Orthodoxy

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Anti-clickbait 2.0: Warning! This post asks readers to think about messy life in Russia

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Alas, it's true. As our own Bobby Ross Jr. mentioned earlier today, nothing seems to push readers away from a news-driven blog quicker than headlines about complex stories on the other side of the world.

Well, culture-wars readers on left and right might click to read something about a Pope Francis statement attacking President Donald Trump's refusal to put gender-neutral bathrooms at gateway facilities in a new border wall. Maybe. Just thinking out loud about that one.

So USA Today had an international story the other day that I ran into on Twitter, before I saw coverage of this topic elsewhere. The headline: "Russia parliament votes 380-3 to decriminalize domestic violence."

Now, that's a rather shocking headline, especially when we are talking about a culture that leans toward the authoritarian, to say the least. However, when I read the overture to the piece I found the details a bit more complex and nuanced than I expected.

Russia's parliament voted 380-3 ... to decriminalize domestic violence in cases where it does not cause "substantial bodily harm" and does not occur more than once a year.
The move, which eliminates criminal liability in such cases, makes a violation punishable by a fine of roughly $500, or a 15-day arrest, provided there is no repeat within 12 months. The bill now goes to the rubber-stamp upper chamber, where no opposition is expected. It then must be signed by President Vladimir Putin, who has signaled his support.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists that family conflicts do "not necessarily constitute domestic violence."

Now, I am no expert on Russia. Most of what I know is from books, from other Orthodox believers (my current parish includes more than a few Russians) and from an intense two weeks in Moscow a few days after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union (click here for info on that).

When I read that lede, as opposed to the headline, I immediately had several reactions as a journalist:


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Ask a few more questions? Vandals take some shots at Russian church here in USA

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I realize that this recent news report out of Georgia is probably not a big deal.

Journalists had little cause to ask a few questions that some might consider a bit paranoid. After all, we are talking about bullet holes in a church, not a mosque.

Plus, Georgia is way down in Bible Belt country. There are lots of people down there with guns, to be sure, but not many who are likely to be violently angry about the many, many negative news headlines (think Syria, wiretaps, Vladimir Putin, etc.) linked to Russia.

There is some chance that those crazy Southerners where just, you know, running around shooting guns in the air, because they do things like that. However, these maybe-random shots happened as Christmas -- using the Gregorian date, Dec. 25th -- was approaching, as opposed to taking place during the often wild festivities of New Year's Eve.

So here is what happened, to cut to the chase. This short, short story -- "Church finds bullet holes through building, welcome sign" -- comes from the Fox 5 channel:

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. -- Forsyth County deputies are searching for the vandals who shot a church’s sign and house of worship.
“I hope it’s teenagers. I don’t see it being something more than that, it would be more troubling,” said Father Eugene Antonov of the Joy of All Who Sorrow Russian Orthodox Church.
Church members discovered multiple bullet holes through walls of their house of worship under construction, the windows and the front welcome sign.


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Who went insane? BuzzFeed editors or the Greek Orthodox believer who leads the GOP?

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What happens when you mix Christmas, politics, Twitter and the ongoing emotional meltdown on the cultural left in the wake of the 2016 presidential race?

Trust me, the answer to that question is a bit crazy.

So was anyone else on Twitter enough in the past day or so to catch the latest mini-media storm about Christians in the Republican Party and the ugliness of their love affair with Citizen Donald Trump?

That's one way to spin this crazy mess. You could also simply note that we are dealing with another case of a major newsroom -- wait, is BuzzFeed a major newsroom? -- failing to contain even one or two people who have any idea how ordinary Christians out in Middle America use language when talking about matters of faith?

For those out of the digital feedback loop, here is the dramatic double-decker headline atop the BuzzFeed "story" that is in the middle of all this:

People Are Arguing About Whether Republicans Just Compared Trump To Jesus
A Republican spokesman said Christians view only Jesus as king and to ask otherwise was “frankly offensive.”

What does it mean to say that "people are arguing about" something? Does that mean a few activists on the left served up a bunch of wisecracks and then people responded by noting that they were out of their minds? 

If you want to look at this as a journalism case study, then the former GetReligionista Mark Hemingway put it best in this tweet:


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It's Christmas (1.0) in Bethlehem and the Associated Press still can't get its facts straight

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Dear editors of the Associated Press:

I have a dream.

It's a Christmas dream, actually.

I dream that some Christmas morning, after I get home from church on Dec. 25th, I will pick up my newspaper and, as always, see an Associated Press story with a Bethlehem dateline. This story will, of course, detail what happened on Christmas Eve and in the early hours of Christmas morning there in that ancient biblical town, with its strange mix of joyful pilgrims and tense security people.

But this time the story will be slightly different, in terms of the facts used to describe some of the religious rites on that first of two, yes two, Christmas celebrations in the churches, yes plural, located next to Manger Square.

