Journalism

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What e-tithing means for the future of church giving in America might surprise you

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I wrote a post a week ago about a dude who likes to say "dude" a lot.

Speaking of which, a Bloomberg Businessweek feature out this week has a "How's it going, dude?" feel about it. That's not to say the piece about electronic giving isn't timely — and fascinating.

From the "skinny jeans" in the lede to the "Hell, yeah" quote at the end, this spritely, 645-word report is not your grandfather's religion trend story.

Then again, that's precisely the point, I guess.

The dude (sorry, couldn't resist) featured up high is a 25-year-old megachurch attendee named Dylan Ciamacco. The news peg is that Ciamacco reaches not for his wallet — but for his phone — when the collection plate is passed:

Ciamacco gives each week, using the Tithe.ly app. It takes fewer than five taps, and built-in geolocation means he can contribute at any of the 1,000 churches that subscribe—a feature that’s especially useful around holidays like Easter, when many people travel. Tithe.ly lets worshipers set up automatic recurring payments, but because Ciamacco’s paycheck fluctuates with his work as a freelance video producer, he tithes on demand—usually about 10 percent of whatever he’s brought in.

"E-tithing," of course, isn't a brand-new concept. I wrote about the trend for The Associated Press in 2003


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Same as it ever was: Is Donald Trump beating the pope and winning GOP 'Catholic' voters?

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The GOP establishment panic continues, with the political powers that be desperately working to kick their #NeverTrump campaign into a higher gear.

What remains interesting to me (click here for previous post), is the degree to which the stop-Donald Trump movement appears, in mainstream media coverage, to be totally secular -- as in this new Washington Post feature -- while the TV chatter on primary nights almost always involves talk about crucial groups of voters who are defined, in part, by religion.

Yes, I am talking about the old, old "Trump is winning the 'evangelical' vote" story that has been popular since the start of the White House campaign.

But there is more to this emerging religion-angle story than that. The other day, a prominent pack of 40 Catholic conservatives opened fire on Citizen Trump in a letter published by National Review. The Religion News Service story on this development reported:

Robert P. George, of Princeton University and George Weigel, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, headed the charge, and the appeal was also signed by opinion leaders from academia and religious media.
The letter denounces Trump for “vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and -- we do not hesitate to use the word -- demagoguery.” Worse, they wrote, he’s the opposite of what Catholics should seek in a leader.

Later in this piece there was some crucial information that would appear to link this "Catholic voter" issue with the gaping hole in much of the mainstream press of the "evangelical voters." Only this time around, Trump numbers are even larger.


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Altar boy John Kasich's journey from future 'pope' to presidential candidate to ... what exactly, religiously?

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In case you missed it in the fog of nonstop media coverage of Donald Trump, Ohio Gov. John Kasich remains in the Republican presidential race. 

For how much longer? Michigan voters will help answer that question today.

But for now, Kasich lingers in the GOP's "Final Four" — as he calls it.

The Washington Post has a in-depth story out this week on "The place where John Kasich went from being 'Pope' to consensus politician." Really, it's a fascinating piece and worth a read.

Yes, there are a few holy ghosts, and I'll get to those in a moment.

But let's start at the top of the story, which sets the scene nicely:

McKEES ROCKS, Pa. — As Johnny Kasich turned 17 years old, many of the strands of his sturdy, sheltered life seemed to be unraveling.
He felt bewildered as race riots tore apart Sto-Rox High School, with police and their dogs called in to keep the peace. He learned that a priest at his Catholic church, to whom he had given confession, was leaving to marry a parishioner. He faced the possibility of being drafted to serve in Vietnam. And wherever he looked, politicians seemed to be corrupt.
It all came to a head one night in January 1970, during Kasich’s senior year at Sto-Rox, as 400 students and parents met to hear complaints from blacks that they were being subjected to de facto segregation. Shortly after midnight, when a black leader demanded at least one African American teacher be hired, ugly epithets were hurled, tables overturned, and fistfights broke out.
Kasich, a scrawny kid who at that time was known for his lifelong desire to be a priest, decided he had had enough. Using speaking skills he had developed at church, he walked to the front of the school cafeteria, where the school board was trying to oust a black protester, and seized the microphone.
“This has got to stop,” Kasich said, according to the account of his friend David Cercone, now a federal judge. “We can’t be doing this, being at each other’s throats.”
This was the unlikely moment that Kasich’s childhood friends say they realized their pal Johnny was shedding his dreams of the priesthood and donning the cloak of politician. When they hear him today pleading for civility among his fellow Republican presidential candidates, friends say they recognize the words that he uttered as he came of age in this hardened city on the banks of the Ohio River.


