Politics

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

Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

In the summer of 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Company, acting in response to some early power mouse gay-rights decisions.

Eight years later, the leaders of America’s largest non-Catholic flock quietly called off the boycott, which was a bit of a dud. The news coverage was, well, joyfully muted.

Why did this boycott fail? Well, for one thing, lots of SBC guys probably found it hard to ditch ESPN and lots of parents who were “conservatives” found it hard to stop using Disney movies as babysitters.

This brings us to the current headlines about Bud Light and Target, which served as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Baptists vs. Disney? Kind of a big deal, but not really. Then again, Disney executives may be aware of box-office issues with some of their recent LGBTQ+ themes in big-screen products for children. You think?

Ah, but what about beer drinkers vs. Bud Light? That battle over in-your-face corporate support for trans performance art appears to have legs. See this update from NBC News: “'Nobody imagined it would go on this long': Bud Light sales continue to plummet over Mulvaney backlash.”

Suburban parents (especially in red states) vs. Target? That’s a more complex subject, but there are signs that Tarjey executives have started doing homework on the watered-down beer battles.

This raises a perfectly valid question: Are there religion ghosts in the Bud Light and Target backlash stories? I mean, how many Southern Baptists are Bud Light fans?

The actual question is this: Are there religion ghosts in the neverending wars between Middle America and “woke” corporate support for the ever-changing doctrines of the Sexual Revolution?

I would say, “yes.” But it’s clear that the cultural battles now involve armies larger than people in conservative pews.


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

WSJ reporter dares to interview ordinary Eastern Orthodox converts in the Bible Belt

, , , , , , , , , ,
WSJ reporter dares to interview ordinary Eastern Orthodox converts in the Bible Belt

As you would expect, the recent Wall Street Journal feature on the rising number of converts to Eastern Orthodox Christianity was a big deal here in Orthodox circles in East Tennessee.

Why? The WSJ piece was built, in large part, on contacts with sources here in the Appalachian mountains and nearby. The headline: “Eastern Orthodoxy Gains New Followers in America — Ancient faith is drawing converts with no ties to its historic lands.”

This is not a new story, of course, since the “convert-friendly era” of Orthodoxy began in the 1980s and ‘90s. But, for reasons explained in the WSJ piece, there is enough novelty linked to this trend — especially when contrasted with stark mainline Protestant decline — that the topic has made a few headlines every five years or so.

What this new piece does better than others, I think, is note the paradox found in American Orthodoxy — that some churches are growing rapidly, while others are plateaued or in decline. Consider this statement of the “trend,” which is described as a “small but fast-growing group of Americans from diverse backgrounds who have embraced Orthodoxy in the past few years.” Here is an important background passage:

Eastern Orthodoxy is one of the two parts of the Christian world that emerged from the Great Schism of the 11th century, a split with the Roman Catholic Church caused principally by disagreement over the authority of the pope. Its members belong to a family of churches with historic roots in Eastern Europe, Russia and the region of the eastern Mediterranean. … 

The Eastern Orthodox population of the U.S. is dominated by immigrants from the church’s historic lands and by their descendants. But in recent years, aided by more widely available information on the internet, the church has been attracting more attention from people with no ancestral ties to Orthodoxy, a trend that appears to have accelerated following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Some pastors across the country report growth of their flocks by 15% or more in a single year owing to conversions, defying an overall trend of decline similar to that in other denominations.

I must be candid and note that here was another reason that this WSJ article created quite a buzz — it contrasted sharply with last year’s NPR piece: “Orthodox Christian churches are drawing in far-right American converts.”


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

It will be easy for journalists to find God connections in Turkey's run-off election

, , , , , , ,
It will be easy for journalists to find God connections in Turkey's run-off election

A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to spend a few days in Turkey (recently re-branded as Türkiye), a country I’d not visited in 19 years. Back then, I was in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeastern sector — near the location of Turkey’s Feb. 6 earthquakes. It was like a visit to America’s Jim Crow past, as Kurds are a despised minority in Turkey.

My most recent journey (courtesy of the country’s tourism board) was very different — a swing around the country’s south-central precincts tracing the steps of St. Paul, who zig-zagged about Turkey during several visits.

