Godbeat

, , , , , , ,

What should college grads, and high school grads, know about world religions?

, , , , , , ,
What should college grads, and high school grads, know about world religions?

THE QUESTION:

What should U.S. college graduates, and high school graduates, know about religion?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

A Gallup poll for the Bible Literacy Project 15 years ago found only about a third of U.S. teen-agers knew about Islam’s holy month of Ramadan or that the Quran is the religion’s holy book. The youths generally did better on Christian questions, though only a third could identify the significance of the “road to Damascus” and a tenth couldn’t say what Easter is.

The Religion Guy guesses that, if anything, teens in 2019 would do worse, due to the increase of religiously unaffiliated “nones” in the younger generation. Meanwhile, religious illiteracy becomes a more important problem for cohesion and understanding among the American people as diversity reaches beyond the Protestant-Catholic-Jew triad of times past.

Concerned about this, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations (established by the late industrialist, a Congregational preacher’s kid) sought help from the American Academy of Religion, a professional association of some 8,000 college-level religion teachers. The result was a three-year study that concluded Oct. 3 with the release of “AAR Religious Literacy Guidelines: What U.S. College Graduates Need to Understand about Religion.” Click here for the .pdf document.

What we do not get in this AAR booklet is answers to the question The Guy poses above, what information people should know by the time they have earned a two-year or a four-year degree. That’s not surprising, given the complexity of the field of religion.

Instead, we’re informed on what grads need to “understand.” Two major points from the AAR team are that religion is central for every human culture that has ever existed, and that therefore people need to have a good grasp of reliable, non-sectarian information in this field. It distinguishes academic study of religion, which is “descriptive,” from the “prescriptive” education that people receive from their faith groups.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Obituary of powerful Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland haunted by religion ghosts

, , , , , ,

There’s sad, sad news today in the world of politics: the death of powerful Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland.

The Associated Press obituary — which will be the one many thousands of Americans read — captures key highlights of Cummings’ prominent life.

Yes, those highlights include clashing with President Donald Trump:

BALTIMORE (AP) — Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a sharecropper’s son who rose to become a civil rights champion and the chairman of one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, died Thursday of complications from longstanding health problems. He was 68.

Cummings was a formidable orator who advocated for the poor in his black-majority district , which encompasses a large portion of Baltimore and more well-to-do suburbs.

As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings led investigations of the president’s government dealings, including probes in 2019 relating to Trump’s family members serving in the White House.

But read the full AP report, and it’s clear that something is missing.

Holy ghosts, anyone?

AP offers hints of a potential religious influence in Cummings’ life, including here:

It steeled Cummings to prove that counselor wrong. He became not only a lawyer, but one of the most powerful orators in the statehouse, where he entered office in 1983. He rose to become the first black House speaker pro tem. He would begin his comments slowly, developing his theme and raising the emotional heat until it became like a sermon from the pulpit.

Hmmmmm. Why might Cummings’ oratory have resembled a sermon?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Solid story out of Israel with a king-sized hole left for journalists to fill

, , , , , , ,
Solid story out of Israel with a king-sized hole left for journalists to fill

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) officially announced details Oct. 6 on a major archaeological project in northern Israel south of Haifa near present-day Harish. The inland En Esur site has remains of a town that covered 160 acres, indicating that an estimated 6,000 residents lived there in the Early Bronze Age 5,000 years ago.

This remarkably early date for such a large settlement is an unprecedented find not only within Israel but for the entire region. Without later technological developments, that’s about as big as a municipality could have been. Not only that. The archaeologists found another settlement lying underneath En Esur that dates back 7,000 years. These towns were strategically located along an ancient trade route and with access to fresh-water springs.

The IAA team reports that the Bronze Age settlement demonstrates careful urban planning, with streets, drainage and public spaces that included a notable temple with a sizable basin that contains burned animal bones signaling ritual sacrifices, a town square, storage facilities and a mausoleum. There are many figurines, showing artistic culture and a possible religious purpose. Tools on the site are identified as Egyptian. Huge stone blocks for construction were somehow hauled from a quarry a half-mile away.

The site has long been known, but was only excavated in earnest starting in 2017 by a team led by Itai Elad, Yitzhak Paz and Dina Shalem. Work was funded by Netivei Israel, the transport infrastructure firm that is building a highway interchange at the site. Some 5,000 students volunteered to help with the massive archaeological dig.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Pondering how to cover religion news for readers in the 'nones' generation

, , , ,

Here at GetReligion we write a lot about how the news media wrestle — successfully and otherwise, but mostly otherwise — with religion stories that have public policy consequences. That makes sense since these stories constitute the bulk of what religion reporters produce. They dominate because they’re far and away the easiest for journalists to make sense of.

