Politics

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Is anyone really surprised that Paula White got this White House job?

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For all you reporters covering the Rev. Paula White’s ascension to a paying job at the White House (which just got announced), there’s a few facts you might want to know.

The most important one is that little is going to change in terms of White’s job duties. She’s unofficially been part of the White House staff for three years now. Maybe it’s about time she went official and got paid. It is also time for her to get more respect from the media as a government appointee than she now enjoys as a mere megachurch pastor.

In the story that ran Thursday in the New York Times (and repeated by other outlets), the lead sentence was the headline and the opening paragraph simply refers to her as “Ms. White.” Technically, she is Paula White-Cain, a name she’s been increasingly using since her 2014 marriage to songwriter Jonathan Cain.

Then again, she is ordained. Does the Times believe in the ordination of women on the left, but not the Pentecostal-charismatic right?

Ms. White, a controversial figure even among evangelical Christians, will be overseeing a White House division that conducts outreach to key parts of the president’s base.

Paula White, a televangelist based in Florida and personal pastor to President Trump whom he has known since 2002, has joined the Trump administration in an official capacity, according to a White House official.

Ms. White will work in the Office of Public Liaison, the official said, which is the division of the White House overseeing outreach to groups and coalitions organizing key parts of the president’s base. Her role will be to advise the administration’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Mr. Trump established last year by executive order and which aims to give religious groups more of a voice in government programs devoted to issues like defending religious liberty and fighting poverty.

This isn’t super-new, folks. In the lengthy profile I did on White for the Washington Post back in November 2017, it was clear even then that she was going to be given some sort of official role. She’s been commuting to the White House from her home in central Florida more than once a week at her own expense.

For those of you hoping to find out more about White’s role, here’s a few questions to ask.


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Reporters: Forget the evangelicals. Will white Catholics dump Donald Trump in 2020?

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Reporters: Forget the evangelicals. Will white Catholics dump Donald Trump in 2020?

The following assumes that President Donald Trump will be impeached by the Democratic House, kept in office by the Republican Senate and then will appear on the November 2020 ballot.

The key is that are are already some hints of softening support for him in a Public Religion Research Institute survey released October 17.

To be blunt, 27 percent of those who identified as Republican or leaned Republican would prefer a different nominee. Only 39 percent of Americans approved of his job performance as president in this poll, though he did notably better with white (non-Hispanic) Catholics (48 percent) and white mainline Protestants (54 percent) -- and of course white (non-minority) evangelicals (77 percent).

Just under three-fourths (73 percent) of Americans wished Trump’s speech and behavior followed the example set by prior presidents and so did 70 percent of all Catholics and 72 percent of white mainline Protestants.

PRRI provoked the usual commentary about why-oh-why all those white evangelical Protestants favor the president. Certain evangelical thinkers fret that association with his embarrassments is damaging the Christian witness for years to come. That’s an important topic for journalism, since evangelicals are the nation’s largest religious bloc.

But just now reporters are necessarily consumed by 2020 and PRRI reports that white evangelicals favor Trump.

Ho hum. They vote for Republicans, period. By Pew Research data, in 2004 they voted 78 percent for the born-again George W. Bush. In 2008 they slipped to 74 percent for the less overtly pious John McCain, who had tangled with “religious right” preachers. In 2012 they went 78 percent for the devout Mitt Romney despite aversion toward his Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faith. In 2016 they gave 81 percent to the secularized Donald Trump, a proud vulgarian.

But The Guy keeps emphasizing that white Catholics gave Trump 59 percent support, and similarly for Romney.


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Scoop and solid coverage: Joe Biden denied Holy Communion over abortion support, paper reports

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Way to go, Florence Morning News.

The South Carolina newspaper — specifically government and politics reporter Matthew Christian — got a scoop this week on a Catholic priest denying Holy Communion to former Vice President Joe Biden.

But the paper didn’t just get the news, it got it right.

This is solid, solid coverage by the Florence paper:

FLORENCE, S.C. — Former Vice President Joe Biden, a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race, was denied Holy Communion on Sunday morning at a Florence church.

Father Robert E. Morey of Saint Anthony Catholic Church confirmed Monday afternoon that he had denied the presidential candidate Holy Communion because of his stance on abortion. Biden, a lifelong Catholic, had attended the church’s 9 a.m. Mass.

Communion is one of seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. The others are baptism, reconciliation, confirmation, marriage, anointing of the sick and holy orders.

In communion, parishioners receive the Holy Eucharist, a wafer and wine that when consecrated become the body and blood of Jesus, according to Catholic doctrine. In order to receive it, a Catholic must be in the state of grace, have gone to confession since his or her most recent mortal sin, have a belief in the doctrine of transubstantiation (a belief that the wafer and wine become the body and blood of Jesus), observe the Eucharistic fast and not be under censure.

