LGBTQ

, , , ,

Apple's Tim Cook has an interesting faith background, but the New York Times didn't find it

, , , ,

Some folks in the media seem so disgusted with organized religion, they anoint their own moral leaders.

Which is what happened in this New York Times story about Apple’s Tim Cook and his call for moral responsibility. If you read the entire piece, you’ll see there’s not one mention of any religious background for this man.

Turns out he very much has a faith background, starting with his childhood in the Bible Belt. So why was it not mentioned?

First, the story, which builds up to a strategic use of the word "moral."

AUSTIN, Tex. -- “The reality is that government, for a long period of time, has for whatever set of reasons become less functional and isn’t working at the speed that it once was. And so it does fall, I think, not just on business but on all other areas of society to step up.”
That was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, across the table from me over breakfast here in downtown Austin late last week at the end of a mini-tour across the country during which he focused on topics usually reserved for politicians: manufacturing, jobs and education.

The piece goes on to record his criticisms of President Donald Trump. Then:

And now Mr. Cook is one of the many business leaders in the country who appear to be filling the void, using his platform at Apple to wade into larger social issues that typically fell beyond the mandate of executives in past generations.
He said he had never set out to do so, but he feels he has been thrust into the role as virtually every large American company has had to stake out a domestic policy.

Then the writer steps in.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

On the Nashville Statement, one national newspaper offers less slanted coverage than another

, , , , , ,

If you — like me — have been focused on news related to Harvey victims, you might have missed the headlines concerning a statement on sexuality released by evangelical leaders who convened in Nashville, Tenn., last week.

James A. Smith Sr., vice president of communications for the National Religious Broadcasters, alerted me to the news.

Smith criticized the Washington Post's coverage of the news, calling that national newspaper's story "very biased."

Certainly, the Post's headline presents the news with a negative bent:

Evangelicals’ ‘Nashville Statement’ denouncing same-sex marriage is rebuked by city’s mayor

Compare that headline with the more neutral one offered by USA Today:

More than 150 evangelical religious leaders sign 'Christian manifesto' on human sexuality

The Post's lede:

A coalition of evangelical leaders released a “Christian manifesto” Tuesday asserting their belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and condemning the acceptance of “homosexual immorality or transgenderism.”
The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood outlined the views in what it called “The Nashville Statement,” and offered it as guidance to churches on how to address issues of sexuality. A group of evangelical leaders, scholars and pastors endorsed the statement Friday at a conference in Nashville. It was initially endorsed by more than 150 people.


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

Religion News Service offers readers one half of the 'Why did God smite Houston?' story

, , , , , , , , , ,

I got a telephone call yesterday from an Anglican who has had lots of experience dealing with mainstream reporters in the past decade or two. He may or may not call himself an "evangelical," because he's an intellectual who uses theological terms with great precision.

This priest had an interesting question, one linked to press coverage of Donald Trump, but actually quite bigger than that. The question: Are American journalists intentionally trying to avoid discussions of the complex divisions inside evangelical Protestantism?

Yes, what punched his frustration button was the "80-plus percent of white evangelicals just love Trump" mantra in press coverage. That ignores the painful four-way split among evangelicals caused by the Hillary Clinton vs. The Donald showdown. That would be (1) evangelicals who do love Trump no matter what, (2) those who cast agonizing votes for him as a last resort, (3) those who went third party and (4) those on the left who voted for Clinton.

Now, he said, there is another option between (2) and (3). There are evangelicals who voted for Trump and now regret it. Call them the President Pence in 2017 camp.

However, when one looks at elite media coverage, it seems that no one (other than a few Godbeat pros) realize that the evangelical world is not a monolith.

Want to see another example of this syndrome? Check out the Religion News Service story with this headline: "Where are the condemnations of Harvey as God’s punishment?" Here is the overture:

(RNS) When Superstorm Sandy hit the New York metropolitan area in 2012, the floodwaters in Lower Manhattan were still rising when some pastors pointed out what, to them, was obvious.
“God is systematically destroying America,” the Rev. John McTernan, a conservative Christian pastor who runs a ministry called USA Prophecy, said in a post-Sandy blog entry that has since been removed. The reason God was so peeved, he claimed, was “the homosexual agenda.”
McTernan belongs to a subset of religious conservatives -- including some well-known names -- who see wrath and retribution in natural disasters. Usually, their logic revolves around LGBT themes. ...

Yes, friends and neighbors, we are headed into Pat Robertson territory again.


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

The Atlantic comes oh so close to examining the painful Trump divide among evangelicals today

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

Yes, I am using the Master and Commander weevils video clip, once again.

Why? I still think if offers a cheerful take on the bitter, agonizing, real-life decisions that many religious conservatives have had to make while coping with the rise of Donald Trump.