Reporters spend far less time tackling religion’s deeper, less linear realms. Including, how we make sense of our lives. 

For traditional believers, religion is key to extracting sufficient meaning from life to keep its bewildering complexity and insecurity from rendering us dysfunctional. For religion journalists, historically that’s meant concentrating on the minutia of faith group wrangling over the day’s public issues. 

Comprehend the jargon, restate it in more universally understood language, organize it in dramatic fashion, and — voila — you’ve mastered the formula of successful religion journalism.

But as with so much about contemporary journalism, that was then and this is now — the hallmark of which is radical change.

A dominate trend in today’s America, and the West in general, is the move away from traditional religious expression. I’m referring, of course, to the growing cohort of the religiously disengaged “nones,” who by some estimates now account for a fourth of all Americans and 35 percent of those under age 30. Click here for the Pew Forum research on that.

A hefty percentage of these people have tired of public policy religion stories, so many of which seem to defy resolution year after year, decade after decade. Religiously disengaged, they have no interest in hearing about the ongoing squabbles of groups they feel have nothing to offer them.

Now combine that with the growing trend in journalism away from what we like to call the historical American model of fact-based, balanced, “objective” reporting. And remember that it’s replacement is opinion and expository writing.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

GetReligion drinking game: Trends, demographics and Ryan Burge's newsy charts

, , , , , , ,

It’s been a while since we had a good GetReligion drinking game.

So here’s the rule for this one: You take a drinking of an adult beverage whenever a GetReligion post mentions demographics, birth rates or, what the heck, “81 percent.”

These discussions may increase in the future, because a very interesting progressive Baptist fellow, who is also a political scientist, has said that it is fine with him if your GetReligionistas reproduce some of this fascinating charts that focus on religion, politics and, often, religion and politics.

The main thing is that these charts often point to valid news stories. Here at GetReligion, we like that. Here’s a large chunk of a recent “On Religion” column that focused on this scholar’s work. This is long, but essential:

Earlier this year, political scientist Ryan P. Burge of Eastern Illinois University dug into the 2018 General Social Survey, crunched some data and then took to Twitter to note that Americans with ties to no particular religious tradition were now about 23% of the population. That percentage is slightly higher than evangelical Protestantism and almost exactly the same as Roman Catholicism.

"At that point my phone went crazy and I started hearing from everyone" in the mainstream media, said Burge, who is co-founder of the Religion In Public weblog. "All of a sudden it was time to talk about the 'nones' all over again."

Burge recently started another hot discussion on Twitter with some GSS statistics showing trends among believers — young and old — in several crucial flocks.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , ,

Media 'break out the pitchforks' after Pompeo's speech on 'Being a Christian Leader'

, , ,

In a recent speech, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo predicted that “some people in the media will break out the pitchforks when they hear that I ask God for direction in my work.”

Was he right?

Well, Pompeo certainly was correct that his speech to the American Association of Christian Counselors would draw some media coverage — and not necessarily positive coverage.

Let’s consider USA Today’s story, headlined “State Department website promotes Mike Pompeo speech on 'Being a Christian Leader.’”

Before we get to the nuts-and-bolts of that report, a bit of quick, crucial background: First, as I reported in an April 2018 Religion News Service story during Pompeo’s confirmation proceedings, he is a former deacon and Sunday school teacher for an Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Kansas. He made headlines earlier this year when he liked President Donald Trump, his boss, to the biblical queen Esther. And his invitation-only briefing with faith-based media caused a stir that we discussed here at GetReligion.

So Pompeo’s evangelical Christian faith isn’t exactly breaking news.

But back to this latest headline: Here’s the top of USA Today’s story:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Try telling this NBA player's story without mentioning his faith? Actually, The Ringer did

, , , ,

God talk silenced on the sports page?

No, it’s nothing new.

But still, it can be jarring. Especially when a journalist attempts to profile an athlete for whom faith is a crucial part of his story — without ever, you know, mentioning his faith.

Such is the case with The Ringer’s recent feature on Jrue Holiday of the New Orleans Pelicans.