Serious question: When’s the last time you saw that level of important religious detail that high up in a daily newspaper story?


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What does faith have to do with it? Romney is on a moral crusade, for some vague reason

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When you hear the name Mitt Romney, what are the first two or three things that pop into your head?

I mean, other than the fact that he’s from Utah and he speaks French.

Come to think of it, why does Romney speak French? Did he have a special reason to learn that language at a specific point in his life?

Oh, one more question. If you were writing a feature about tensions between Romney and one Donald Trump — that thrice-married New York City playboy — what major influence on the life and squeaky-clean image of the Utah senator that you would have to struggle to avoid mentioning?

This brings us to this weekend’s think piece, a McKay Coppins feature in The Atlantic that ran with this double-decker headline:

The Liberation of Mitt Romney

The newly rebellious senator has become an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party, just in time for the president’s impeachment trial.

Remember that the focus on this piece is on Romney’s willingness to stand in judgment of Trump’s character and moral fiber, or lack thereof. So how in the world did it avoid any discussion of his strong and very public faith as a leader, for many years, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Were editors scared to use the “M-word,” in light of recent labeling changes in this faith?


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Big news stories lurk on both sides of shrinking middle ground in American religion

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Big news stories lurk on both sides of shrinking middle ground in American religion

Religion and politics. Religion and politics. Religion and politics.

Or, sometimes it’s politics and religion.

Either way, we all know what factor — more often than not — turns a religion-news story into a big news story in the eyes of most newsroom managers. Well, sex scandals are good, too.

Normally, this politics-and-religion reality bugs me, because there is so much more to the religion beat than whatever content happens to overlap with the current political headlines.

But, right now, I think it’s obvious that the biggest news story in American politics is directly linked to the biggest story in American religion. I am talking about a trend that has been discussed in several 2019 Crossroads podcasts — including this week’s edition (click here to tune that in).

It’s the growing polarization between the world of traditional religious believers (defined primarily in terms of the PRACTICE of their faith) and the growing flock of open atheists-agnostics and the spiritual-but-not-religious phenomenon that overlaps with the growth of the religiously unaffiliated. It lines up with the hotter-than-hades rift in American culture and politics.

There are so many stories linked to this. We’re talking about the demographic implosion of the old liberal Protestant mainline. Then there’s the surging number of independent churches and nondenominational believers. There’s a growing number of Americans — small, but important — in other world religions. There are people (like me) who grew up in one tradition (Southern Baptist, in this case) and converted to another (Eastern Orthodoxy).

There are so many numbers, so many polls. The Pew Research Center, LifeWay Research, Barna and others keep cracking out fascinating numbers.

In the podcast, I mentioned — once again — Donald Trump and the infamous “81% of white evangelicals just love Donald” theme that can be found in news coverage on a daily basis (or so it seems). Yes, about half of those white evangelicals wanted to vote to some other GOP candidate. And about 40% of evangelicals appear to have stayed home or some voted third party.

Out of all of the topics that floated into this week’s podcast, let me stress one — the changing religious world of Latino Americans. Consider this lede atop a recent Crux report:


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Tampa Bay Times project details the making of world's first 'Scientology city' in Clearwater

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Writing about Scientologists is always a tough assignment, as the group isn’t fond of the media and does what it can to hamper critical reporting.

Which is why the Tampa Bay Times has done an amazing job in putting together a lengthy piece about how the church or members of the church are buying up downtown Clearwater, Fla., the site of their international headquarters.

Together with some cool graphics from GoogleEarth that show Scientology’s stranglehold on local properties, the story reminds us all that the Church of Scientology has been threatening to take control of the city since 1975. In the past three years, it’s doubled its footprint downtown. Here’s how it starts:

THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY and companies run by its members spent $103 million over the past three years buying up vast sections of downtown Clearwater.

They now own most commercial property on every block within walking distance of the waterfront, putting the secretive church firmly in control of the area’s future.

Most of the sales have not previously been reported. The Tampa Bay Times discovered them by reviewing more than 1,000 deeds and business records, then interviewed more than 90 people to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the transactions.

Even city leaders said they didn’t know the full extent of the purchases until they were shown maps created by the Times.

The church, its members and companies they control now own 185 properties that cover 101 acres in the center of downtown.

Finding all this out took lead reporter Tracey McManus six solid months working full time on this story. She found out some creepy details about how the property sales took place.


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After haunted obit, AP produces solid piece on black church's role in Rep. Elijah Cummings' life

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I wrote last week that The Associated Press’ obituary on Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was haunted by religion ghosts.

I pointed to the strong role of faith in Cummings’ life and noted that publications such as the Washington Post and Cummings’ hometown Baltimore Sun reflected it.

