Godbeat

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ryan Burge on unique coronavirus fears in pews of America's aging 'mainline' churches

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Anyone who has worked in a newsroom knows that journalists often have to study the equation 1+1+X=3 and then find the missing X factor that produces “what comes next.”

What am I talking about? Journalists look at one set of facts in the news. Then they study another set of facts that we tend to take for granted or that we have pushed onto the news back burner. When you pay attention to where the two sets of facts overlap — #BOOM — you can see potential headlines.

Right now, the coronavirus crisis is creating all kinds of overlapping sets of facts and many are life-and-death matters. This is shaping the headlines and this trend will only increase.

However, after all of the COVID-19 stories I’ve read in the past week (while 66-year-old me has faced my usual spring sinus woes), none has hit me harder than a Religion News Service essay — “Why mainline Protestants might fear COVID-19 the most” — by political scientist Ryan Burge (also a contributor here at GetReligion). It’s crucial that he is also the Rev. Ryan Burge. He teaches at Eastern Illinois University, but he also a minister in the American Baptist Churches USA. Here is the overture:

I walked through the doors of First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois, a congregation that I’ve pastored for the last 13 years, and shook hands with the 91-year-old greeter. Afterward, she said to me, “I didn’t know if we should shake hands today.”

I hadn’t even thought about it, but I know that she had.

COVID-19 has now infected more than 100,000 people, killing 4,000 of them across the globe. But, one of the real curiosities is that the mortality rate is dramatically different based on age. The disease takes the life of nearly 15% of the people that it infects over the age of 80.

I find that to be incredibly cruel, especially for my mainline church that has been dwindling in size and increasing in age at a stunning rate. Of our 20 or so active members, four of them are over the age of 90. Another 10 are in their 80s. If COVID-19 becomes a true global pandemic, my church would likely not fare well.


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

Hot tip: Here's almost everything you ever wanted to know about every religion everywhere

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The third edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia, just published, boasts accurately of being “the most comprehensive attempt to quantify adherents of Christianity and other world religions.”

The 998 pages are packed not only with such statistics but overview articles and then descriptions about every religion and 45,000 denominations of Christianity as found within each of the world’s 234 nations and territories. This monumental project is the work of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Yes, this is a missionary-minded evangelical Protestant school, but the center's research is widely acknowledged as objective and authoritative. (The center planned a related conference on world religions March 30-April 1 that looks interesting and has just postponed it until September due to The Virus.)

The 40-member encyclopedia team drew upon the 1982 and 2001 editions in a 50-year project now led by the center’s Todd Johnson and Gina Zurlo. The latter is also a fellow at Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs. Zurlo (gzurlo@gordonconwell.edu) can help media reviewers obtain access to a full electronic text of the encyclopedia on a “personal use only” basis.

This volume obviously belongs in any serious library, including those at media companies, despite the $215.95 price.

More immediately, there are breaking news articles here for the taking that will be enhanced by maps, charts and graphs by your art department. Here’s a sampling of research findings.

* The encyclopedia’s major theme is that “Global South” nations are the population center of Christianity after long dominance by Europe and North America. Veteran religion writers are generally aware of this shift, but consider the particulars.


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

During times of panic and plague, priests take risks to do the work they are called to do

, , , , , , , , , ,
During times of panic and plague, priests take risks to do the work they are called to do

The second wave of influenza in the fall of 1918 was the worst yet and, by the time Father Nicola Yanney reached Wichita, Kansas, a citywide quarantine was in effect.

A 16-year-old girl had already died, creating a sense of panic. The missionary priest -- his territory reached from Missouri to Colorado and from Oklahoma to North Dakota -- couldn't even hold her funeral in the city's new Orthodox sanctuary. As he traveled back to his home church in Kearney, Neb., he kept anointing the sick, hearing confessions and taking Holy Communion to those stricken by the infamous "Spanish flu."

After days of door-to-door ministry in the snow, Yanney collapsed and called his sons to his bedside. Struggling to breathe, he whispered: "Keep your hands and your heart clean." He was one of an estimated 50 million victims worldwide.

A century later, many Orthodox Christians in America -- especially those of Syrian and Lebanese descent -- believe Yanney should be recognized as a saint. And now, as churches face fears unleashed by the coronavirus, many details of his final days of his ministry are highly symbolic.

"Father Nicola got the flu because he insisted on ministering to people who had the flu," said Father Andrew Stephen Damick, creator of "The Equal of Martyrdom," an audio documentary about the man known as "The Apostle to the Plains."

"For priests, there are risks. But you cannot turn away when people are suffering and they need the sacraments of the church. You go to your people and minister to them. This is what priests do."