For those familiar with Holiday, the story’s compelling opening seems to hint at the holy ghosts that become clear by the end:

If you ever need to borrow $25,000, Jrue Holiday is your man. It’s a running joke between his wife, Lauren, a retired midfielder for the United States women’s national team, and her former teammates: If they were in a pinch—say, a quarter-of-a-hundred-grand kind of pinch—they’d just ask her husband. Holiday wants to help, always. Help you, help me, help his teammates on the Pelicans. He’d say yes in a heartbeat, the joke goes. Holiday is the mom of his friend group, the hype man for his family. “The supportive one,” Lauren said. A $25,000 loan is a bit hyperbolic, sure. At least, I’m assuming it is. That’s the joke. This is the point: Jrue, I’m told, will always come through. It’s his campaign slogan, should he ever run for office. But that’s the other thing about Holiday, the thing that assures me he’d never want to run for any office of any kind: Jrue Holiday does not want this—does not want anything—to be about Jrue Holiday.

“I like to assist people,” he told me in his backyard by the pool. It was August and 87 degrees in Santa Rosa Valley, California, where the Holidays spend the offseason. He leaned back into the patio chair, squinted at the sun, and smirked. “That was a pun. But no, I like to assist people.” Holiday is a starting combo guard for the New Orleans Pelicans. His game is often described in terms of what he does for others. Lobs and dimes, help defense and spacing, deflections and blocks. Assistance is where Holiday earns a living. And for the past six years, superstar Anthony Davis was his main beneficiary.

The Ringer touts Holiday as “the NBA’s Best-Kept Secret.”

The reader who shared the link with GetReligion wondered, though, how The Ringer managed to keep Holiday’s Christian faith a secret.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

After a tragic shooting, a prayer at a Chick-fil-A in Nebraska draws a GetReligion reader's interest

, , , , ,

Matters of faith and Chick-fil-A — the popular fast-food chicken chain that closes on Sundays — often make their way into the news, as GetReligion readers know.

On Tuesday, a tragic shooting occurred at a Chick-fil-A in Lincoln, Neb.

Really, it’s a local story, not one that we’d normally give national attention.

But a reader contacted us about it because of a key religion detail that she noticed. The detail impressed her as out of whack. In other words, a case of the secular press not getting religion.

Hey, that’s why we’re here!

I’ll explain more in a moment. But first, here’s the top of the Lincoln Journal Star’s front-page story on the shooting:

A disgruntled customer who was escorted out of a Chick-fil-A restaurant in south Lincoln on Tuesday afternoon and then drove his pickup into the building, was shot and killed by a railroad officer, Lincoln Police said.

Officers were called to the restaurant at 6810 S. 27th St. shortly after 1 p.m. on an initial report that a vehicle had driven into the business, police said at an afternoon news conference.

On their arrival, police found the uniformed BNSF Railway senior special agent performing CPR on the suspect, who customers and employees described as a balding, middle-aged man dressed in black.

He died of injuries at the scene. Police are expected to release his name Wednesday.

According to witnesses, the man had begun to act erratically inside the restaurant just as the lunch rush began to slow.

Thomas Arias was working behind the counter when the 15-year-old heard a commotion in the dining room, looked over and saw a customer flipping tables and throwing food.

“He was yelling, ‘It’s just a f---ing sandwich.’”

Keep reading, and the newspaper offers more crucial facts about the frightening episode.

It’s this portion of the initial story posted online, however, that drew the attention of the reader who contacted us:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , ,

Reporters delve into Dallas judge giving Amber Guyger a Bible and urging her to read John 3:16

, , , ,

The judge did what?

I posted last week about the “hug seen around the world” — that of 18-year-old Brandt Jean embracing the ex-police officer convicted of murdering his older brother, Botham Jean.

But I acknowledged surprise about the other stunning development in that Dallas courtroom.

I wrote:

I wonder if there’ll be a letter in the mail soon from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. And honestly, I’d love to hear from legal and constitutional experts on that exchange. It’s fascinating to me.

That letter came quickly, and so did a number of news stories delving into whether what the judge did was appropriate.

Before I get to those stories, I’ll jump ahead and note that The Associated Press has a must-read interview with the judge herself that was published today.

My biggest takeaway from the AP story: The judge’s actions didn’t come in a vacuum. As Judge Tammy Kemp explains it, she opened up about her Christianity and gave Amber Guyger a Bible only when the convicted murderer herself discussed questions of faith and forgiveness.

From AP:


Please respect our Commenting Policy