Lutherans

Boy Scouts push trans button: So in which pulpits and pews are people celebrating?

So the Boy Scouts have made another move to dance with the Sexual Revolution, opening the doors to transgender boys.

As you would expect, there are all kinds of religion angles to this important culture-wars story. As you would expect, the New York Times led with words of praise from "critics of the organization who for years have called for more inclusive membership rules." The story also understands that, while some people celebrated the decision, others were grieving.

The twist in this particular Times report -- "Conservatives Alienated by Boy Scouts’ Shift on Transgender Policy" -- was that the story focused almost exclusively on the voices of the losers, thus missing a key element of where this story may be headed in the future.

Yes, you read that right -- the Times pretty much ignored the views -- religious and cultural -- of key leaders on the victorious Religious Left. Maybe that angle will get ink in future coverage? Here is a crucial piece of background material, which follows extensive comments from the Rev. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention:

Whether the new rules would lead to an influx of transgender scouts seemed uncertain. Besides one highly publicized case of a transgender boy being excluded from a New Jersey Scouting unit, there had been limited attention on the issue before this week. Boy Scouts officials declined to be interviewed, and would not comment on how many youths the decision might affect.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Boy Scouts said it was “no longer sufficient” to rely on a birth certificate to determine gender. “The B.S.A. is committed to identifying program options that will help us truly serve the whole family,” said the spokeswoman, Effie Delimarkos, adding that those efforts would remain “true to our core values, outlined in the Scout Oath and Law.”
For many years, the Boy Scouts have found themselves facing conflicting forces on issues of sexuality and inclusion. The Scouts contended with a pattern of declining membership, canceled corporate donations and public criticism over the group’s restrictions on gay youths before easing those rules in 2013. And the move this week to allow transgender youths was hailed by some as a positive, overdue step toward equality.

So the Southern Baptists -- a major player in terms of churches hosting Scouting programs -- are disappointed and this latest BSA policy shift may push more religious conservatives toward the exit door (to alternative programs such as Trail Life USA.

But who are the other major players, on the religion side of this debate?


Please respect our Commenting Policy

Oh no, not again: AP fails to ask school 'covenant' question in LGBTQ teacher case

I know. I know.

Trust me, I know that your GetReligionistas keep making the same point over and over when digging into mainstream news coverage of LGBTQ teachers (or people in other staff positions) who, after making public declarations of their beliefs on sex and marriage, lose their jobs in doctrinally defined private schools.

We keep making the point over and over because it's a crucial question when covering these stories. When are reporters and editors going to start asking the crucial question?

The question, of course, is this: Had the person who was fired voluntarily signed an employee lifestyle (or doctrinal) covenant in which they promised to support (or at least not openly oppose) the teachings at the heart of the religious school's work?

So here we go again, this time in an Associated Press report -- as printed at Crux -- about another conflict in Charlotte:

A gay teacher sued a Roman Catholic school on Wednesday for firing him after he announced his wedding to a man, the latest in a series of legal fights over anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people.
The lawsuit argues Charlotte Catholic High School violated federal employment law by firing Lonnie Billard from a substitute teaching role in 2014 after a Facebook post about his wedding. While the lawsuit doesn’t invoke state law, it comes amid protracted litigation over a North Carolina law limiting protections for LGBT people.
Billard taught English and drama full time at the school for more than a decade, earning its Teacher of the Year award in 2012. He then transitioned to a role as a regular substitute teacher, typically working more than a dozen weeks per year, according to the lawsuit.

Let me stress, as always, that journalists do not have to agree with a religious school's doctrines -- in this case Catholic -- in order to accurately cover these stories. You just have to realize that many if not most private schools, both liberal and conservative, have these kinds of covenants defending the faith that they claim to represent in their work.


Please respect our Commenting Policy

Part II: New Year’s observations on matters religion writers will want to be watching

Let's continue with some of the themes we were discussing in the previous Religion Guy Memo, in which I offered some predictions on what kinds of news items and trends religion-beat specialists will want to anticipate during 2017.

Watch for the U.S. Supreme Court to schedule the oral arguments in three complex cases consolidated under Advocate Health Care Network vs. Stapleton. At issue: Special pension exemptions for religious organizations other than churches. The Atlantic headline for a piece on this says the outcome “could bankrupt religious schools and hospitals.”

The speaker list for the customary Jan. 21 interfaith service at Washington's Episcopal cathedral the day after President Trump's inauguration will be worth coverage and comment. Will any ranking Muslim leaders agree to participate? Will any observant Jews appear even though it's the Sabbath day? Will Southern Baptist spokesman Russell Moore or other #NeverTrump clergy be invited?  