Few acts in ministry are as intimate as a priest huddled with a seriously ill believer, hearing what could be his or her final confession of sins.


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

'Soothing sounds meet church liturgy' -- AP needed more facts about 'sound bath' prayers

, , , , , , , , ,

There are few liturgical rites used in the global Anglican Communion that are more beautiful then the service known as “Compline,” “Vespers,” “Evensong” or simply “Evening Prayer.” Similar services are common in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

The blending of music, prayers and biblical texts in the Compline rites at Magdalen College, Oxford, are world famous. The historic Trinity Episcopal Church on Wall Street offers a variety of Evening Prayer rites, including its well-known Sunday evening “Compline by Candlelight” service.

Worshipers who attend these rites are used to hearing texts such as this one from Psalm 74: “Yours is the day, O God, yours also the night; you established the moon and the sun. You fixed all the boundaries of the
earth; you made both summer and winter.” Psalm 141 includes this poetic image: “Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice."

As believers move from the trials of daily life into the evening hours, these rites almost always include some kind of confession of sins, such as this “Book of Common Prayer” text:

“Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.”

According to a long, fascinating Associated Press report — which combines text and video — something rather different is taking place in an Episcopal sanctuary in Park Slope, one of New York City’s trendy neighborhoods.

Readers are given quite a bit of information about some of the contents of an evening prayer rite at this parish. At the same, readers learn next to nothing — other than a few strategic hints — about what has been edited out of this liturgy or added to it. Both halves of that equation could be news. Let’s start with the overture:

NEW YORK (AP) — Meditation and immersion in soothing sounds meet church liturgy at All Saints Episcopal Church in Brooklyn. The combination takes on stress — and self-examination. Welcome to sound bath Evensong.

The first time Alexis Dixon attended a sound bath Evensong at the church, she cried.


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

Plug-In: Mickey Mouse + Harry Potter + Joe Biden = fantastic ledes in world of religion news

, , , , , , ,
Plug-In: Mickey Mouse + Harry Potter + Joe Biden = fantastic ledes in world of religion news

The best news stories start with a fantastic lede.

For those unfamiliar with journalistic lingo, the lede is “the opening sentence or paragraph of a news article, summarizing the most important aspects of the story.”

Every year, Poynter Institute writing guru Roy Peter Clark recognizes the Pulitzer Prize winner with the best lead (as he spells it). Yes, there’s a whole debate over which spelling is best.

Clark argues that even some of the stories that earn journalism’s most prestigious honor provide “evidence that we have lost the art of the great news lead.”

But this week, I came across two ledes in the world of religion that I really enjoyed. I can’t resist sharing them.

The first comes via the Orlando Sentinel’s Chabeli Carrazana:

For the better part of two decades, Orlando’s holiest theme park has hung on from its perch on Interstate-4, a struggling David among Orlando’s Goliaths: Mickey Mouse and Harry Potter.

Now it seems it’s time to concede defeat. The news came earlier this year: The Crucifixion is canceled. So is the resurrection and all the other stage shows portraying stories of the Bible, which play out five days a week at Orlando’s Holy Land Experience, a part biblical museum, part ministry that has withstood 19 years of financial trouble.

The second was penned by Politico’s Ryan Lizza:


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

Do it yourself tradition: Many Millennials are creating individualistic versions of Lent

, , , , , , , , ,

Headline writers love short words.

If you were a copy-desk pro, which of the following two terms would you prefer to use in a bold one-column headline when describing one of the biggest and most complex trends in American religion today (hello omnipresent Pew Research Center folks)?

Would you prefer to call people linked to this trend “religiously unaffiliated Americans” or “nones”?

You see my point, right?

Now, one of the problems associated with the term “nones” is that many people seem to think that this word means that these Americans have no religious beliefs.

That’s inaccurate and misses the main point, which is that the “religiously unaffiliated” are just that — people who have cut their ties of affiliation to organized religious groups. Instead of religious traditions, they have their own personal approaches to religion and ultimate issues. Does the term “Sheilaism” mean anything to you? It should. It’s a term linked to the work of the late sociologist Robert Bellah, author of the landmark book, “Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life.”

This brings us back to the season of Lent and to this weekend’s think piece, care of The Lily website operated by The Washington Post. The key is that large numbers of Millennials, many of them “nones,” have not given up on Lent. Instead, they have — this is America — created their own versions of the season, using the “give up one thing” motif as an opportunity to express themselves. Here is a key section of this breezy feature:

Millennials are leaving religion in greater numbers than ever before, but they are more likely to observe Lent than baby boomers, according to 2014 research from Barna Group, an evangelical Christian polling group. Twenty percent of millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) responded that they were planning to fast, compared with 10 percent of boomers (those born between 1957 and 1964).