Alas, this was not the year that my dream came true. Here is some of the key summary material in the 2016 AP report:

Christian clergymen welcomed the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land inside the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem, the birth place of Jesus Christ, as Christians worldwide begin to prepare to celebrate Christmas this year.
The Rev. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate, is the temporary chief clergyman to the local Catholic population. He traveled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on Saturday in a traditional procession. Later, he was to celebrate Midnight Mass at the Church of the Nativity, built at the grotto revered as Jesus' birthplace.
"I wish this joyous atmosphere of Christmas will continue in the year and not just for a few days and I hope the coming year will bring a little more serenity and peaceful relations in our country. We need it," he said.

So what is the problem there?


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Where are the essential facts about religion in news reports about fall of eastern Aleppo?

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American news consumers, as a rule, do not pay much attention to foreign news coverage. Here at GetReligion, we know that writing a post about mainstream media coverage of religion news on the other side of the planet is not the way to get lots of clicks and retweets.

That doesn't matter, because news is news and it's genuinely tragic that many Americans are in the dark about what is happening outside our borders. We will keep doing what we do.

This leads me to news coverage of the fall of the eastern half of Aleppo in Syria, a landmark event in that hellish civil war that is receiving -- as it should -- extensive coverage in American newspapers.

As you read the coverage in your own newspapers and favorite websites, please look for a crucial word -- "Alawites." President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is a member of the often persecuted Alawite sect of Islam. Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

Let's start with the top of the Washington Post report, since this story is very typical of those found elsewhere, such as The New York Times and also Al Jazeera.

BEIRUT -- Syria’s government declared Thursday that it had regained full control of Aleppo after the last rebel fighters and civilians evacuated the key city as part of an agreement brokered by Russia and Turkey.
The Syrian military announced on state media that “security and stability” had been returned to eastern Aleppo, once the largest rebel stronghold. The “terrorists” -- a term used by the Syrian government to describe nearly all of its opponents -- had exited the city, the military said.
President Bashar al-Assad’s consolidation of Aleppo marks the end of the opposition presence in the city for the first time in more than four years and deals a major blow to the rebellion to unseat him.

Think about this as a matter of history, for a moment. Is there anything bloodier and more ruthless than a civil war, with fighting and acts of violence taking place inside a nation, pitting armies within its population against one another?

If that is the case, then it is crucial how one labels and defines these armies.


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Journalists: Religious lessons you (could have) learned from Trump win can help explain Putin

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Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia.

Everywhere you look in the news right now, journalists are trying to get a handle on Vladimir Putin and Russia. This post is about Russia -- consider it a sequel to the earlier "Dear editors at The New York Times: Vladimir Putin is a Russian, but Putin is not Russia" -- but that is not where I want to start. Please be patient, because I want to start with an American parable.

Surely, some journalists have learned by now that our recent presidential race was more complex than Hillary Rodham Clinton vs. Citizen Donald Trump. There were, fore example, Democrats who wanted to vote for Clinton. However, there were others -- #feelthebern -- who did so reluctantly, but felt they had to vote against Trump.

On the Trump side, there were people who sincerely backed his campaign (including a large number, perhaps even a majority, of white evangelicals). Then there were millions of people (including blue-collar Democrats) who didn't like Trump at all, but supported some elements of his alleged platform, so they voted for Trump. Then there others who actively opposed Trump, but felt they had to vote for him -- think U.S. Supreme Court -- to oppose Clinton. It will be interesting to learn how many people (like me) voted for an alternative candidate.

What does this have to do with Putin? Well, lots of elite journalists (hello, New York Times) have been trying to figure out why so many American conservatives are fond of Putin or think it's important to improve U.S. relations with Putin and Russia. In Times speak, anyone who sees anything positive in Putin's actions and worldview is automatically an "extremist." Thus that recent headline: "Extremists Turn to a Leader to Protect Western Values: Vladimir Putin."

Everyone pretty much goes into that "extremist," pro-Putin bag, including the alt-right, lots of Trump voters, racists, extreme nationalists everywhere, anti-Semites and, ultimately, the Russian Orthodox Church. Was Brexit in there too?

But think of that Trump parable. The problem is that there are lots of people who either loathe or totally distrust Putin (they see him for what he is), but they do not reject everything that he stands for in his warped version of a pro-Russian agenda. Thus, they are sort of "voting" for Putin, or they want America to deal with him more realistically, because the alternative, to be blunt, is the postmodern worldview of the European elites.

The religion angle? The press needs to grasp that, often, Orthodox leaders are not backing Putin when they support elements of Putin's policies that just happen to run parallel with centuries of Orthodox teachings. Oh, and they would really like to prevent the massacre of millions of Christians in Syria and what remains of the church in the Middle East.