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Did gunmen in Yemen kill the four Missionaries of Charity for any particular reason?

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So what would Pope Francis, stepping into a media-critic role for a moment, have to say about this BBC coverage of that slaughter at the retirement home in Yemen?

We don't know what he thinks about the BBC report in particular, but it is quite similar to the other mainstream news reports about this incident that I have seen. Please watch the BBC report (at the top of this post) or read this brief BBC summary, taken from the Internet.

The key question appears to be this: Did religion have anything to do with who died and who lived in this attack? To state the matter another way: Should these nuns be considered Christian "martyrs"? Here is the entire BBC summary:

Pope Francis has condemned a gun attack on a Catholic retirement home in southern Yemen which left 16 people dead.
Four nuns from the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, were among those killed.
Local officials in the port city of Aden are blaming the so-called Islamic State group, as David Campanale reports.

Actually, if you seek out the Catholic News Agency report about the attack you will find that Pope Francis did more than lament the attack itself. He is upset about the lack of coverage. Here is the top of the CNA story:

VATICAN CITY -- On Sunday Pope Francis lamented the world’s indifference to the recent killing of four Missionaries of Charity, calling them the ‘martyrs of today’ and asking that Bl. Mother Teresa intercede in bringing peace.


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A high-profile believer's 'amazing' cancer recovery: God is (not) in the details

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Frustrating.

That's how I'd describe the Dallas Morning News' Sunday front-page profile of Bekki Nill, wife of Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill.

Frustrating because the story comes so close — oh, so close — to explaining the role of faith in Nill's "amazing" cancer recovery. 

But ultimately, holy ghosts end up haunting the in-depth feature.

The first clues that religion is, or should be, a major angle in this story come right at the top:

In the nearly three years since she came to North Texas, Bekki Nill has seen two of her kids graduate from college, one get engaged and her husband's career flourish.
And she became a grandmother!
"Amazing things," she said.
Blessings, truly, and somewhat newsworthy because Bekki's husband is Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill, architect of one of this NHL season's most improved teams.
But more so because Bekki, 55, is nearing the fifth anniversary of being diagnosed with incurable cancer and told she had two months to live.
Would anyone blame her if she quietly focused on prolonging her life while privately cherishing these milestones? Instead, she openly discusses her cancer fight while becoming a guiding light within the Stars' organization -- and an inspiration to many outside of it.
"The way she lives her life probably allows me to do this," Jim said last Monday, mere hours after acquiring Calgary's Kris Russell before the NHL trade deadline. "She doesn't put herself first in anything, though she probably should at times."

It's impossible to read that opening and not suspect strongly that there's more at play here than a positive outlook on Bekki Nill's part. All the signposts point to Nill being a woman of faith. Strong faith. 


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No, they're not all alike: Associated Press explores evangelical divisions over Trump

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We've been drowning in articles Trumpeting (sorry, it just slipped out) the relationship between evangelicals and the Republican presidential front runner. An in-depth piece by religion-beat veteran Rachel Zoll stands out in the crowded collection.

The Associated Press' veteran religion writer carefully, intelligently lays out why some theologically conservative Christians vote for Donald Trump -- and some don't. Just as importantly, she consults insiders who know evangelicals beyond the usual stereotypes.

The article just lacks one important ingredient. See if you can guess it.

For now, here is how AP maps the field:

As Trump's ascendancy forces the GOP establishment to confront how it lost touch with so many conservative voters, top evangelicals are facing their own dark night, wondering what has drawn so many Christians to a twice-divorced, profane casino magnate with a muddled record on abortion and gay marriage.
John Stemberger, a Trump critic and head of the Florida Family Policy Council, an affiliate of Focus on the Family, said many evangelicals have changed. Litmus tests that for so long defined the boundaries for morally acceptable candidates seem to have been abandoned by many Christians this year, he said, no matter how much evangelical leaders try to uphold those standards.
"Evangelicals are looking at those issues less and less. They've just become too worldly, letting anger and frustration control them, as opposed to trusting in God," Stemberger said.

