Politics

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

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
, , , , , , , ,

Once again, Charlie Hebdo takes aim at violent Islamists -- this time in Spain

, , , , , , , ,

Here we go again.

The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has published a cartoon on its cover page devoted to the August 17, 2017, terror attack in Barcelona that left 13 dead and 130 injured.

Le Figaro, El Pais, and the other European outlets that have picked up the story so far have largely re-published the offending cartoon as has the Qatar based network Al Jazeera.

Newsweek and a handful of American mainstream news outlets have picked up the story, too, but unlike their European counterparts have not reprinted the cartoon. The American press has been down this road before -- engaging in self-censorship so as not to offend radical Islam. And it also revolved around Charlie Hebdo.

The left-wing, satirical magazine entered the conscience of the Anglophone world on January 7, 2015, when two gunmen forced their way into the magazine’s offices and killed twelve of its staff. Brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, Muslims of Algerian descent, carried out the attack in revenge for a cartoon published by the magazine that lambasted the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

In the weeks after the attack, free speech advocates adopted the cry “Je suis Charlie,” (I am Charlie), to show their solidarity with the magazine and the right to free expression. However, support for free speech and Charlie Hebdo’s right to offend was not universal. And this support has further dimmed in recent years.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

Hey Washington Post: About Paula White and those 'bible-bleeding' Christians who support Trump

, , , , ,

Here's my question for the Washington Post: What's a "bible-bleeding" Christian?

If you're one of the Post's 11 million Twitter followers, you may have noticed the newspaper's story on televangelist Paula White's comments concerning President Donald Trump as a modern-day Queen Esther.

Readers have pointed out a few things to your friendly GetReligionistas: First, the Post quotes White as making the remarks on Tuesday. But actually, White has been out of the country since last Friday (in Greece), so the remarks were recorded earlier for a taped appearance on "The Jim Bakker Show."

Second, this story has a real hard time with basic Associated Press style (lowercasing "bible" while uppercasing "Godly," for example). Granted, we live in strange times where the value of copy editors has been downgraded by revenue-hungry, online-first news executives. So who's to know how many editors — if any — actually read a story before it goes straight to the World Wide Web and millions of Twitter users?

But anyway ...

The most egregious — and I'll admit, humorous — error in this story comes in a quote. See if you can spot what I'm talking about in the ending quote from Stephen Strang, the founder of Charisma Magazine:


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

Washington Post pays attention, as Episcopalians ponder the life and faith of Robert E. Lee

, , , , , , ,

Yes, we saw the story about ESPN and sports announcer Robert Lee, who was switched off the upcoming broadcast of a University of Virginia football game because his name is Robert Lee.

I would assume that "Robert Lee" is not all that unusual a name for an Asian man. But, hey, we are talking about Virginia and that's almost the same name as He Who Must Not Be Named.

So I thought this story was from The Onion and said so on Twitter. I was not joking. It has now been confirmed -- by The New York Times and the rest of the journalistic universe. For the life of me, I cannot think of a religion angle to that story. But it's so RIGHT NOW.

In case you haven't noticed, things are a bit tense right now when it comes to statues, Civil War history, white supremacy and other topics that some people believe are linked and others do not. There are religion angles in there and many are painful.

(Quick statement: I'm in favor of saving Confederate statues in cemeteries, battlegrounds, museums, academic facilities [linked to the study of Civil War history] and similar sites. I favor taking statues down in civic squares, once government officials have legally chosen to do so. But I'm with Peggy Noonan. It's usually better to build new statues, rather than destroy old ones. Raise statues to praise those who created a better union.)

But here is some good news. If you want to read a news story that wades into a Gen. Robert E. Lee controversy and listens -- hard -- to voices on both sides, then check out The Washington Post religion-desk feature with this headline: "This is the church where Robert E. Lee declared himself a sinner. Should it keep his name?"

This story, by religion-beat veteran Michelle Boorstein, struck home for me because I spoke at Washington and Lee University last spring, doing a seminar on the challenges and rewards of Godbeat work. I had a long talk with a journalism professor (and ethics specialist) about the ongoing debates about this church and, of course, about challenges to the name of the university.