This brings me to a recent, and typical, Associated Press report related to all of this. Here is the overture, care of Crux: 

MOSCOW, Russia -- The Russian Orthodox Church is expanding its influence in what was once an officially godless state -- and President Vladimir Putin appears eager to harness that resurgent power of faith to promote his own agenda.


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New York Times pays timely visit to ancient, threatened home of the real St. Nicholas

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Let us now pause to offer a word of thanksgiving and modest praise for a New York Times story about religion.

Of course, this particular news report has nothing to do with sexuality or religious liberty, so the editorial bar was set a bit lower. However, this story does have a few kind words to say about Russian Orthodox believers, which is a kind a miracle in and of itself right now.

The dateline for this report is the city of Demre, in southern Turkey, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Taurus Mountains. In other words, this comes from a region that is absolutely crucial to the history of the early church and the people of the New Testament, although most readers (the story takes this into account) would not know that. 

The headline focuses on an all-to-often overlooked hero of the Christian faith: "In Turkey’s Home of St. Nick, Far From North Pole, All Is Not Jolly."

Now, why is this story appearing in the Times on Dec. 19th? I would assume that this is because a Times correspondent noted an increase in the number of Christians coming to Demre for events celebrating the life and faith of St. Nicholas of Myra.

But why Dec. 19th? The story never tells us why.

This raises an interesting question: Does the reporter, or the Times copy desk, even realize that Dec. 19th is the Feast of St. Nicholas, according to the ancient Julian calendar used by the Orthodox Church in Russia and in many other Eastern lands? In the West, the feast of St. Nicholas -- with its emphasis on almsgiving for the poor and small gifts (think chocolates wrapped to look like gold coins) -- is celebrated on Dec. 6th, on the newer Gregorian calendar.

But let's look at a key summary of facts early in this story:

Yes, Virginia, you heard that right, Santa Claus is from Turkey. But this year, Christmastime in Demre is far from cheery.


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Yes, Virginia ... There IS more Santa Claus-related Clickbait, and it's context-free!

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The lot of a newspaper general assignment reporter these days -- even in the tony precincts of the Washington Post -- can't always be a happy one. You're slapped around by the day's events: a Cadillac TV ad "casting call" for an "alt-right" type one day, the tragic story of a guy who turned his life around, only to die while attempting to help someone in distress the next.

It's a tough spot, particularly when one appears to be tasked with aggregating news that happens far from your desk. That generally involves looking at, collecting, paraphrasing and linking to stories from external sources. (Your commentator does something similar with Utah-related business news five nights a week, Sunday through Thursday; I understand a bit of what's involved. Trust me on that.)

So one can have a bit of empathy for Cleve R. Wootson Jr., the Post reporter in question, when it comes to the question of a clearly idiosyncratic individual in Amarillo, Texas, one David Grisham, who apparently feels led to share the "good news" that there is no Santa Claus.

To children. At a mall. While they are waiting in line for interviews with the aforementioned non-existent Santa.

Can you say "clickbait"? I knew you could! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

At first, the parents try to ignore the screaming man at the mall telling their children they’ve been lied to about Santa Claus.
Then it becomes clear he’s not going to stop.


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Another attack on Copts in Egypt: Once again, the details make the horrors even worse

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Another bombing in a Coptic Orthodox sanctuary in Egypt, with at least 25 dead and that stunning number is expected to rise.

People, please allow me to speak as an Orthodox Christian for a moment. During recent years, it has been hard not to dwell on the hellish stories coming out of Iraq and Syria, with the Islamic State crushing Christians, Yazidis, traditional Muslims and members of other religious minorities. Ancient monasteries and churches, with irreplaceable libraries and works of sacred art, have vanished from the face of the earth.

It has been easy to overlook the horrors that have continued to unfold in Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt and elsewhere. In my own daily prayers, I have continued to pray for those dying in these lands, as well as in the ISIS zone. Quite frankly, it is easy to slide into despair about all of this.

The mainstream press coverage of this attack has been very straightforward and has -- appropriately so -- shown that Coptic believers, once again, are caught in a clash between two Islamic factions inside the tense religious and political culture of Egypt. The only confusion in the coverage concerns some basic and crucial facts, as in the specific location of the attack and why the vast majority of the dead were women and children.

So which church was bombed? Let's start with The New York Times, which has the actual location of the attack wrong:

CAIRO -- A bomb ripped through a section reserved for women at Cairo’s main Coptic cathedral during Sunday morning Mass, killing at least 25 people and wounding 49, mostly women and children, Egyptian state media said.
The attack was the deadliest against Egypt’s Christian minority in years. Video from the blast site circulating on social media showed blood-smeared floors and shattered pews among the marble pillars at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, the seat of Egypt’s Orthodox Christian Church, where the blast occurred in a chapel adjacent to the main building.


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