Race

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Will Joe Biden's faith become a campaign issue as anti-Catholic attacks rise in America?

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The summer that has been highlighted by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, protests and statue-toppling has placed a spotlight on everything that’s wrong with politics.

But there are more dark clouds for people in pews and at altars. As the coronavirus crisis worsens, Christians and people of all faiths must face one stark reality — the possibility that their faith will be further eroded by secular society.

The spread of the coronavirus has been a boon for some politicians. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has essentially run a stealth campaign from his home (and benefitted from this safe strategy in the polls), while President Donald Trump has risked one television interview after another in an effort to get his message out.

Trump is acting like a candidate on the ropes, not an incumbent. He appears to have no clear second-term agenda.

The virus, meanwhile, has also given some lawmakers the chance to act more authoritarian in the name of science, meaning churches can close but anti-racism protests can continue. While populism has suffered during quarantine lockdowns (no rallies!), more extreme forces may actually benefit in this election cycle and over the coming decade.

Totalitarianism, in any form, isn’t good for religious people. Neither is the political and cultural balkanization we are witnessing across the country. With three months to go before Americans cast their votes, the divisive nature of our politics will likely get worse.

How worse? During this time of cultural reckonings, some activists have tried to lump Catholic saints into the same category as treasonous Confederate generals. That has forced some Republicans to increasingly trumpet traditional Christian values, while Democrats get dangerously closer to Marxism.

That means that old-school religious centrists — and lawmakers prone to making compromises like former Sen. Joe Lieberman — will disappear from our national politics. These people will be forced to choose a side or remain largely absent from the U.S. political system.

Who will voters support?


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Do these issues matter? Trump utters religious slur while Harris underlines Biden's Catholic questions

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This week’s Joe Biden and Kamala Harris nominations are an appropriate moment to look at the religious angles that writers are encountering in the 2020 campaign.

To begin, a Wall Street Journal column by Brookings Institution political scientist William A. Galston observes that in today’s United States “the level of religious polarization is the highest in the history of modern survey research.”

Which immediately brings up the Quote of the Year. It’s hard to think of any remark by a U.S. president more invidious than Donald Trump’s characterization of Democratic opponent Biden: “No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible. Hurt God. He’s against God.”

Reporters seeking balance, and any Republicans who were embarrassed by this, could have noted that the 2020 food fight previously featured Democrats belittling the quality of Trump’s religiosity. Biden himself joined that chorus after the president’s walk from the White House to fire-damaged St. John’s Episcopal Church to hold a Bible aloft for the cameras: “I just wish he opened it once in a while instead of brandishing it. If he opened it, he could have learned something.”


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The unorthodox life of Kamala Harris: The future of interfaith American politics?

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Hang on for a wild ride.

Try to avoid whiplash.

Yes, it was another crazy week in the world of religion news and we’re going to cover the highlights in a hurry.

Starting with the obvious: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s selection of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate brings plenty of faith angles.

Elana Schor, the national religion and politics writer for The Associated Press, notes that the 55-year-old Harris “attended services at both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple growing up — an interfaith background that reflects her historic status as the first Black woman and woman of South Asian descent on a major-party presidential ticket.”

Bob Smietana, editor-in-chief of Religion News Service, dubs Harris “the interfaith candidate,” and RNS national correspondent Yonat Shimron offers “five faith facts about Biden’s VP choice.” In a separate story, Shimron suggests that Harris “is also the future of American religion.”

But the crucial angles related to Harris and religion aren’t all positive, even if some news coverage is. Can you say “Knights of Columbus”?

Her selection prompted the National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis to write about what DeSanctis’ article called “Kamala Harris’s Anti-Catholic Bigotry.” Even before the Harris pick, Kelsey Dallas, the Deseret News’ national religion writer, had reported last week on Biden’s “tough road ahead on religious freedom.”


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Veteran minister and Tennessee lawmaker fights for his political life -- as pro-life Democrat

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As a teen, longtime Tennessee state Rep. John DeBerry Jr. integrated an all-White high school and witnessed civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech before his 1968 assassination.

To supporters, DeBerry — a 69-year-old Black preacher from Memphis — is a man of high integrity and strong moral convictions based on his Christian faith.

But to opponents, including Planned Parenthood, the LGBTQ Victory Fund and the Tennessee Democratic Party’s executive committee, the 13-term incumbent is an out-of-touch relic. In their view, DeBerry’s conservative positions on issues such as abortion, gay rights and school choice make him unfit to remain in office.

“I tell people all the time when they talk to me: It’s not about the elephant. It’s not about the donkey. It’s about the Lamb,” said DeBerry, who has preached nearly every Sunday since 1968 and served as the minister for the Coleman Avenue Church of Christ in Memphis for the last 20 years.