Here is the essential question stated, carefully, in the feature lede:

Could “R.E. Lee Memorial Church” commemorate the postwar fence-mender who had led their church and city out of destitution? Or could it only conjure the wicked institution of slavery for which Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee fought?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , ,

White nationalism: What are the crucial faith facts about this movement?

, , , , ,

Two unusual stories about race ran last week. One of them was about white nationalists and got massive readership (which is what I'd call anything with 2,900 comments). The other, about a press conference of conservative black clergy and academics, got ignored. 

Which leads us to questions about what kinds of news is popular, that people (in newsrooms, especially) want to hear about and what kind of news isn't so wanted.

The first article confirms most peoples' suspicions about white nationalists; the second features black speakers saying President Donald Trump isn't really a racist. 

The first article, titled "The road to hate: For six young men, Charlottesville is only the beginning," came out in the Washington Post. It says in part: 

Last weekend’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which ended with dozens injured, a woman struck dead by a car, a president again engulfed in scandal and another national bout of soul-searching over race in America, was a collection of virtually every kind of white nationalist the country has ever known. There were members of the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads and neo-Nazis . But it was this group, the group of William Fears, that was not so familiar.
The torch-lit images of Friday night’s march revealed scores like him: clean-cut, unashamed and young -- very young. They almost looked as though they were students of the university they marched through.
Who were they? What in their relatively short lives had so aggrieved them that they felt compelled to drive across the country for a rally? How does this happen?

I am glad the Post is trying to unravel this puzzle, because many of the major players in Charlottesville -– for those of us who don’t track these groups -– seemed to come out of nowhere.


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

Free-speech protests in Boston: How many points of view, on left and right, made it into news?

, , , , , , , , ,

To be honest, I'm still working through the emotions and, at times, confusion that poured out the other day in the Crossroads podcast that ran with this headline: "Your depressing 'think' podcast: Faith, hate and details that mattered in Charlottesville."

I want to make sure that readers know how much of a challenge hard-news reporters face covering massive protests at street level, as opposed to the angle used by members of the chattering classes as they sit in studio chairs in Washington, D.C., and New York City (and a few other hives).

Take the demonstration the other day in Boston. How many different points of view did you have to understand to explain to the public what appeared to happen there?

First: Let's mention the religion angle. I became interested in this "Free Speech Rally" because of the involvement of some pro-life, or anti-abortion, demonstrators. They were there as part of the coalition that put the event together for the expressed purpose of (a) standing up for the free-speech rights of conservatives outside the media mainstream and, at the same time, (b) to condemn the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville. I think it's safe to say that religious faith is central to the story of the pro-life demonstrators.

According to reporter Garrett Haake of MSNBC, this small circle of demonstrators faced some pushy, some would say violent, opposition from the left. The quote from Haake's tweet:

These protests rarely end pretty. Antifa folks just mobbed some anti-abortion protestors w/ posters. Yelled & tore posters til cops came

Kudos, by the way, to MSNBC for reporting that information.

So we have some pro-lifers, we have some Antifa folks. Who else is there? Let's pause for a moment and look at the top of an ABC News report on this drama. I thought this passage -- which is a bit long -- was especially crucial:


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

Associated Press repeats mantra: Gosh those 'evangelicals' are standing by their man Trump

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

Pardon me for a moment while I (just back from eclipse gazing here in New York City) ponder mortality, as in my own.

If I was hit by a bus tomorrow, there are two or three things that I have done in the world of journalism that I think would be worth future discussion. Yes, there's young Bono talking about faith and Africa, Mother Teresa talking about AIDS in Denver and Carl Sagan saying that he no longer considered himself an atheist or even an agnostic.

But I also hope -- in this age in which the word "evangelical" has been turned into a political label -- that a few people remember what happened when I asked the Rev. Billy Graham, back in the mid-1980s, to define that problematic word. Here's a flashback:

"Actually, that's a question I'd like to ask somebody, too," he said, during a 1987 interview in his mountainside home office in Montreat, N.C. This oft-abused term has "become blurred. ... You go all the way from the extreme fundamentalists to the extreme liberals and, somewhere in between, there are the evangelicals."
Wait a minute, I said. If Billy Graham doesn't know what "evangelical" means, then who does? Graham agreed that this is a problem for journalists and historians. One man's "evangelical" is another's "fundamentalist."