While there, I experienced plenty of reminders (billboards and cars parades blasting slogans) that this was Turkey’s election season and that the country’s future very much hung on whether the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could be unseated in the upcoming May 28 run-off election.

Stay with that thought, because we will return to some observations on religion angles in the upcoming presidential run-off election.

Whatever happens, Erdogan will be a footnote in history. As Turkey’s most famous native son throughout the ages, Paul grew up in Tarsus, about 10 miles from the Mediterranean coast. It’s thought that his Jewish forebears arrived there a few centuries before and were made Roman citizens due to them being landowners. Tarsus was our first stop and because it’s impossible to know exactly where Paul’s family lived, the government has had to rely on where church tradition says it might have been.

So, there’s a “St. Paul’s well” with water you can still drink; some first-century ruins under protective glass, a St. Paul Museum surrounded by mulberry bushes and even an Islamic site purporting to be the biblical prophet Daniel’s tomb. One needs a tour guide to get about this town; these sites would have been difficult to locate in a rental car.

Those of us who live in the New World have difficulty imagining life in a country built on layers and layers of archeological sites; where’s it’s nothing to find a 2,000-year-old piece of statuary in one’s back yard and where the earliest Christians hung out.


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

Tim Keller sought 'winsome' Manhattan apologetics, a goal that became more difficult

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Tim Keller sought 'winsome' Manhattan apologetics, a goal that became more difficult

If one looks up the word “winsome” in a dictionary, here is a typical example of what shows up, via Merriam-Webster: “generally pleasing and engaging often because of a childlike charm and innocence.”

However, a Google search for the term “winsome,” when combined with “Tim Keller,” opens up a window into a completely different world — one closely linked to debates about the meaning of the word “evangelical” in a Donald Trump-era culture.

Frankly, I am not going to go there. What I will do is urge GetReligion readers who visit Twitter to follow the #TimKeller hashtag and check out the waves of tributes in the wake of the passing of one of the most important American evangelicals — defined in terms of doctrine — in recent decades.

Instead of looking at the tsunami of news coverage, I will simply note the obvious — Keller is receiving much, or even most, of this attention because he lived, worked, preached and wrote in New York City. If his career had unfolded in the Bible Belt, mainstream journalists would never have heard of him. Thus, here is the New York Times double-decker headline on its obituary (which ran quickly, but inside the print edition):

The Rev. Timothy Keller, Pioneering Manhattan Evangelist, Dies at 72

Shunning fire and brimstone, he became a best-selling author and founded Redeemer Presbyterian Church, which drew young New Yorkers.

The Gray Lady’s lede offered this:

The Rev. Timothy J. Keller, a best-selling author and theorist of Christianity who performed a modern miracle of his own — establishing a theologically orthodox church in Manhattan that attracted thousands of young professional followers — died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 72.

Yes, we can talk about the accuracy of the word “evangelist” in the headline. Once again, there are mainstream journalists who believe that is simply another way to say “evangelical.” Unless I missed something, Keller was not active in holding the kinds of public events — think Billy Graham “crusades” — normally associated with public evangelism. Were there some Central Park rallies with Keller sermons and altar calls that I missed? Please let me know.

What he was, of course, was a church builder and an “apologist” for small-o orthodox Christianity, of the Reformed form,” both in preaching and in writing — in books and a host of other forms.


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

Podcast: A growing army of Americans (#surprise) no longer trusts the news media

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Podcast: A growing army of Americans (#surprise) no longer trusts the news media

Were there tears in Anderson Cooper’s eyes? Did you hear a tremor in his voice?

A clip featuring the CNN superstar (that’s a relative term, these days) went viral after he wore his elite heart on his finely tailored sleeve when responding to woke social-media meltdowns after The. Most. Trusted. Name. In. News. dared to air a ratings-chasing “town hall” with former President Donald Trump.

By all means, watch the YouTube video featured at the top of this post, because it was featured in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), which focused on another set of bleak, hellish poll numbers about Americans doubting the mainstream-news industrial complex. I argued — no surprise if you read my recent Religion & Liberty essay (“The Evolving Religion of Journalism”) — that niche-press coverage of moral, cultural and religious issues has played a big role in this disaster.

