Race

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As Emanuel AME gunman gets death, looking for faith — and finding it — on victims' side

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It's impossible to tell the story of the Emanuel AME church massacre without a huge dose of faith.

All along, we at GetReligion have praised the unsurpassed local coverage of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes and her colleagues with the Post and Courier, the daily newspaper in Charleston, S.C.

In the wake of gunman Dylann Roof receiving a federal death sentence Tuesday, we again point readers to Hawes & Co.'s banner coverage of the decision.

But I also want to call special attention to a national story on Roof's sentencing, via the New York Times: 

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Dylann S. Roof, the unrepentant and inscrutable white supremacist who killed nine African-American churchgoers in a brazen racial rampage almost 19 months ago, an outburst of extremist violence that shocked the nation, was condemned to death by a federal jury on Tuesday.
The jury of nine whites and three blacks, who last month found Mr. Roof guilty of 33 counts for the attack at this city’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, returned their unanimous verdict after about three hours of deliberations in the penalty phase of a heart-rending and often legally confounding trial.

The Times' story is full of strong and appropriate religion content, including this reaction:


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Taking down Kim Burrell: Sermon on homosexuality gets quick, one-sided media react

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When I read about pastor and entertainer Kim Burrell’s sermon where she called homosexuality “perverted,” I knew she was going to be made to pay for that and pay big.

Not only is her name mud in the entertainment world, but her recently launched radio show on a local Texas station just got cancelled.

Believe me, that will just be the beginning. What makes this so timely is that the movie, “Hidden Figures,” in which Burrell sings for the soundtrack is opening this week.

Here’s how the Los Angeles Times explained things:

Gospel singer Kim Burrell labeled homosexuality “perverted” in a sermon she gave in her other life as a Pentecostal preacher, quickly eliciting responses from both Pharrell Williams, with whom she sings on the “Hidden Figures” soundtrack, and two stars from that film, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe.
Burrell and Williams were originally scheduled to perform the soundtrack song “I See a Victory,” on which he is also a producer, on “The Ellen Show” on Thursday, with Monáe also slated to appear as a guest. But on Tuesday morning, show host Ellen DeGeneres announced on Twitter that Burrell would not join Monáe and Williams on Thursday’s show.

Then followed the withering tweet by DeGeneres and then:

“I came to tell you about sin,” Burrell said in the recent sermon at the Houston church she founded and where she is pastor, Love and Liberty Fellowship Church International. “That perverted homosexual spirit, and the spirit of delusion and confusion, it has deceived many men and women.”
A firestorm of criticism was touched off when video of the sermon began to circulate and Burrell took to Facebook Live to add, “There are a lot of people that I’m aware of that struggle or deal [with] or have that spirit. Have I discriminated against them? Have I ever outright told them that I don’t love you and you going to hell? … I don’t give that call.”

That and USA Today’s account were two of the less hysterical stories on the issue.


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In real-life Mayberry, what makes Trump supporters tick: Religion? Race? Economics?

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This is more like it.

In a GetReligion post last month, I offered praise for a thought-provoking Washington Post story on overlooked rural evangelicals.

But I voiced concern over the piece's lack of actual voices from rural America.

My recommendation in that original post:

Piggybacking off Godbeat veteran Bob Smietana's suggestion that "this is the big religion story for 2017," here's what I'd like to see going forward. Both from the Post and other major media, it seems to me that there's a big need to send a reporter — I nominate Sarah Pulliam Bailey — to some actual rural churches to interview real evangelicals who voted for Trump.

"Ask and it will be given to you ..."

Today, the lead story on the Washington Post website is a news-feature by — guess who? — Sarah Pulliam Bailey out of Mount Airy, N.C. (Don't resort to facts and try to tell me this piece was in the works before my earlier post. I'm intent on taking credit.)

Yes, the headline is clickbait at its best (or worst, if you will):


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A holy ghost in Dallas: 'Servant leader' steps into key public office in the Lone Star State

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Dear Dallas Morning News: Please ask the obvious follow-up question.

That's my simple request of the major Texas daily as it reports on new Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson.

No, I'm not suggesting a holy ghost in Johnson's first name, although it certainly wouldn't hurt for a reporter to ask if there's a story behind it.

But the more newsworthy detail missing from the Morning News' coverage relates to Johnson's description of herself as a "servant leader."

