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About UFOs, Trump and that poll showing lots of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim

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So, President Barack Obama's faith is back in the news.

Precisely, the headlines concern a new poll showing a surprising (or not?) number of Americans still believe Obama is a Muslim.

USA Today boils down the latest news this way:

Despite a Hawaii birth certificate and repeated professions of his Christian faith, fairly large numbers of Americans still believe President Obama is a Muslim born outside of the United States.

Over at the Washington Post, Godbeat pro Sarah Pulliam Bailey offers this rundown of the poll numbers:

Even though President Obama nods to his Christian faith regularly in both serious and light-hearted settings, a large number of Americans still believe he is a Muslim. According to a new CNN/ORC poll, 29 percent of Americans say they think that Obama is a Muslim, including 43 percent of Republicans.
Sixty-one percent of Democrats say Obama is a Protestant, compared with 28 percent of Republicans and 32 percent of independents. Also, according to CNN, 54 percent of those who support Donald Trump say they believe Obama is a Muslim.
Education comes into play: 63 percent of college graduates believe Obama is a Protestant compared with just 28 percent of those who do not have college degrees.
Among all adults, 39 percent say they believe Obama is a Protestant or another kind of Christian, another 11 percent say he’s not religious, and 14 percent that they just don’t know. Of those who took the survey, 4 percent believe he is Catholic, 2 percent think he is Mormon, 1 percent believe he is Jewish, and 1 percent think he is something else.
The number of Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim appears to have jumped since polls from earlier years of his presidency.

Keep reading, and former GetReligionista Bailey does a really nice job of providing insight and background related to Obama's faith and what he has said about it.

But here's my question: Are these poll numbers related to the number of Americans who believe Obama is a Muslim really "surprising" or "startling," as news reports described them?

 


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One polite, calm political story: Bernie Sanders welcomed at Liberty University

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Talk about a cross-cultural event.

No, I am not talking about the fact that Sen. Bernard Sanders spoke at a convocation at Liberty University, which must have been educational both for the speaker and for those in the congregation. I'm talking about the efforts of mainstream reporters to cover this unlikely scene early in the race for the White House.

If you watch the video of the Sanders speech, it is pretty apparent that the socialist from Vermont did his homework and was prepared to seek -- as best he could -- common ground with faculty, students and staff on the campus founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. And reporters, as a rule, did a solid job of handling what Sanders had to say.

What I found interesting were the journalistic attempts, or the lack thereof, to interact with the locals. Take this early passage from the coverage in Roll Call:

Before Sanders entered the campus’ Vine Center to an introduction by Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr., a campus band played Christian rock songs about the resurrection, including one with the refrain: “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.” Not the typical introduction for a Jewish socialist from Vermont during Rosh Hashanah.
Unlike when conservative Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas appeared at the same venue earlier this year to launch his Republican White House bid, there were no real disruptions for outbursts of applause or standing ovations. But neither were there abundant boos or signs of ridicule.
“For me personally, it wasn’t very awkward,” said sophomore engineering student Joe Sobchinsky. “I actually was very happy that Bernie Sanders was coming because college is supposed to be about learning different viewpoints, and even if you don’t agree with someone, I would absolutely listen to them and hear what he has to say, hear his viewpoints.”

There's quite a bit of background in that passage. However, I think it was interesting that the reporter thought "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" was some kind of trendy "Christian rock song," since that folk hymn from India originated in the 19th Century and became popular at crusades led by the Rev. Billy Graham in the 1950s.


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Does Stephen Colbert's progressive Catholicism still make some journalists nervous?

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Forget, for a moment, whatever you are thinking right now about American politics.

Just think about journalism, for a moment.

Forget what you think about Vice President Joe Biden. If you are, like me, one of America's surviving pro-life Democrats, or you are a traditional Catholic, try to forget what you know about Biden's political career on legislation linked to abortion and how he has tried to mesh his actions with his acceptance of core doctrines in his Catholic faith. For a moment, forget his loyal-soldier work in the current administration.

Now, also try to forget for a moment what you think of the laugh-to-keep-from crying humor of funny man Stephen Colbert.