Cooper’s dramatic soliloquy included some strong language aimed directly at CNN’s shrinking choir of loyal viewers on what used to be called the “left.” In a way, it’s a kind of niche-news Rorschach test. What do you see and hear?

Meanwhile, here are some of the key quotes, drawn from a rather snarky piece at The Hollywood Reporter (I have added bold text for emphasis):

Echoing some of the points that network CEO Chris Licht had made to CNN staff … (Cooper) attempted to pivot and spin why CNN felt it was important to cover Trump. “The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night, that man … may be president of the United States in less than two years. And that audience that upset you, that’s a sampling of about half the country.”

He added, “If last night showed anything, it showed [Trump winning] can happen again. It is happening again. He hasn’t changed and he is running hard. You have every right to be outraged today and angry, and never watch this network again.”

Cooper then rather bizarrely put the onus back on the audience to not remain ignorant of people on the other side of the political divide and incredibly implied that some people were ignorant of Trump. “Do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away? If we all only listen to those we agree with, it may actually do the opposite.”

Yes, the crucial word “silo” was used, in an emotional dermon aimed directly at CNN viewers. At some point, we can expect someone on Fox News to offer some variation of this litany when talking to its post-Tucker Carlson audience.

This is the media dynamic at the heart of trends in the Divided States of America.


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

Yes, what about that meeting between Pope Francis and an exiled Russian Orthodox leader?

, , , , , , , , , , , ,
Yes, what about that meeting between Pope Francis and an exiled Russian Orthodox leader?

So, my gentle readers, please allow me to flash back to a recent news story that I intended to discuss, but travel got in the way. This was a story that may or may not have been important, but we really don’t know because it centered on a private meeting between Pope Francis and a very symbolic Russian Orthodox leader.

Why to I say that Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest is a highly”symbolic” Orthodox leader, especially at this point in the hellish conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

To explain my use of “symbolic,” we need to look at the Associated Press story that ran with this headline: “Pope in Hungary meets with Ukrainian refugees, Russian envoy.”

Ah, but was Metropolitan Hilarion a “Russian envoy,” in this case? Hold that thought, because things get more complex in the AP lede:

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Pope Francis plunged into both sides of Russia’s war with Ukraine on Saturday, greeting some of the 2.5 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled across the border to Hungary during a public prayer service and then meeting privately with an envoy of the Russian Orthodox Church that has strongly supported the war.

First, an important point of grammar in the final clause of that sentence, as in “meeting privately with an envoy of the Russian Orthodox Church that has strongly supported the war.” I added the bold italics, stressing that this is “that,” rather than “who.”

As we will see, it appears that the AP team covering this event knew little or nothing about the recent personal history of Hilarion. Then again, AP may have — for for some reason — chosen to omit interesting and potentially important information.

Hold that thought (again), as we read some material that appears later in this story:

Immediately after greeting and encouraging the refugees, Francis … met with the Russian Orthodox Church’s representative in Hungary, Metropolitan Hilarion, who developed close relations with the Vatican during his years as the Russian church’s foreign minister. The Vatican said the 20-minute meeting at the Holy See’s embassy in Budapest was “cordial.”

The Russian church’s strong support for the Kremlin’s war has rankled the Vatican and prevented a second papal meeting with Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.


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

View from Rome: Italian press aims to inform, but loves tabloid-style Vatican scandals

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
View from Rome: Italian press aims to inform, but loves tabloid-style Vatican scandals

There’s nothing like walking down Via della Conciliazione in Rome. It’s a very long street, bustling with cars and tourists, that feeds into St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. It’s a reminder of how big and imposing the Vatican can be, at least physically, in the increasingly secular West.

Italy, however, remains a Catholic nation, at least culturally, with reminders everywhere you look.

I am back in Italy for the first time since 2018. Unable to visit in recent years because of the pandemic, I am happy to be back to visit family and watch some soccer.   

My return to Italy also gives me the chance to observe how Italian journalists cover the Vatican and Pope Francis. What this close look reveals is a press fixated less on the doctrinal battles and culture-war issues we see in the American press. Instead, it’s all about international politics, the disappearance of a young girl (more on that later) and banking scandals.  

Let me explain. Italian media very much cover the papacy as a political force (it still very much is in this part of the world) and less of a religious one. As we say here at religion, many journalists believe religion is news to the degree that if affects politics.