The NRB International Christian Media Convention in Orlando Feb. 27–March 2 will be a handy place to collect evangelical hallelujahs (and any lamentations) about the Trump Presidency. Headliners include Kelvin Cochran, fired as Atlanta fire chief over anti-gay statements; Alan Sears, whose Alliance Defending Freedom litigates religious-liberty cases; the Rev. Jonathan Falwell, who leads father Jerry’s local church; and radio pundits Steve Deace and Hugh Hewitt.

Yes, Virginia, there are pro-evolution evangelicals, and biologos.com plans a March 29 – 31 conference in Houston about “the rich harmony between modern science and biblical faith.” Speakers include British New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, Wheaton College Old Testament Professor John Walton (author of the controversial “Lost World of Adam and Eve”), and Christianity Today Executive Editor Andy Crouch.

Speaking of Bible debates in the news.


Please respect our Commenting Policy

Growing churches vs. declining churches: Canadian study says 'Theology Matters'

Growing churches vs. declining churches: Canadian study says 'Theology Matters'

Talk about the revenge of the "tmatt trio"!

Regular readers of this blog may remember the set of questions that, since the dawn of GetReligion in 2005, we have referred to as the "tmatt trio." We are talking about three questions that, in the 1980s, I discovered always yielded interesting and often newsworthy content when I used them as journalistic tools to probe the fault lines inside Protestant denominations.

Now, two of the three questions have shown up in a study by researchers in Canada of patterns of growth, and decline, in oldline Protestant congregations in church-friendly southern Ontario. Hold that thought, because that was the hook for my Universal syndicate column this week, then the latest Crossroads podcast (click here to tune that in).

Here's the basic trio set, as articulated in one of my earlier "On Religion" columns:

* Are biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Did this happen?
* Is salvation found through Jesus, alone? Was Jesus being literal when he said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
* Is sex outside of marriage a sin?

Now, that 2014 column focused, in part, on conversations with the late George Gallup, Jr., that addressed issues of private and public faith in American life. When I shared my "trio" questions with him, Gallup said the key was that I was asking doctrinal questions, not political questions. The goal, he said, was to find out how these beliefs revealed themselves in the daily lives of real people. That was the link he kept trying to explore in his work. (The trio questions also were embedded in a LifeWay Research survey in 2014.)

That brings us to the current news in Canada, which centers on an academic paper by sociologist David Haskell and church historian Kevin Flatt, published in the peer-reviewed Review of Religious Research. The full title sets the stage:

Theology Matters: 
Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy


Please respect our Commenting Policy

That familiar game: Pope Francis, on a plane, with reporters and a female-priests question

It's a familiar news equation by now: Pope Francis, plus an airplane, plus reporters, plus a valid question equals what? The answer, of course, is "bold headlines."

The headlines come first -- in this WiFi age -- often before the wheels of Shepherd One touch the ground. The headlines then frame the discussions of what the pope did or did not say. Then the transcript comes out and it's possible to read what this off-the-cuff pontiff actually said.

Let me stress this: In most cases -- repeat "most" -- the issue isn't what the pope was quoted is saying, in this or that sound bite. The problem is usually that reporters are not given the space to quote what ELSE the pope said, the larger context that often defines to the sound bite.

Of course, it's possible that some reporters only want to quote the sound bite, which they -- backed by scholars and theologians in the semi-official mainstream media handbook of Catholic sources -- can then shape into a headline that lives forever. Is this good or bad? Well, who am I to judge?

So now we have the pope flying back from a celebration of the Reformation in Sweden. He was asked, once again, about the ordination of women to the priesthood.

Here is the headline from the conservative Catholic News Agency: "Pope Francis reiterates a strong 'no' to women priests."

Here is the headline from the mainstream Washington Post: "Pope Francis says the Catholic Church will probably never have female priests."

Ah, where did that "probably" come from? Let's go to the transcript and read the whole exchange that produced the headlines:


Please respect our Commenting Policy

From Muslim to Christian: The Atlantic offers sensitive look at Berlin community

When you share lentils and rice pilaf with people; when you attend church with them and talk to their pastor; when you pay a follow-up visit weeks later; you naturally convey a more intimate feel for your topic.  This traditional wisdom of journalism is used to great effect in The Atlantic's feature on Muslim converts to Christianity in Germany.

The writer, Laura Kasinof, talks to three Iranian refugees in Berlin. She gets an overview with their pastor, a Lutheran minister, as well as an interchurch leader. She conveys the jubilant mood at a worship service. And she attempts to hint at the size of the trend of conversion, although she doesn't get comprehensive figures.

Kasinof did the story on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Whatever the sum, it was well spent. Her article is sensitive and thoughtful, and vastly superior to a similar piece in the Daily Beast this spring. As my colleague Julia Duin said then, the Beast somehow managed to link the trend to the U.S. presidential elections. Almost like clicking a nation-level selfie.