This was the Dallas newspaper's lede early last month when Johnson's appointment was announced:

Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday appointed a new Dallas County district attorney who says she sees herself as a "servant leader" who wants the public to believe in the prosecutors at the DA's office.

Again in today's newspaper — in a story on Johnson's swearing in Monday — the Morning News includes this note:

Johnson calls herself a "servant leader" who wants to work with residents to make the district attorney's office better. 

Here's the question: What — or better yet, who — is Johnson's inspiration for that description of her leadership style? Could it possibly be Jesus Christ, who says in Mark 10:42-45 of the New Testament:


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'The Shack' movie cometh, but mainstream reporters miss the real religion issues

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I first heard of William Young’s “The Shack” in 2008, about a year after it came out. I knew it was an indie book set in the Pacific Northwest and, as it turned out, one of the main characters was kidnapped at an eastern Oregon campground that I’d once frequented. When the father of the victim wanders about the wilderness near Hell’s Canyon trying to find his daughter –- or at least her body -– I knew exactly where he was driving.

The book got a very mixed reception due to its unorthodox theology, but when I traveled to Oregon in the summer of 2009 for vacation –- and to interview the author -– I found him a likable, unassuming man. Despite the fact that he was now worth millions, he was plainly dressed and we met in a coffeeshop near his home in Gresham, a suburb east of Portland.

So it’s no surprise that 10 years after the initial 2007 release date, this story has been turned into a major movie. A writer for the Washington Post previewed it in a piece under a headline touting God as a "curvy black woman." Here's how that starts:

In the coming film adaptation of “The Shack,” a fictional book by William P. Young about a father’s path to renewed faith and healing after his young daughter’s murder, the character of God -- as depicted in the novel -- is portrayed as a curvy, maternal black woman. ...
At issue is Young’s characterization of the Holy Trinity, seen through the eyes of the story’s main character, who on the four-year anniversary of his daughter’s brutal killing is mysteriously invited by someone named “Papa” -- his wife’s affectionate name for God -- to the abandoned shack in the Oregon woods where the girl died.
He goes, reluctant and angry, unsure if he’ll be met by his daughter’s murderer.
Instead, he finds this: a Middle Eastern, Jewish carpenter named Jesus; the Holy Spirit embodied in a wispy Asian woman who loves to garden and God (played by “The Help” star Octavia Spencer) as the very opposite of the Gandolf-like grandpa figure modern society is used to seeing.
This depiction -- God as a woman despite its gender-less designation in the Bible -- has some critics incensed.

Whoa –- wait –- God in the Bible is genderless?


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After Dylann Roof verdict, best stories aren't about the killer — but resilient survivors

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As I noted earlier this week, a big part of me would be happy never to see Dylann Roof's name in print again. Or hear it on the TV news.

But stories about the victims and survivors of last year's rampage that claimed nine lives at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C? I could read those all day — as long as I had a box of tissues handy.

That's why — after a federal jury found Roof guilty on all 33 counts Thursday — my favorite verdict stories were the ones that focused not on Roof but the victims.

A year and a half after the church slaughter, Emanuel AME's demonstrations of faith and forgiveness still resonate in a powerful way. More on that in a moment.

As background: Major news organizations — from The Associated Press to Reuters to the Washington Post — all covered the jury's conviction of Roof. No surprise there.

However, victims were secondary in most of these straight-news reports. I didn't see any survivors or victims' loved ones quoted in the Los Angeles Times' story (although readers did learn up high that Roof wore a "blue cable-knit sweater" as the verdicts were read). Perhaps I missed a sidebar.

But besides its main report, the New York Times had a gripping narrative on "Congregants’ Quiet Agony at the Dylann Roof Trial."

Wow, this is worthwhile reading, full of precise detail and real human emotion:

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Each morning they flowed into Courtroom Six, escorted by federal officials from a holding room reserved for survivors and families of the victims. The accused, Dylann S. Roof, never turned from the end of the defense table to acknowledge the parents, widows and widowers, children, grandchildren and fellow congregants of the nine African-Americans he confessed to killing in June 2015 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Felicia Sanders, who survived the rampage but lost her son and her aunt, watched from the first of six rows of wooden benches, along with her husband, Tyrone. The Rev. Eric S. C. Manning, who now inhabits the office once occupied by the church’s pastor, the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, who was among those killed, sat one row back. The Rev. Anthony B. Thompson, whose wife, Myra, led the evening Bible study that Mr. Roof joined, always took his place in the fifth row, along with John Pinckney, the former pastor’s father.