Lay aside, if you can, whatever you think he does or does not believe when it comes to the fine details, especially on moral theology, of the Catholic Catechism he taught as a leader in his New York-suburb parish during his Comedy Central years. If you are a traditionalist, when it comes to Catholic doctrine, go ahead and assume that Colbert is a "progressive," whatever that term means these days.

Then again, be honest and wrestle with the content of the nights when Colbert embraced and riffed with Catholic conservatives or shredded some liberals, on his old talk show.

Now, after saying all of that, watch the Late Night interview between Biden and Colbert and ask yourself a question about journalism: How would you deal with the content of this chat without facing the fact that its intimacy and depth (unless they are both really good fakers and I've seen people on CNN suggest that) is rooted in the fact that this is a pair of Catholic guys talking about faith and family?

Looking at Colbert, is it possible -- whether his work inspires you or troubles you -- to deal with his talent, his brain and his heart without taking into account the content of his Catholic faith and its role in his grief-haunted life? This was the subject of one of my recent On Religion columns ("From John Henry Newman to Stephen Colbert: Ancient truths on suffering and death") and the topic surfaced again in a follow-up post here at GetReligion.

Well, this past week kept adding layers of news content on top of this topic -- leading up to the Biden interview -- and provided the hook for this week's "Crossroads" podcast, with host Todd Wilken. Click here to tune that in.


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A newsman's faith: David Gregory opens up about his spiritual journey

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Mostly, GetReligion critiques religion news coverage in the mainstream media.

But occasionally, we simply make note of stories that point to the relevance of religion as an issue and a part of life in the journalism marketplace.

Such is the case with this post, which calls attention to news that David Gregory, former moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," has written a new book titled “How’s Your Faith?: An Unlikely Spiritual Journey."

Gregory shares his story firsthand in today's Wall Street Journal:

The top of Gregory's Journal column:

I’ve spent a career in journalism questioning others, and yet it was three questions asked of me that pushed me to figure out, as everyone must at some point: What do I believe, fundamentally, about life and the world? The first question came, however unusually, from a president of the United States.
“Gregory, how’s your faith?” George W. Bush asked me one December afternoon in the Oval Office. We had met privately before, as I had covered the entirety of his presidency, but that day in 2008 stood out in part because I had recently been promoted to moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”


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Ashley Madison: CNN snips some grace out of story on seminary professor's fatal fall

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It may seem strange to start a GetReligion post with a verse from the Bible -- the Gospel According to St. Luke, in this case -- but it seems appropriate in light of a morality tale that continues to unfold in the mainstream press.

Thus, let's turn to the 12th chapter of Luke, verse 3 to be specific.

Let us attend, especially readers who are clergy or who hold positions of power and prestige in religious institutions, such as seminaries or ecclesiastical bureaucracies.

Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

This leads us, of course, to the infamous Ashley Madison website used by legions of people who were -- they thought -- anonymously seeking sexual affairs. They didn't expect hackers to shout their sins from the digital rooftops.

This is especially true for clergy, of course, a line of work that includes just as many stressed-out sinners as any other. Journalists, if you want to get the big picture on the impact of this scandal in pulpits, check out the recent Christianity Today essays by the online evangelical maven Ed Stetzer, who has been on fire writing about this tragic situation.

The scandal has claimed many victims, but the story GetReligion writers have been hearing about is a CNN report on the case of the Rev. John Gibson, a pastor and professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. In his case, this fall from grace left him shattered. The result was suicide. Gibson's wife, Christi, discovered his body.


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At this point, why would journalists ignore faith issues in Colbert's life? (updated)

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As far as I am concerned, there was journalism about comedian Stephen Colbert before the GQ cover story by Joel Lovell -- "The Late, Great Stephen Colbert" -- and then there is journalism on this subject after that piece.

It's not that this was some kind of stunning investigation into Colbert's career, his finances, his alleged politics, etc., etc. It's not even that this story covered totally new material about Colbert's faith and family history.

Trust me. I've had a research folder open on Colbert and Catholicism since 2005 or thereabouts and I've read most of the crucial speeches and interviews in which he talks about his beliefs. I have a pretty big collection of iTunes selections and Comedy Central URLs that feature revealing quips and comments. I've written some columns on this guy and led seminar sessions focusing on the debates about his work.