Astonishingly, the Daily Beast article has no quotes from any actual refugees, except those it borrowed from a newspaper. The Atlantic article doesn't neglect that vital facet:


Please respect our Commenting Policy

Here is today's strange Godbeat AP style question: Are Lutherans also Christians?

Your GetReligionistas love to hear from veteran religion-beat professionals, in part because journalists who have spent years covering this complicated news topic can spot subtle, and often humorous, issues when they pop up in news reports.

Take issues of journalism style, for example. Now, your average blog reader may not get excited about references to tricky issues in the Associate Press Stylebook, but this is the kind of thing that fires up veteran editors and reporters.

After all, if you don’t know your AP style and some church history you can end up printing a story that says that Lutherans aren’t Christians.

Yes, that happened the other day in a Chicago Tribune story that ran with this headline: “County defends surprise church inspections.” Thus, I received this note from a religion-beat veteran:

This caught my eye. … The zoning dispute doesn’t bother me, it’s the weird contrast of Lutheran with Christian. “He was a baseball player before he became an athlete” would be a fair comparison.

Say what? Here is the strange passage in context, right at the top of this business-like story about a rather business-like topic:

For as long as Hillcrest Christian Church has been around, and that's more than 40 years, parishioners and church leaders always assumed the building and grounds were part of Hazel Crest, the community that surrounds the property.
Turns out they were wrong.


Please respect our Commenting Policy

Bookish reporting ahead: J-preps for Protestant Reformation’s 500th anniversary in 2017

Bookish reporting ahead: J-preps for Protestant Reformation’s 500th anniversary in 2017

When the Religion Guy worked at Time magazine and The Associated Press, he made every effort to read a book per week. He also vowed to give important books as much publicity as conditions allowed because “mainstream” print media increasingly neglected religion titles. 

That neglect underscores the importance of reporters keeping up with book reviews in religious periodicals, especially the sophisticated, content-rich Books & Culture: A Christian Review. Otherwise, how can busy newswriters sift through those looming piles of review copies and decide which to cover?

Quick tip: No index, no review.

For astute religion writers, the book scene comes to the fore right now due to a huge upcoming story, the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017. This epochal event deserves careful advance thought about special story packages or series. And that means journalists need some historical reading under the belt to develop the themes to ponder with scholars.

As Thomas Albert Howard of Gordon College wrote four years ago in Books & Culture, the Reformation “has been credited (or blamed) for the rise of the modern nation state, liberalism, capitalism, religious wars, tolerance, America, democracy, individualism, subjectivism, pluralism, freedom of conscience, modern science, secularism, Nazism, and so much else.” He could have added the expansion of literacy, worship in common languages, and the assault on mandatory celibacy.

The agenda includes the title of a 2005 book by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom: “Is The Reformation Over?” Does the old Protestant-Catholic divide still make sense in the secularizing West? What crucial differences remain today?


Please respect our Commenting Policy

US Catholics sort of hug ELCA: Why do liberal, oldline flocks always seem to make news?

US Catholics sort of hug ELCA: Why do liberal, oldline flocks always seem to make news?

If you walked the religion-news beat in the 1980s, and especially if you covered mainline Protestants and the Episcopal Church, then you probably knew Bishop William C. Frey.

At that time, he was the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado and he eventually (a) was the symbolic evangelical/charismatic candidate to become U.S. presiding bishop, then (b) he became president and dean of the evangelical Anglican School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pa. He now lives in retirement near San Antonio, Texas, and -- it helps that he speaks fluent Spanish -- remains active in ministry in that region.

Among reporters (of all theological stripes), Frey was known as one of the most candid and, with his previous work in mainstream radio, sound-bite articulate figures on the national scene. His wit was legendary.

So what does this have to do with this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to listen) about that ecumenical document signed by U.S. Catholic leaders and the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America? We are talking about the one that led to statements (see previous post here) that there were "are no longer church-dividing issues" between them.

Host Todd Wilken and I were curious as to why this document received so little attention in the mainstream press, since -- in the past -- this was precisely the kind of progressive, ecumenical event that drew banner headlines and then appeared in lists of the Top 10 religion-news stories of the year. Thus, we talked about why the oldline Protestant churches have always received so much attention and why, all of a sudden, that coverage may have faded.

This brings me to a classic Frey soundbite. Working on a column for the late, great Rocky Mountain News, I told the bishop about statements from several other local religious leaders who wanted to know why Colorado Episcopalians were always in the news. Some of them expressed what sounded like envy -- which made Frey laugh out loud.


Please respect our Commenting Policy