LGBTQ

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Not enough questions asked about bisexual student's ouster from Lutheran worship team

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December is a season where Lutherans shine: Advent hymns on Lutheran Public Radio, Julfests and St. Lucia Day celebrations on Dec. 13.

None of this Ikea “winter holidays” stuff. Lutherans who stick with their traditions know how to keep watch until Christmas.

And so, in keeping with this solemn and thoughtful season, we have a piece from the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press about a bisexual student at Concordia University. When it comes to journalism issues, this story also includes a very crucial hole in the reporting.

A student at Concordia University in St. Paul is demanding protections for gays and lesbians after she said her relationship with another woman cost her a leadership role with a prominent student-led worship group.
Nikki Hagan, 19, of Woodbury said the student president of Concordia's 908 student ministry asked her to resign her informal post as the group's message coordinator soon after she posted on Facebook in November that she is bisexual and dating a woman.
"He asked me if I knew what the stance of the (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) church is against homosexuality," Hagan, a second-year student, said Friday.


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Crucial religion info still missing in updates on holiday wars at University of Tennessee

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We have some interesting news here in East Tennessee about the University of Tennessee holiday wars. I call them "holiday wars," as opposed to "Christmas wars," because it appears to be very hard to fight Christmas here in the valley framed by the Cumberland and Great Smoky Mountains.

As I mentioned the other day, UT's Office for Diversity and Inclusion posted very specific guidelines on how to make sure that official "holiday" party held on campus did not turn into, as the memo put it, a "Christmas party in disguise." The memo also instructed UT folks to use "non-denominational" holiday cards and said those attending holiday parties "should not play games with religious and cultural themes -- for example, 'Dreidel' or 'Secret Santa.' "

The news is that the memo that ticked off Tennessee Republicans -- the dominant party here in the hills -- is gone. Also, the diversity office's leader, Vice Chancellor Rickey Hall, now has a UT communications officer screening his website. The new memo -- text here -- contains zero instructions about how to edit Christmas out of campus parties. Here is a large chunk of the "new" memo, which apparently is a memo that was used in the past:

Recognizing a wide variety of cultures and beliefs, we should note that people choose to celebrate in different ways and on varying days of the year.
While there are many joyous occasions and special opportunities to gather, employee participation in any celebration should always be voluntary. While it is inevitable that differences will appear in how people celebrate, everyone is encouraged to have an open mind and to approach every situation with sensitivity.

Alas, there are all kinds of facts we still don't know about this drama, almost all of them linked to religion.


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Washington Post visits the enemy's camp: Oh those wild, dangerous Ben Carson voters

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If you read journals of political news and opinion, then you are very familiar with a feature-story format that I like to call "visiting the house (or camp) of the enemy." What kind of advocacy publication are we talking about? Let's say the old New Republic or Rolling Stone, on the left, or The Weekly Standard or National Review on the right.

In this story, a reporter -- acting like a National Geographic staffer -- visits a strange and exotic type of person and tries to describe them and their tribe in their natural habitat, talking about their strange and maybe scary customs and beliefs.

A key element of this format is that they rarely include the voices of people on the other side of controversial issues that are discussed. The members of the exotic tribe talk and talk and talk and there is never really a response.

Why is this? Because the reporter is the representative of the opposing side and everything the members of the enemy tribe say is being filtered through the worldview of their opponents, framed in ways that make the words extra threatening or ridiculous. You are reading the Rolling Stone version of a gathering of pro-life activists or The Weekly Standard version of a gathering of postmodern gender-studies scholars.

Let me stress that I know this format well because I read, and appreciate, these kinds of publications. When you read In These Times you are reading a liberal point of view that is so strong that it often makes the left uncomfortable. Ditto for World magazine on the right. I appreciate this kind of journalism.

The question for today is this: What is this format doing in The Washington Post?

With these issues in mind, let's look at a few passages from a classic "visiting the house of the enemy" feature that ran under the headline: "Fear, faith and the rise of Ben Carson." Let's start with the lede, which takes a member of the Post national enterprise team deep into the wilds of the Bible Belt:


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A homeless man, Tony Romo and 'a flashing neon sign from God'

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Hungry for some leftover turkey?

Actually, this story from the Houston Chronicle is a Thanksgiving feast — an absolute delight from the newspaper's holiday front page last Thursday.

It's an amazing profile of a formerly homeless man who is now "paying and praying it forward," as the Chronicle describes it.