The widowed father and grandfather makes no secret that he believes life begins at conception.

That, he contends, is not a Republican stand.

“It is a biblical stand,” he told The Christian Chronicle in a lengthy, wide-ranging interview. “It is a moral stand. It is an ethical stand.”

After 26 years in the Tennessee General Assembly, DeBerry faces the fight of his political life in the November general election.

That’s because the Democratic executive committee voted 41-18 in April to remove him from the party’s primary ballot. The decision — reaffirmed 40-21 the next week — came after the filing deadline to run as a Republican or independent.

At first, it seemed as if DeBerry would have no choice but to give up his seat or wage a longshot write-in campaign.


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Podcast: Portland Bible (or Bibles) was just 'kindling' for fire, saith The New York Times (#SoThere)

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Podcast: Portland Bible (or Bibles) was just 'kindling' for fire, saith The New York Times (#SoThere)

Let’s say that it’s a cold summer night and you need to start a fire during your #AltRight demonstration that includes quite a bit of violent behavior.

There are, of course, television cameras present.

How many Qurans would you need to burn — just as “kindling” — to create a news story worthy of coverage by what used to be called the mainstream press? You are, of course, going to burn an American flag, as well, since it is a symbol of the liberal state that is your enemy. You are flying your own banners — such as a Rebel battle flag from the War Between the States.

Do you need to burn one Quran to create headlines around the world? How about two? You are, of course, not showing hostility to Islam. You just need some kindling to start a fire. It also helps to open the cover up so that the camera catches the title page of the holy book.

This was one of the questions discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). We were discussing that recent New York Times story that ran with this headline: “A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out.”

The setting for this drama, of course, is Portland. Here’s a key passage:

The story was a near-perfect fit for a central Trump campaign talking point — that with liberals and Democrats comes godless disorder — and it went viral among Republicans within hours of appearing earlier this month. The New York Post wrote about it, as did The Federalist, saying that the protesters had shown “their true colors.” Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, said of the protesters, “This is who they are.” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, tweeted that antifa had moved to “the book burning phase.”

The truth was far more mundane. A few protesters among the many thousands appear to have burned a single Bible — and possibly a second — for kindling to start a bigger fire. None of the other protesters seemed to notice or care.

Were the Russians tipped off about the random Bible burning? Where were the CNN cameras? Fox News pros weren’t there to join the conspiracy?

Let me be clear: I have no doubt that advocacy media on the right jumped on this story. That is what they do in this new era of biased news on both sides of America’s cultural divide. I have no doubt that Russian operatives seek to cause division.


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Plug-in: 'Racy' snapshot of Liberty's Jerry Falwell Jr. sparks heat, curiosity and wisecracks

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“Wut is happening,” Houston Chronicle religion writer Robert Downen quipped on Twitter this week.

Downen’s colloquial query about an, um, unexpected snapshot of Jerry Falwell Jr. quickly went viral.

Falwell is, of course, the president of Liberty University and a prominent evangelical ally of President Donald Trump.

As noted by Julie Roys, an independent Christian journalist, the “racy picture” of Falwell and a woman was seemingly taken at a party on his yacht. Falwell posted the image to his Instagram page and then quickly deleted it.

“In the picture,” Roys explained, “Falwell and a woman, described as a friend, appear with their shirts hiked up and pants unzipped with the caption: ‘Lots of good friends visited us on the yacht. I promise that’s just black water in my glass.’”

Roys added: “A video of the party also showed up on the internet, featuring Falwell and others at what appears to be a Trailer Park Boys themed party. The scenes are surprising, given that Falwell is the president of the largest Christian university in the country. One guest in the video makes a vulgar gesture toward the camera. Some are wearing tight clothes with bellies exposed. Many have cigarettes dangling from their mouths.“

At first, some questioned whether the man in the picture was actually Falwell. But it soon became clear that it was indeed him.

Later, Falwell apologized for posting the photo, Politico reported. But the same news article said he “also defended the incident as a vacation ‘costume party’ that was ‘just in good fun.’”

“I’ve apologized to everybody,” Falwell said in an interview with radio station WLNI 105.9 FM in Lynchburg, Va. “And I’ve promised my kids I’m going to try to be — I’m gonna try to be a good boy from here on out.”

For his part, Downen — best known for his award-winning investigative project on sex abuse in Southern Baptist churches — said he was surprised by the heavy response to his tweet.


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People keep asking: Why does press say 'religious left,' as opposed to 'Religious Left'?

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People keep asking: Why does press say 'religious left,' as opposed to 'Religious Left'?

Every now and then, readers — or people I meet in daily life — ask this question: Why do journalists write so much about the Religious Right (capital letters), while devoting way less digital ink to the actions, policies and beliefs of the religious left (no capital letters).