Too worldly?

Yikes, them's fightin' words for evangelicals.


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God, cancer, a videogame: Did WIRED dig deep enough into the facts of this mystery?

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I have had the following debate several times with editors over the past 40 years or so, while working on news features or columns about religious issues and the believers involved in them.

In terms of reaching mainstream readers, an audience that is both secular and religious, which of the following two methods is best?

When writing the final version of the piece, should you include lots of specific facts and information about the religious beliefs and practices of the people involved, for the simple reason that these details are crucial to their lives and, thus, the story?

Or maybe you need to turn that around. Should you write about their faith in a very general way, so that more readers have a chance to get involved in the story without baggage or prejudices? After all, saying that a story focuses on a circle of "evangelical" Christians will turn off people who are angered by that whole "evangelical" thing.

For many people, this is another version of the old debate between "spiritual" storytelling and "religion" news.

Let's look at a perfect example of this debate in practice. I'm interested in how readers react to the decisions that writer Jason Tanz and the editors at WIRED made while producing the absolutely wrenching feature story called "Playing for Time." The kicker for that headline: A father, a dying son, and the quest to build the most profound videogame ever."

Yes, once again we are dealing with another "theodicy" story that revolves around ultimate questions about God, pain, evil, sickness and death -- when bad things happen to good people. The people at the center of the story are videogame pro Ryan Green, his wife Amy and Josh Larson, the co-designer of the game called "That Dragon, Cancer."


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How would Stephen Curry answer this: What does The Stephen Curry Moment mean?

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If you are a sports fan and you are currently paying any attention to events on Planet Earth, then you know that we are in the middle of The Stephen Curry Moment.

How long will this last? What is the meaning of this drama, with the elite priests of the sports-journalism world trying to figure out What It All Means? Why is his excellence causing a national debate involving some of the legends of the game? What does it mean when The New York Times runs a long feature under this headline:

It’s Stephen Curry’s Game Now
The Warriors’ butterfly with a jump shot, Curry is changing how we understand basketball

The Times concludes that Curry is transcending his sport and represents an evolutionary breakthrough along the lines of a Babe Ruth or a Wayne Gretzky. The giant photo with the piece captures Curry at the release point of his perfect jumper, with his eyes focused on the target and the most deadly right wrist in sports -- complete with its large tattoo in Hebrew -- in perfect position.

What Hebrew tattoo? Ah, there is the part of the mystery that the Times team has no interest in pursuing. The tattoo (his wife has the same one, and has been studying Hebrew for several years) is an excerpt of 1 Corinthians 13:8 that translates to “love never fails.” It's a statement about their faith, their marriage and their family. Here is the wider context in that New Testament passage:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


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Think piece after crazy week: Two logical experts strive to define the term 'evangelical'

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Any short list of topics that your GetReligionistas have been harping about from Day 1 of this weblog, 12 years ago, would have to include the mainstream news media's struggles to understand the already vague term "evangelical" (and its more conservative cousin, "fundamentalist").

In other words, this whole "Donald Trump is an evangelical" and/or "Donald Trump is the savior of the evangelicals madness" is just a more intense version of a journalistic problem that has always been around.

Here at GetReligion, this is not our first rodeo. Take it away, Bobby Ross Jr.! Also, I have written three national, "On Religion" columns about this issue as well. The headlines on those pieces are as follows: "Define 'evangelical' -- please," "Define 'evangelical' -- again" and "Define 'evangelical' -- 2013 edition."

Anyway, the evangelical pros at Christianity Today ran a very timely essay the other day with a totally logical double-decker headline:

Defining Evangelicals in an Election Year
A new research method could help us get beyond political stereotypes.

This is a must-read think piece for this weekend, in part because it was written by a highly qualified duo, if you are looking for authoritative voices on this subject. The Rev. Leith Anderson is president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pollster Ed Stetzer is executive director of LifeWay Research in Nashville. Here is a key slice of this essay, containing the thesis:

... Who is an evangelical? Many pollsters and journalists assume that evangelicals are white, suburban, American, Southern, and Republican, when millions of self-identifying evangelicals fit none of these descriptions. ... We think there is a more coherent and consistent way to understand who evangelicals are -- one based on what evangelicals believe.


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