Let's start at the top with a longer-than-normal chunk of the story. I apologize for the length, but this superb intro sets the scene for the entire piece:

Bobby Depper slips his arm through the straps of a backpack. Then another. And another, until five are piled on his back like a stack of pancakes. It’s a 30-minute walk to the train station, then a 35-minute ride to north Houston. Depper doesn’t fidget with the bags or sit down on the empty train. He just grabs a handrail and waits for his work to begin.
Off the train, Depper bounds toward a strip of grass between a Wal-Mart and a parking lot, where a group of men sit on the ground beneath a cluster of trees. This is how he spends his days: searching for homeless people, giving them backpacks and, if they’re willing, treating them to meals. He has given away hundreds of backpacks in the last several months. Demand never dwindles.
Depper remembers when he needed a backpack.
Five years ago, he slept beneath a pile of newspapers in a Dumpster behind a Dallas restaurant, his clothes and medicine water-logged.
“I was just so angry, and I said, if (God) is real, I guess I’ll shout out at him. If he’s real, I guess he’ll hear me now,” Depper recalls. When he woke the next morning, he couldn’t see out of his right eye. He crawled out of the garbage and asked the restaurant’s valet for spare change so he could catch a bus to the hospital. Depper was an addict at the time, so parts of the morning are hazy. But he says he’ll never forget what happened next. A man stepped out of a car in the valet line.
“He said not to give me any change, and I thought, ‘How could anyone say that?’” Depper recalls. “But then I turned around and he was handing me a $100 bill.”
The man was Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who asked Depper to “pay it forward.”
Romo remembers giving the $100 bill to Depper. It’s the kind of thing the quarterback does sometimes, though Cowboys spokesman Rich Dalrymple said Romo “isn’t really comfortable talking about it publicly.”
It was a quiet act for Romo. But for Depper, it was a flashing neon sign from God.


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Back to mocking Tim Tebow: Clickbait update you didn't know that you needed

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Fans of stories about sports and religion (and sex, I guess) this is your lucky day.

The tabloid stars at The New York Daily News have managed to cram what may be a record number of bad puns and petty shots into a new report on the alleged end of the rumored dating relationship between Tim Tebow and former Miss USA.

There are, however, two pieces of serious information that you will not find in this designed for clickbait report. Hold that thought.

Let's start with the obligatory snark attack headline:

Tim Tebow still can’t find the end zone as girlfriend Olivia Culpo breaks it off over lack of sex

And into the story itself. Can you predict the potential family-newspaper-level puns for this sports and religion report?

For once, it's not Tim Tebow who's having trouble scoring -- it's his girlfriend.
Confidenti@l is told the QB's model squeeze Olivia Culpo has dumped him after a two-month relationship -- because he won't have sex with her. The former Miss USA, who was first reported to be seeing Tebow in early October, has told friends that she can't deal with the famously abstinent star's nookie-less lifestyle.


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Hey New York Times editors: Why ignore hellish details in story of Ugandan marytrs?

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The questions for this morning are rather simple: (a) Who were the Ugandan martyrs, (b) why were they killed and (c) why are they so symbolic for millions of Christians in the growing churches of Africa?

These questions are especially important, since Pope Francis has just visited Uganda to mark the 50th anniversary of the canonization of the Catholics among the 45 believers who -- with Anglican martyrs, as well -- were tortured, beheaded, hacked to death and burned on the orders of King Mwanga II in the late 1800s.

Why did this happen? What does it have to do with the rapid growth, and the beliefs, of the church in modern Africa?

Quite a few mainstream news organizations -- The New York Times in particular -- were vague, silent or inaccurate when dealing with the answers to some of these questions. But let's start with a report from CBS and the Associated Press that included the essential details.

NAMUGONGO, Uganda -- Pope Francis on Saturday honored the Ugandan Christians who were burned alive rather than renounce their faith a century ago, urging today's Catholics to follow in their missionary zeal and spread the faith at home and abroad.
A somber Francis prayed at shrines dedicated to the 23 Anglican and 22 Catholic martyrs who were killed between 1885 and 1887 on the orders of a local king trying to thwart the influence of Christianity in his central Ugandan kingdom. According to historians, the Christians were also killed because they refused the king's sexual advances, citing the church's opposition to homosexuality.

This report also touched on the fact that the sexual politics of Africa remain strikingly complex and even tragic, as believers here wrestle with a web of colonial-era and tribal beliefs and customs, with the constant pressure of Islam on many borders.


