the value of meaty books and articles about the issue at hand. Too much reportage is thinly informed.


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What next for Liberty University? Press should watch future campus worship services

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What next for Liberty University? Press should watch future campus worship services

Liberty University's decision to close its philosophy department didn't make big headlines in May 2020, at least not when compared with the its coronavirus policies and the latest comments from President Jerry Falwell, Jr.

After all, liberal arts programs were shrinking while Liberty's online education programs prospered, along with job-friendly undergraduate degrees. Christian colleges everywhere are wrestling with similar issues.

But the philosophy department was symbolic because it once was crucial to "what made Liberty unique" -- an emphasis on blending faith with core academic disciplines, said Karen Swallow Prior, who taught there for 20 years. This summer she moved to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., to teach English literature, as well as Christianity and culture.

"That department was top notch and produced students who went straight to the Ivy League and had great success," she said. "Philosophy was larger when I first got there, and it was clear this discipline was seen as part of Liberty's mission. Then things started changing."

Now, Liberty leaders are wrestling with the undeniable impact Falwell Jr. had as president, after the 2007 death of his father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell. Facing years of red ink, the founder's heir soon pushed for $500 million in campus updates and expansions, along with profitable online programs. The university now has 15,000 on-campus students and roughly 100,000 online. Liberty claims an endowment of $1.6 billion.

At the same time, Falwell Jr. developed a swashbuckling style that caused heat, especially when linked to race, guns, jets, politics, yachts and his specialty -- real estate. Controversies about his de facto partnership with President Donald Trump thrilled many Liberty donors, alumni, parents and students, while deeply troubling others.

Many Christian college presidents are super-pastors who provide ties that bind to denominations, churches and networks of believers. Falwell Jr. -- a lawyer -- turned into a dynamic entrepreneur who courted powerful conservative politicos.

On regular Christian campuses, there "are higher expectations for presidents than members of the faculty, and members of the faculty live with greater expectations than students," noted religious-liberty activist David French, writing at The Dispatch.

"Liberty flipped this script. The president lived life with greater freedom than his students or his faculty. The message sent was distinctly unbiblical -- that some Christian leaders can discard integrity provided their other qualifications, from family name to fund-raising prowess, provided sufficient additional benefit."

All of this led to a soap-opera collapse, after flashes of risqué social media


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What is 'biblicism'? A mere academic term or something that affects the news?

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THE QUESTION:

What is “biblicism”?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

This question is the title of an article this month on Patheos.com by Michael Bird, an Anglican priest who teaches theology at Australia’s Ridley College and is also a visiting professor at Houston Baptist University.

More on Bird in a bit, but first let’s lay some groundwork for the discussion and why it is newsworthy..

The dictionary definition of biblicism is adherence to a literal interpretation of the Bible. Merriam-Webster dates the first known use of this term to 1805. Note that this was a century before the rise of the literal-minded U.S. Protestant movement called “fundamentalism,” named after “The Fundamentals” of the faith, a series of conservative ecumenical booklets on the Bible and doctrine published from 1910 to 1915.

Literal interpretation is bound up with the belief that the entire Word of God is free from error. This was the first of the so-called “five points of fundamentalism” that originated as “essential” Christian beliefs defined by a U.S. Presbyterian General Assembly in 1910.

People sometimes distort literal interpretation. There’s a useful explanation in the “Chicago Statement” issued by 300 Protestants at a 1978 meeting of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. They stated that God used each human writer’s cultural milieu in inspiring the Scriptures, and that while “history must be treated as history,” Christians should also treat “poetry as poetry, hyperbole and metaphor as hyperbole and metaphor, generalization and approximation as what they are.”

That working principle, of course, does not settle all debates. Classic examples involve the creation of the world, which begins the Book of Genesis. Did the famous six “days” of the process last 24 hours, as some literalists contend, or are the “days” poetic or symbolic references to vast phases of time? Is the account meant to be historical and did the events occur in this precise order? On the discussions rage, frequently affecting public debates and, thus, news.

The “fundamentalist” label often carries negative connotations and should not be applied to people who reject and resent that label. Similarly, the conservative folks at gotquestions.org say, “biblicism” and “biblicist” are sometimes applied to cast aspersions against literalists.


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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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It's more 'Dog Bites Man' as religion-haunted 2020 campaign lurches into the fall

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It's more 'Dog Bites Man' as religion-haunted 2020 campaign lurches into the fall

GetReligion regulars will know that “Man Bites Dog” is news and “Dog Bites Man” is not.

This hoary journalism incantation came to mind at the close of the Democratic National Convention when 353 clergy and lay believers announced that they “choose hope over fear” and will mobilize religious voters so the Biden-Harris ticket can “lead us in restoring our nation’s values.”

Reporters will assess this for themselves, but to The Guy the Trump-biting endorsers of “Faith2020” (contact 657–333– 5391) look pretty much as predictable as the religious lineup boosting Trump-Pence. Faith2020 draws hallelujahs from former presidential nominee Al Gore, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Signers include workers for past Democratic candidates, abortion choice, LGBTQ concerns and various liberal causes.

In other words, it’s a familiar Religious Left all-star team.

Signer Jack Moline co-chaired Rabbis for Obama and is president of the Interfaith Alliance, founded in 1994 to counter the “Religious Right.” Despite continual hopes, building a politically potent Religious Left has proven elusive in an era when the big news (calling scholar John C. Green) is the emergence of non-religious Americans as a massive chunk of the Democrats’ constituency.

One sort-of surprise endorser is John Phelan, former president of the Evangelical Covenant Church’s North Park Theological Seminary. He joins alongside Faith2020 Executive Director Adam Phillips, whose former Portland, Oregon, church was forced out of that denomination in 2015 over LGBTQ inclusion in church leadership.

Other Faith2020 names of note: Frederick Davie (Faith2020 chair and executive vice president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary), David Beckman (former president of Bread for the World), Amos Brown (Kamala Harris’s San Francisco Baptist pastor), Amy Butler (removed last year as pastor of New York’s prominent Riverside Church), Joshua DuBois (who ran President Barack Obama’s “Faith-Based” partnerships office), Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (retired general secretary of the Reformed Church in America), Gene Robinson (whose elevation as a partnered gay bishop further split the global Anglican Communion), Brian McLaren (godfather of the “emerging church” movement), Talib Shareef (D.C. imam who leads what’s called “The Nation’s Mosque”), Ron Sider (Evangelicals for Social Action chair and Hillary Clinton endorser) and Simran Jeet Singh (Sikh chaplain at New York University).


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