I bring this up because of a new essay in The Atlantic that, for a moment, I thought was going to dig into the mainstream-press obsession with the 80 percent of white evangelicals "just love" Trump thing. Of course, if you have been reading evangelical publications over the last year or so -- such as World and (here we go again) Christianity Today -- you know the reality is more complex than that.

The Atlantic headline, on another must-read essay by Emma Green, proclaims: "Evangelicals Are Bitterly Split Over Advising Trump."

The hole in the story is suggested in the headline. This piece is really about the behind-the-scenes debates about the work of Trump's evangelical advisory group. Yes, evangelicals are debating the wisdom of old-guard evangelicals standing up for this president, no matter what he says or does. But the larger issue is that many evangelicals, including many who voted for the man, remain divided over whether he is qualified to be president or to remain as president.

So why are Jerry Falwell, Jr., and the Rev. Robert Jeffress doing that thing that they do? These two Christian conservatives, and others, are given a chance to say what they have to say. Then there is this crucial summary:


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

Spotting a religion ghost in New York Times water-cooler zinger on non-Trump GOP options

, , , , , , , , , , ,

This had to be last weekend's chatter-producing headline in the tense territory defined by the DC Beltway. If you missed it, the New York Times proclaimed: "Republican Shadow Campaign for 2020 Takes Shape as Trump Doubts Grow."

Let me stress that this story was produced by the political desk, with zero visible contributions from a religion-beat professional. I would argue that this shaped the contents of the story in a negative way, creating a big faith-shaped hole. Thus, this is a classic example of a news story that's haunted by a religion ghost. We say "boo" to that, as always.

The key to the story is the chaos and political dirt that follows President Donald Trump around like the cloud that hovers over the Peanuts character named Pig-Pen. During the campaign, this led some Republicans to openly discuss running a third-party candidate against Trump. Others stressed that they were not voting for Trump, but against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Thus, the story opens like this:

 

WASHINGTON -- Senators Tom Cotton and Ben Sasse have already been to Iowa this year, Gov. John Kasich is eyeing a return visit to New Hampshire, and Mike Pence’s schedule is so full of political events that Republicans joke that he is acting more like a second-term vice president hoping to clear the field than a No. 2 sworn in a little over six months ago.
President Trump’s first term is ostensibly just warming up, but luminaries in his own party have begun what amounts to a shadow campaign for 2020 -- as if the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue weren’t involved.
The would-be candidates are cultivating some of the party’s most prominent donors, courting conservative interest groups and carefully enhancing their profiles.

Now, there are multiple parallel universes lurking in phrases like the "party's most prominent donors" and "conservative interest groups." Some of the powers hidden in those words are secular. Some of them are linked to groups defined, primarily, by moral, cultural and religious interests.

But let's start with one simple question: If you were looking for the most vocal supporters of Sasse and Cotton, where would you start?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , ,

Hillary Clinton wants to preach, and The Atlantic omits, yep, some really obvious context

, , , , , ,

Love her or loathe her -- there are millions of people willing to line up behind each option -- former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic Party candidate for President Hillary Rodham Clinton is a person of strong beliefs.

One of those, if media reports are to be accepted at face value, is that she's a dedicated person of faith who might want to step onto a platform and declare her spiritual viewpoint. A church platform. Behind a pulpit. As a United Methodist lay preacher, perhaps.

In other words, as The Atlantic notes in an analysis piece, "Hillary Wants to Preach."

Noting that Clinton is planning a campaign memoir for a fall release, the magazine/website adds that she approved -- and wrote the foreword for -- a book of devotionals sent to her on the campaign trail:

Hillary Clinton wants to preach. That’s what she told Bill Shillady, her longtime pastor, at a recent photo shoot for his new book about the daily devotionals he sent her during the 2016 campaign. Scattered bits of reporting suggest that ministry has always been a secret dream of the two-time presidential candidate: Last fall, the former Newsweek editor Kenneth Woodward revealed that Clinton told him in 1994 that she thought “all the time” about becoming an ordained Methodist minister. She asked him not to write about it, though: “It will make me seem much too pious.” The incident perfectly captures Clinton’s long campaign to modulate -- and sometimes obscure -- expressions of her faith.

The rest of this article is long on historical analysis but short on issues-focused context. We learn, for example, about her upbringing as a progressive Methodist teen-ager:

Hillary Rodham grew up attending First United Methodist Church in the conservative suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois, often taking field trips into Chicago with her youth pastor to see figures like Martin Luther King Jr. While other girls were flipping through beauty mags, she was reading about Vietnam and poverty in a now-defunct magazine for Methodist students called motive. (The title was always styled with a lower-case m.)

So we go on, and on, and on about Clinton's faith and its sometimes halting expression in the political realm.