Graham said he defines "evangelical" in terms of doctrines, not politics or anything else. If a person believes all of the doctrines in the Apostles Creed, he said, their view of scripture is high enough to be called an evangelical. What about Pope John Paul II? Graham said the two men had discussed that. Yes, there is more to that story.

This brings me to, alas, Donald Trump, his house evangelicals and the Associated Press headline: "Trump’s evangelical advisers sticking with him amid fallout." The overture:

NEW YORK (AP) -- One of President Donald Trump’s most steadfast constituencies has been standing by him amid his defense of a white nationalist rally in Virginia, even as business leaders, artists and Republicans turn away.


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

Your depressing 'think' podcast: Faith, hate and details that mattered in Charlottesville

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

Warning: This post is going to be rather depressing, especially for (a) old-school journalists, (b) religious believers seeking racial reconciliation and (c) consistent, even radical, defenders of the First Amendment.

I really struggled as host Todd Wilken and I recorded this week's Crossroads podcast (click here to tune that in) and I think you'll be able to hear that in my voice. From my perspective, the media coverage of the tragic events in Charlottesville, Va., descended into chaos and shouting and the public ended up with more heat that light, in terms of basic information.

The key question, of course, is what did these demonstrations/riots have to do with religion?

That's where this post will end up, so hang in there with me.

But let's start connecting some dots, starting with a shocking headline from the op-ed page of The New York Times, America's most powerful news operation. Did you see this one?

The A.C.L.U. Needs to Rethink Free Speech

As a First Amendment liberal, that made me shudder. The whole idea is that the ACLU is struggling to defend its historic commitment to free speech -- even on the far right. In the context of Charlottesville, that leads to this (in the Times op-ed):

The American Civil Liberties Union has a long history of defending the First Amendment rights of groups on both the far left and the far right. This commitment led the organization to successfully sue the city of Charlottesville, Va., last week on behalf of a white supremacist rally organizer. The rally ended with a Nazi sympathizer plowing his car into a crowd, killing a counterprotester and injuring many.
After the A.C.L.U. was excoriated for its stance, it responded that “preventing the government from controlling speech is absolutely necessary to the promotion of equality.” Of course that’s true. The hope is that by successfully defending hate groups, its legal victories will fortify free-speech rights across the board: A rising tide lifts all boats, as it goes.
While admirable in theory, this approach implies that the country is on a level playing field, that at some point it overcame its history of racial discrimination to achieve a real democracy, the cornerstone of which is freedom of expression.

The key, of course, is that the rally descended into violence.

 


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

Imported Charlottesville clergy: When a simple narrative overtakes the complex facts

, , , , , , ,

Everyone is doing their Charlottesville post-mortems, which is why I was interested in what the New Yorker had to say about how church leaders there prepared for white supremacists.

The local clergy, and visiting clergy, played a crucial role in this story and many reporters made little or no effort to separate this group of counter-protesters from the highly confrontational, and ultimately violent, Antifa crowd that came in from outside.

That brings us to this New Yorker piece. What I didn't expect was a romanticized version of local clergy activism and a de-emphasis on the amount of outside clergy reinforcements brought in to maintain that false impression. The key facts: What clergy took part? Who didn't join the protests? Why? Where are the other voices?

The story begins at a historic black school where a few hundred of the town’s residents gather to assess exactly what happened on their streets to cause three people to die there during the recent riots.

One of the local leaders at the school was instantly recognizable to everybody: a sixty-five-year-old reverend named Alvin Edwards. When Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, came to town on Sunday, he went directly to a service at the Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church, which is Edwards’s congregation. He’s been there for the past thirty-six years, and during that time he’s also served as the city’s mayor and as a member of its school board. His years in politics have only seemed to strengthen his ties to his parishioners, and he likes to joke, with folksy charm, about his “B.C. days” -- before Christ -- when he lived in Illinois, where he grew up with plans “to make money and to be an industrial engineer.” Edwards marched with the counter-protesters over the weekend, but these days he’s best known for founding a broad coalition of local faith leaders called the Charlottesville Clergy Collective.

The article goes on to describe how the Collective got wind of an upcoming Ku Klux Klan visit and decided to hold a counter rally. Two of the major churches involved were Mt. Zion and St. Paul’s Episcopal.


Please respect our Commenting Policy