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What's the faith background of the Episcopal Church's new leader?

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What's the faith background of the Episcopal Church's new leader?

AN EPISCOPALIAN ASKS:

Can you tell us something more about the presiding bishop of our [Episcopal] Church? I’ve heard only upbeat things about him from people who have met and heard him. Will he be a Marco Rubio -- a very effective speaker who can connect with people?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Perhaps so. Here’s some information about the personable Michael Bruce Curry, 62, who was installed this month as the new presiding bishop of America’s troubled Episcopal Church. Some U.S. denominations lack such a solo head while the Episcopalians grant their chief unusually centralized power and, moreover, his term runs till 2024.

The questioner’s pitch for Republican Rubio brings to mind Hillary Clinton’s 2016 hope to become the nation’s first woman president following its first African-American president. The Episcopalians have done the opposite. Curry, the first African-American to head this rather elite and overwhelmingly white church, succeeds its first female presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Jefferts Schori was a surprise choice in 2006 because she never led a prominent parish or diocese. She spent only five years as bishop of Nevada (currently with 5,444 souls). By contrast, Curry has 15 years of seasoning as bishop of the Raleigh-based North Carolina diocese, the nation’s sixth largest with 50,218 active members.

Rather like Barack Obama’s notable keynote speech to the Democrats’ 2004 convention that helped win the 2008 nomination, Curry delivered a rousing sermon at the church’s 2012 convention and was elected presiding bishop at the next one.


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USA Today plays it straight: Star running back who is headed to the Catholic priesthood

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I had a sense of dread -- two of them, come to think of it, if that's possible -- as I started reading this USA Today story about Division III football star Jordan Roberts and his journey into the Catholic priesthood.

On one level I was afraid that the story would simply be too cute. You know: Future priest runs to glory and all that, like a bad version of "Rudy."

The flip side of that would have been to label on the snark, either about the church itself or the quality of football being played at this level. No, honest. A writer could have pulled that off. This school is so minor league that even a man in a collar can run the ball off tackle.

Instead, this turned into one of the most moving God-and-gridiron pieces I have read in quite a long time. I especially like the fact that the story started in church, rather than on the playing field.

ST. PAUL -- Sundays are sacred at the St. John Vianney Seminary, a plain five-story red-brick building across a grassy quad from the main chapel at the University of St. Thomas. It is the only day Jordan Roberts and 133 brother seminarians studying to be Roman Catholic priests may wear priestly garb for Mass -- black cassocks with the white Roman collar.
Rising at 6 a.m., they begin their day with Holy Hour prayer and morning Mass. They end it with a rosary and lights out at 9:30 p.m. Last Sunday, seminary officials permitted Roberts a brief leave in late afternoon to join another fraternal group -- his St. Thomas football teammates -- to watch the NCAA Division III playoff selection show. Roberts is the Tommies' top rusher and scorer.

There are all kinds of interesting details, starting with the fact that Roberts converted to Catholicism as a young man.


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Daily Beast approaches satire territory when 'reviewing' Carson's congregation

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Tina Brown, who founded The Daily Beast, will readily admit the news site’s name is an homage to Evelyn Waugh’s novel “Scoop,” in which the newspaper tub-thumping for war was called “The Beast.”

But Brown’s website approached satire not only in its name when it sent a reporter to poke around a congregation with which this writer is intimately familiar, the Spencerville Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland. In its report, Brown’s reporter demonstrated a breathtaking lack of basic knowledge about religion -- certainly about Christianity -- or even what people do when they go to worship services these days. Click here to read that story.

Disclosure: I’ve been a member at Spencerville since 2003, have attended weekly worship there, and still am on the rolls, not having yet transferred my records to a local Adventist congregation in Utah.

Oh, some fellow named Dr. Ben Carson is a member there, along with his family. You might have heard about his connections to the Seventh-day Adventist faith.

It’s not unusual for the press to poke around the church of a presidential candidate’s choice, especially if that church is either little-known or perhaps controversial. In 2008, Trinity United Church of Christ was put under a media microscope not only because Barack Obama was a member there. but also because the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor, had issued many sermons that were, shall we say, a bit caustic about America and its role in the world. Four years later, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a media-led “Mormon Moment” when Mitt Romney, a lifelong member, returned missionary and former bishop, ran for the presidency.

Now it’s Adventism’s turn.


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