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

Those dueling New York Times editorials (one in news) on Catholics, evangelicals and U.S. politics

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

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes in Catholic cyberspace in recent weeks has, I am sure, dipped a toe or two into the oceans of ink poured out in commentary about the recent La Civiltà Cattolica essay that ran with the headline, "Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism: A Surprising Ecumenism."

First, note the title's trailblazing work in the field of subtle labeling in public discourse about religion.

We are not talking about mere "evangelicals" or "fundamentalists." In this case we are talking about "evangelical fundamentalism," which would be fundamentalists who preach their fundamentalism with an evangelical zeal?

Anyway, key is that the authors -- universally hailed as allies of Pope Francis -- have taken to the pages of a "Vatican-vetted publication" in an attempt to link decades of high-profile public contacts between culturally, and doctrinally, conservative Protestants and Catholics (as well as Jews, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, etc.) with the painful political chaos surrounding the rise of President Donald Trump. The goal of all those contacts in the past, it appears, was an American theocracy backed with Sharia law, only defended with quotes from the Catholic Catechism and the works of St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

Apparently it took some time for The New York Times to ramp up a doctrinal response to all of this for circulation at the highest levels of mainstream journalism.

The result is some fascinating editorial writing, in the form of a new Times column by Catholic conservative Ross Douthat ("The Vatican’s America Problem") and, the same day, an alleged news story straight from the world of hushed, anonymous conversations in the hidden corners of Rome.

Let's keep this as short as possible, starting with the overture in the "news" piece: "A Vatican Shot Across the Bow for Hard-Line U.S. Catholics."

VATICAN CITY -- Two close associates of Pope Francis have accused American Catholic ultraconservatives of making an alliance of “hate” with evangelical Christians to back President Trump, further alienating a group already out of the Vatican’s good graces.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , ,

What ever happened to that Presbyterian church that split over gay clergy? Paper offers half the answer

, , ,

The Kansas City Star tries hard — really hard — to tell an inspiring story about a Presbyterian church that split.

The problem: The facts make the positive spin a little difficult to compute.

Basically, turmoil engulfed a congregation affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). When the national denomination approved ordaining gay clergy, a big chunk of an Overland Park, Kan., congregation decided to join a more conservative denomination. Members voted 350-100 for the switch, according to the Star.

But the change to the new denomination — A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO) — sparked a legal fight:

Heartland Presbytery, the regional body that represents Presbyterian Church USA, filed a lawsuit in Johnson County District Court against the 350 disaffiliated members. Heartland argued that Presbyterian Church USA owned the church, its pews, its Bibles and all other property. But the ECO faction believed the church and its contents belonged to the congregation, the entity that holds title to the building.
Based on Kansas’ adherence to denominational rules, the judge found that Heartland Presbytery, represented by the remaining 100 members, was the true owner of the church property.
The division and the lawsuit created a perfect storm between the two groups that caused about 600 people to leave the church entirely.

These kind of legal fights are, of course, not limited to Presbyterians. Just today, a major ruling in a case involving Episcopal churches was issued in South Carolina. Look for GetReligion analysis of media coverage there soon.

But back to the Star: What is the news angle?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , ,

Hate groups, far-right conservatives and other labels: Can we guess why journalists rely on certain terms?

, , ,

Readers of a certain age no doubt recall commercials for "Libby's! Libby's! Libby's!"

Today, though, I want to talk about "Labels! Labels! Labels!"

Before I refer to the label that caught my attention while reading my morning newspapers, let's play the mirror image game made famous (and perhaps trademarked) by our own tmatt: When was the last time you saw a mainstream news report refer to, say, a gay-rights organization as a "far-left liberal group?"

Not recently?

OK, let's ask the question in reverse: When was the last time you saw an organization that stands for traditional religious beliefs characterized — in a mainstream news report — as a "far-right conservative group?"

If you, like me, subscribe to the Dallas Morning News, you don't have to go back too far. This is a sentence at the end of the Dallas paper's story today on oil and gas companies opposing Texas' proposed bathroom bill:

The bill's supporters say they want to protect the privacy of women and girls in intimate spaces. It has the support of far-right conservative groups like the Texas Pastors Council and Texas Values.

My question when reading that label: What makes those groups "far-right" conservatives? Why not simply describe them as conservative groups (assuming a label is required at all)? What does the "far-right" add?

Is the paper intentionally trying to cast the groups as extremists?

The Texas Pastor Council (I believe that's the correct name of the organization without the plural "Pastors") says on its Twitter profile that it "is the only culturally and politically active organization from a Biblically-grounded perspective." I'm not sure that's the best wording I've ever seen, but what is "far-right" about it? 

On its Twitter profile, Texas Values says it is "dedicated to preserving and advancing faith, family, and freedom in the great state of Texas." Again, I ask: What is "far-right" about that?


Please respect our Commenting Policy