That is a complex question and you can hear me struggling with it all the way through this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). The hook for this episode was my post that ran with this headline: “Thinking with David Briggs and Ryan Burge: Whoa, is religious left really on rise (again)?”

For starters, people tend to ask this question every four or eight years (hint, hint), when the mainstream press does another round of stories about the religious left surging into action in an attempt to counterbalance the nasty Religious Right.

The Religious Right, you see, exists all the time — because it is one of the largest camps inside the modern Republican Party. The religious left doesn’t play the same role in the Democratic Party, unless we are talking about the importance of politically (as opposed to doctrinally) liberal black-church leaders in strategic primary elections. You can ask Joe Biden about that this time around.

I guess the simple answer to the “RR” vs. “rl” question is that journalists tend to capitalize the names of groups that they see as major political or social movements — like the Civil Rights movement or the Sexual Revolution.

The religious left, you see, isn’t a “movement” that exists all the time — in my experience — for many mainstream journalists. The religious left is just ordinary, good, liberal religious people doing things that are positive and logical in the eyes of gatekeepers in newsrooms. This is “good” religion.

The Religious Right, on the other hand, is a powerful political movement consisting of strange, scary evangelicals who keep coming out of the rural backwoods to threaten normal life in American cities. This is “bad,” even dangerous, religion.

Now, there is another big irony linked to press coverage of progressive forms of faith.


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Christian in NBA suffers horrible, funny injury: Was cruel ESPN tweet a news story or not?

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I realize that few GetReligion readers seem to care much about sports. But what about a mixture of race, religion and sports?

With that in mind, let me ask a serious journalism question linked to those three topics.

Would it be a news story — a hard-news story — if an ESPN personality (or the social-media team working with his show) asked if it was funny if an athlete who backs #BlackLivesMatters suffered a horrible, painful injury soon after making a high-profile statement about how his convictions were rooted in his faith?

Wait. We know an ESPN host and/or the show’s social-media team would never do such a thing.

But what if a conservative media star — Tucker Carlson, let’s say — asked that same question?

It’s safe to say that this would explode into mainstream news coverage.

That brings us to this headline in the New York Post (a conservative paper, of course): “ESPN’s Dan Le Batard posts poll wondering if Jonathan Isaac’s torn ACL is funny.”

Dan Le Batard issued an apology for his ill-advised poll Monday afternoon.

The ESPN radio host’s show, “The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz,” ran a poll on Twitter poking fun at Magic forward Jonathan Isaac, who tore his ACL Sunday night.

Isaac was the first player in the NBA bubble not to kneel during the national anthem, and also did not wear the “Black Lives Matter” warm-up donned by the rest of his teammates.

“Is it funny the guy who refused to kneel immediately blew out his knee?” the poll asked.

Oh, right. I turned that question around, didn’t I?

Isaac is a black Christian — he is ordained, in fact — who made headlines by linking his faith to his decision not to take part in the official NBA pre-game rites. He wasn’t protesting the protests, exactly. He had a larger point that he wanted to make, one rooted in his work as a minister.


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Religion is the hidden theme in this coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine controversy

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A group of doctors in white coats was the big news last week and for those of you living under a rock, I am referring to some press conferences in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. They featured a racially mixed group of about 10 people dressed in white lab coats.

All of them — who were doctors of one sort or another — gave their names and that of their workplaces, making it easy for anyone to check them out. Their plaint? The anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is a proven tool in treatment of COVID-19 and there’s something rotten in Denmark when you can’t even post a video on social media about it.

But did you see much reporting examining their arguments?

No, you heard about “demon sperm” and “alien DNA.”

It didn’t take long before Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were treating the event as akin to anti-vaxxer screed. Censors at all three platforms were working overtime to get this presser erased. Certain media managed to get a look-see at these medics, and what did they concentrate on in their reports?

Their religious views, of course.

Especially the religion of the one black woman in the crowd. We’ll get back to that shortly. First, some background from the New York Times, which was in quite a swivet about the whole thing.

In a video posted Monday online, a group of people calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” and wearing white medical coats spoke against the backdrop of the Supreme Court in Washington, sharing misleading claims about the virus, including that hydroxychloroquine was an effective coronavirus treatment and that masks did not slow the spread of the virus.

The video did not appear to be anything special. But within six hours, President Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. had tweeted versions of it, and the right-wing news site Breitbart had shared it. It went viral, shared largely through Facebook groups dedicated to anti-vaccination movements and conspiracy theories such as QAnon, racking up tens of millions of views. Multiple versions of the video were uploaded to YouTube, and links were shared through Twitter.

Well, surely the public can’t be allowed to see that, right?


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