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'Just who is Dylann Roof?': Do we really need to know what makes a mass murderer tick?

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Jennifer Berry Hawes has an incredibly difficult job. I don't envy her.

Hawes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., is covering the trial of Dylann Roof, who confessed to last year's mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church.

Regular GetReligion readers will recall that we repeatedly have praised Hawes — a former full-time Godbeat pro — for her reporting on the Emanuel AME aftermath. We have used adjectives such as "amazing" and "powerful" to describe her stories. 

But I can't say that I "enjoyed" her front-page Sunday story on Roof.

In the story, Hawes delves into this question:

Just who is Dylann Roof?

My immediate thought: Do we really want to know?

Of course, the journalist in me recognizes that such stories are necessary and important. But there's a part of me that would be happy never to see Roof's name in print again. Or hear it on the TV news.

In a post on a different shooting rampage last year, I wrote:


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Baltimore Sun finds the faith angle in the Baptist officer ensnared in Freddie Gray case

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The Baltimore Sun is no longer the dead-tree-pulp newspaper that lands in my front yard each morning. Thus, logically enough, there has been a sharp decline in the number of Sun stories that show up here on GetReligion.

Also, the newspaper's website features a numbing array of intrusive auto-cue forms of advertising, so sane readers would only go there when there are no other options. However, my many Charm City-area friends still let me know, from time to time, when something interesting shows up.

In this case, the Sun recently offered an in-depth profile of Alicia White, the only female officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, the infamous case that still hangs over life in Baltimore like smoke from burning urban neighborhoods. This was a big story for one simple reason, as stated in the headline: "Baltimore Police Officer Alicia White, charged in Freddie Gray case, becomes the first to speak out."

The surprise in this story is that it truly explores the human side of this woman, as well as the legal and political angles of the story. As is often the case among public servants in Baltimore's African-American community, that led the reporters into spiritual territory.

Right from the get-go, the story stresses that this case has had painful consequences for White as a person and as an officer.

For the past 18 months, her co-defendants either went to trial or were called to the stand to testify while she awaited her own trial. Out of public view, White spent much of the time grappling with crippling anxiety, and at one point was rushed to a hospital. The stress led her and her fiance to call off their engagement, and she spent months unemployed. Then, in July, all charges were dropped.

In addition to the interview material from White, it's clear that the Sun team did extensive background work in the community, digging into her life and work. That's where her educational background and church ties show up.

In other words, her Christian faith was and is part of her identity and, in the past, it affected her actions. Thus, it's part of the story.


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Why didn't the Bible abolish slavery? So, which form of slavery are we talking about?

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Why didn't the Bible abolish slavery? So, which form of slavery are we talking about?

THE QUESTION:

If the Bible is a revered guide to morality, why didn’t it abolish slavery? The Guy poses this issue that was raised in many comments posted after our Oct. 17, 2016, Q&A about people who abhor Jewish and Christian Scripture.

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Toleration of slavery, in which some people own and control others as property, is a favorite Internet attack skeptics level against the Bible. Greg Carey of Lancaster Theological Seminary says slavery is “the single most contested issue in the history of biblical interpretation in the United States.” Indeed, the U.S. Civil War demonstrated how ingrained this economic practice was and how difficult to eliminate — think 600,000-plus war dead.

Evangelical historian Mark Noll says Christians’ pre-war debate on this undercut scriptural authority because the two opposite sides employed the Bible for support. Supporters of the South’s plantation economy argued that the Bible never required abolition of slavery, while abolitionists believed biblical principles mandate freedom and respect for each person created by God. Bible believers in that second group were largely responsible for achieving abolition of this unmitigated evil on a global scale.

Slavery existed as far back as human history can be traced, and the dimensions became staggering. The Encyclopaedia Britannica says slaves were once half the population in sectors of Asia, an estimated 18 million east Africans were subjected to the Muslim slave trade from the time of the Quran through 1900, while the west African trade involved 7 to 10 million enslaved people until British and American abolition.

Defenders of the Bible note that thousands of years ago holy writ did not require slavery but accommodated it as an unavoidable reality, and mitigated it with relatively enlightened and humane provisions.


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