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

Ryan Burge on nondenominationalism: This is a strategic piece in many news puzzles

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Since the opening of this site nearly 17 years ago, I have argued — over and over — that the demographic collapse of oldline Protestantism is one of the most important religion-beat stories of our age.

Why? Well, to cite only one factor out of many: It’s hard to imagine evangelicalism playing the huge role that it plays in today’s public square without the decline of the old mainline world’s power and even, to some degree, its prestige. I know that the old “Seven Sisters” of the mainline world still have cultural clout, especially in newsrooms. You can ask Mayor Pete Buttigieg about that.

GetReligion contributor Ryan Burge of Religion in Public has also done some fascinating work looking at data in the mainline world. But the goal of this post is to point journalists and readers to some of his emerging work on another complicated and powerful factor in the American religion marketplace — the swift rise of radically independent, nondenominational churches. Many of these churches are huge it would be totally wrong to believe that this is merely a white evangelical phenomenon.

In a way, the nondenominational churches play a key role in several major stories. One would be the small, but import, decline in Southern Baptist Convention membership totals. Consider this piece of a Religion in Public blog post on that topic:

Are there differences in theological orientation?

The General Social Survey asks respondents about their view of the Bible and offers three choices: the Bible is the word of God and should be taken literally, the Bible is the inspired word of God but should not be taken literally, and the Bible is an ancient book of fables recorded by men. It’s interesting to note that nondenominational Christians stand about halfway between evangelical and mainline Christianity on matters of the Bible. While 44% of nondenominationals think that the Bible is literally true, 16% more of Southern Baptists espouse literalism, while about 16% less of United Methodists are theologically conservative.


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

Podcast: Stop and think. How will coronavirus affect nurseries, worship and last rites?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

At this point, it’s clear that the coronavirus story has moved past concerns about whether members of ancient Christian churches can catch the disease from wine in golden Communion chalices.

People will debate that issue for one simple reason — people have researched that issue for centuries and argued about the results. That story is the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to reporting on how religious congregations — past and present — have reacted during times of plague.

So read up on the “common cup” issue and then move on. Oh, and resist the temptation to spotlight the inevitable proclamation from the Rev. Pat Robertson. And there will be more to this story than Episcopal bishops turning a scheduled meeting into a “virtual” gathering.

That’s the message at the heart of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). And while many journalists tend to focus on Catholic churches — lots of people in sanctuaries that photograph well — I think that editors and producers need to consider how this crisis could impact highly independent Protestant megachurches and institutions linked to them. Mosques and synagogues will be affected.

Everyone will be effected. Reporters will need to focus on specific facts and broad trends.

While we were recording the podcast, I told host Todd Wilken that journalists may want to note that spring break is not that far away. In addition to sending legions of young people to jammed beaches and crazy watering holes, this is also a time when churches and colleges organize short-term mission trips to locations around the world. Sure enough, I saw this notice on Twitter a few hours later, from a campus in Arkansas:


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

Autism and Communion: Textbook social-media clash between parents, press and church

, , , , , , , , ,

Every now and then I get an email from a GetReligion reader who has, for all practical purposes, researched and written a perfect news-critique post for this blog.

It’s especially interesting when the email comes from someone who — in a perfect world — would make an ideal source for mainstream coverage of the very issue that he or she is concerned about.

So that’s what happened the other day when I received a note from Father Matthew Schneider, who writes at a blog called Through Catholic Lenses. He is also known, on Twitter, as @AutisticPriest — a fact that is relevant, in this case.

That is, the fact that Father Schneider is autistic is relevant because he has a natural concern for people facing autism and related challenges, which has led him to dig into church law and teachings on that topic.

This matters when facing a USA Today headline such as this one: “Boy with autism denied First Communion at Catholic church: 'That is discrimination,' mom says.”

What we have here is a perfect, 5-star example of a clash between parents — backed with press reports — and church officials who seem to think they have lots of time (In the social-media age? #DUH!) to figure out faithful responses to complex liturgical issues. It also helps, of course, when reporters fail to use search engines and plug into logical sources about Catholic teachings and even Canon Law.

Anyway, here is the overture to this story, which is long, but essential:

MANALAPAN, N.J. — Nicole and Jimmy LaCugna both grew up with a strong Catholic faith. Each attended religious education as children, married in a Catholic church and sent their first son, Nicholas, through a faith-based pre-K program.

So when their second son, 8-year-old Anthony, reached second grade last fall, he was on track to receive his first Holy Communion in April.

But just days ago, the couple learned Anthony would not be allowed to receive the sacrament at St. Aloysius in Jackson, New Jersey, the church the family has attended for years.


Please respect our Commenting Policy