What made this interview special was the depth of the comments and the way in which they linked the wounds in Colbert's past to the strengths of his comic sensibility today. It was really quite stunning, even for people (I've heard from some) who didn't take Colbert all that seriously in the past. 

After that interview, why would journalists for a major news organization -- The New York Times leaps to mind  -- fail to explore the God questions (and answers) that haunt this guy? In a major magazine feature before his arrival last night on CBS, this is what the Times team offered while trying to talk about the "humanity" that Colbert has hidden in the past:


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Refugees flee ISIS: Maybe there is a religion angle in this tragic story? Maybe?

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If you have read anything about the rise of the Islamic State, you know that ISIS is crushing anyone who rejects its drive to build a new multinational caliphate rooted in its approach to Islam.

Thus, hundreds of thousands of people are either dead or fleeing. Who are they?

The answer is pretty obvious: They are the people who rejected the reign of ISIS. And who might that be? The answer is complex, but one fact is simple. It's impossible to talk about this refugee crisis without talking about the religion angle, because the refugees are either members of minority religions in the region, including thousands of displaced Christians, or centrist Muslims or members of Muslim-related sects that are anathema to ISIS leaders.

Now, the religion angle has jumped even higher in the story with the appeal by Pope Francis for every Catholic parish, school, monastery and social ministry in Europe to take in at least one refugee family. If you know anything about the Bible, you probably have a good idea what verses the pope is going to quote on this question.

But Europe is tense, not just because of the sheer number of refugees, but because of faith questions related to them.

So why, I ask, did The New York Times team basically ignore the religion content of this story in its major piece on the pope's challenge? The results are especially strange when contrasted with the corresponding international-desk story in The Washington Post. Here is the key passage in the Times piece:


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Kim Davis is in WHAT political party? A classic New York Times correction

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So be honest. Did you or did you not see this one coming?

We start with another New York Times report about that Rowan County clerk who sits in jail waiting for the Kentucky legislature to tweak the state's laws to work smoothly with both the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision backing same-sex marriage and our nation's strong First Amendment history of support for the free exercise of religious convictions.

The story ends with a classic laugh-to-keep-from-crying correction that created some buzz in social media. First, the usual:

The clerk, Kim Davis of Rowan County, Ky., was ordered detained for contempt of court and later rejected a proposal to allow her deputies to process same-sex marriage licenses that could have prompted her release.

Once again, it would help if readers were informed that Kentucky law currently says -- according to the fine details buried in news reports -- that the county clerk's name has to be on a marriage license in order for it to be official. From the perspective of Kim Davis, that fact requires her to actively endorse same-sex unions, even if someone else hands out the licenses.

Thus, she balked. No one needs to agree with her stance in order to accurately report the link between the details of the Kentucky law and her act of conscience. The bottom line: Details of Kentucky laws are still important in Kentucky.

Will the governor, a Democrat, hear the calls of Democrats and Republicans for a special session to change the state's laws to protect the rights of gay couples seeking marriage as well as traditional believers in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.? That's the story.

Back to the story. Here comes the highly symbolic correction:


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That darn press! Writing Dean Jones' obit without facts on his spiritual rebirth

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Dean Jones made us all laugh with his honest-guy face and his Disney-designed dilemmas, in comedies like The Love Bug and That Darn Cat! But he also drank heavily and cheated on his wife -- until he came to Jesus and experienced a spiritual rebirth.

His life as a believer lasted the last half of his 84 years. But when Jones died this week, what did many obits fixate on? With few examples, the answer was the same: the showbiz angle.

The Associated Press -- in an obit used by several news media -- trots out the list of snickery titles in which Dean Jones acted: not only the above two, but Million Dollar Duck, Monkeys Go Home and Under the Yum Yum Tree.

In pedestrian AP style, the obit says Jones appeared in five Broadway shows and 46 films, including 10 for Disney.  It drops the names of those he worked with, including Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock and Jane Fonda in the play There Was a Little Girl.

What of his faith? Nada.

USA Today is little different. Its obit lists some of his pro-Christian work ...

A committed Christian, Jones later founded the Christian Rescue Committee (now Christian Rescue Fund), which helped rescue Jews, Christians and others persecuted for their faith. Jones’ other charitable activities included international child-care and world hunger.

... as if it were a natural outgrowth of his showbiz stuff.


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