I voiced hope that AP would recognize that angle in its later coverage.

As the Rolling Stones put it, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

But hey, sometimes you can.

AP produced a solid piece out of Detroit this week on how the “Black Baptist church shaped Cummings’ commitment”:

DETROIT (AP) — To many black clergy, Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings was more than a formidable orator, civil rights champion and passionate public servant, he was also one of them — in practice, if not profession.

His upbringing, as “a preacher’s kid” gave him a comfort level with ministers and clergy to the point they “almost regarded him as a preacher,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, senior pastor of Detroit’s Historic King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church.

Cummings, the son of a sharecropper and pastors who died last Thursday at 68, was among a generation of lawmakers, civil rights leaders and social justice advocates who grew up under the influence of the African American church. From Martin Luther King Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, the black church is intertwined in African American history and the struggle for equality. It was the primary institution for organizing demonstrations, providing training and selecting leaders. Part of the role was instilling in those leaders a commitment to speaking for those who could not speak for themselves, giving one’s life in service to the community and standing against injustice.

Black pastors and historians alike remember Cummings, who will be buried in Baltimore Friday, as a man who absorbed the lessons of the church and exemplified its teachings in serving his constituents.


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What happened to ObamaCare and trans rights? Let's look at that headline in a mirror

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Headlines are really hard to write, and I say that as someone whose first full-time journalism job was on a copy desk in a daily newspaper.

If you think that it’s hard to write news stories that offer some sense of fairness and balance on complicated issues, you should try doing the same thing in a headline — with punch and maybe even a few terms that appeal to search engines. Copy editors have nightmares about being asked to write big, bold one- or two-column headlines for hot stories on A1 (back when there was such a thing as A1 and it mattered).

So I rarely respond when readers send me angry notes about headlines. But this time I will make an exception. This one begs for what your GetReligionistas have long called the “mirror image” treatment. What would the headline look like if you flipped it around?

The headline at The Hill proclaims: “Federal judge overturns ObamaCare transgender protections.”

That led to this email from a GetReligion reader:

OK, I guess that's one way to look at it. But how about this way: "Federal judge rules that doctors can't be forced to violate their consciences"?

Which is more accurate? I would argue the latter since the rule wasn't really about "protections" since there are doctors willing to do the surgeries and prescribe the medications.

That’s a good point — that reference to pro-LGBTQ doctors and networks being willing to back the trans positions on these issues. Is this a case in which doctors with traditional religious beliefs can, or should, be forced to lose their jobs?

What would that headline look like when viewed in a mirror?


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When it comes to John MacArthur, Beth Moore and Russell Moore, let's ask tougher questions.

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By now, many of you may have heard of the harsh comment that the Rev. John MacArthur, an extremely conservative evangelical pastor, made about Beth Moore, possibly the most famous woman in Southern Baptist life today.

MacArthur, who is very old school even among evangelicals, has led Grace Community Church north of Los Angeles for 50 years. To say he dislikes women preachers would be an understatement.

There are a lot of people out there protesting his unkind comments, including Relevant magazine, which produced an article listing several leaders across the theological spectrum critical of MacArthur.

MacArthur, by the way, has been even more scathing about charismatics over the years, so the Beth Moore crowd may be getting an idea of what the Pentecostal/charismatic crowd has been putting up with for a number of years.

First, according to Religion News Service, here’s what MacArthur said.

During the “Truth Matters Conference,” held Oct. 16-18 at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where he is pastor, MacArthur and other panelists were asked to give their gut reactions to one- or two-word phrases.

Asked to respond to the phrase “Beth Moore,” the name of a well-known Southern Baptist Bible teacher, MacArthur replied, “Go home.”

Sounds of laughter and applause could be heard in response during a recording of the session, which was posted online.

MacArthur — a leading proponent of Reformed theology and of complementarianism, the idea that women and men have different roles to play in the church and in society — was apparently responding to a controversy this past summer when Moore noted on Twitter that she spoke at a megachurch on a Sunday morning.

Her tweet led to accusations that Moore was undermining Southern Baptist teaching, which bars women from holding the office of pastor in churches.

One voice that has been absent on this latest flare-up has been the Rev. Russell Moore (no relation to Beth) who is the head of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The last interview with him that I saw occurred in August when Newsweek’s Nina Burleigh called him the “rebel evangelical.”

It was a very weak, even clueless, interview. The questions were vapid and Moore, who is no fool, slid past them with little difficulty. Most of the questions were about racism and sex abuse within the SBC, but they weren’t tough questions by any chance.

Meanwhile, is Russell Moore really a “rebel evangelical?” For that matter, so is Beth Moore? Are we talking about doctrine here or politics?


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