Scandals involving the Holy See, even ones that are decades old and unsolved, continue to intrigue readers. It’s true that culture war issues were increasingly a factor in Italy’s elections that led to Giorgia Meloni becoming the country’s first female prime minister. It’s also true that Italian newspapers are not objective — many belong to political parties — but they don’t hide that fact from readers. That’s how the press works in Europe.

The big stories the Italian press have covered lately are the pope’s recent meeting with Ukraine’s President Vladimir Zelensky at the Vatican, the unsolved “Vatican Girl” scandal from 1983 and an ongoing trial that has revealed a series of financial scandals. Another big issue for the Vatican and Italy is falling birth rates, a story with strong religious overtones.

These stories transcend whatever political bias Italian newspapers bring to the table. They are seen as important to the country’s geo-political situation (in the case of Ukraine and birth rates).

The other stories reveal a Vatican that is very much involved in shadowy behavior — a corrupt institution that makes for attention-grabbing headlines meant to get clicks and sell newspapers. A murder mystery and alleged financial wrongdoing on the part of bishops will do that.


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

Another Catholic order fades away: AP offers a familiar story, from only one point of view

, , , , , , , , ,
Another Catholic order fades away: AP offers a familiar story, from only one point of view

The sad Catholic story format has become rather standardized by now.

First, you need a declining college, seminary, parish, local school or a religious order. Then (2) you add the details of the crisis and some brave quotes from the people who have decided to make hard decisions about the future — including their beliefs about the reasons for the decline.

Here’s the optional part: There may be (3) quotes from critics of the fading institution, as well as it’s supporters. This implies that there are Catholic issues being debated that are connected to this case study.

Now, I will argue that there needs to be (4) an additional factor, one other question, added to this increasingly familiar equation: Are there a few Catholic institutions of this kind that are surviving or even growing? The answer may be relevant to the big picture.

The Associated Press recently published a better-than-average story of this type, with this headline: “The end of an era for the Sisters of Charity of New York.” It offers the first two factors and at least admits that the third exists, with supporters mentioning the views of critics (perhaps even some in the order) — with AP declining to actually interview any of them. Here is the familiar overture:

NEW YORK (AP) — Through more than 200 years, the Sisters of Charity of New York nursed Civil War casualties, joined civil rights and anti-war demonstrations, cared for orphans, and taught countless children.

They’re proud of their history of selfless service. But they can’t ignore their current reality: The congregation continues to shrink and age — and not a single new sister has joined their U.S. group in more than 20 years.

After much prayer and contemplation, they made a tough decision that marked the beginning of the Catholic congregation’s end. They will no longer accept new members, and announced in an April 27 statement that they are now on a “path to completion.”

This leads to the required background material, with a Big Idea statement (which I have placed in bold type):


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

Plug-In: Another week, more death in U.S. spiritual crisis with guns and mental health

, , , , , , ,
Plug-In: Another week, more death in U.S. spiritual crisis with guns and mental health

ALLEN, Texas — Nine killed, counting the gunman.

Seven wounded.

Hundreds traumatized by what they experienced while simply trying to shop or eat and enjoy a leisurely weekend afternoon.

In other words, more of the same in America, where mass shootings have become a way of life — and too much death.

I wrote a column about how I ended up in this suburb north of Dallas after the nation’s latest massacre. That’s where we start our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

Prayer and protest: Predictably, Saturday’s shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets reignited the debate on gun control — with President Joe Biden and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on opposite sides.

Thousands — including Abbott — gathered the next day at a community prayer service, while a few dozen protesters outside carried signs such as “Thoughts and prayers are useless” and “We have an epidemic of gun violence.”

Read my report on the clashing messages.

Investigating the motive: Online activity by the 33-year-old shooter, identified as Mauricio Garcia, “betrayed a fascination with white supremacy and mass shootings, which he described as sport,” according to The Associated Press.

“Photos he posted showed large Nazi tattoos on his arm and torso, including a swastika and the SS lightning bolt logo of Hitler’s paramilitary forces,” adds the story by AP’s Jake Bleiberg, Gene Johnson and Lolita C. Baldor.


Please respect our Commenting Policy