Religious Liberty

Message from Madison conference: Religion news is struggling, but still surviving

Religion reporting, as you no doubt know, is under even more stress than the news outfits that have been dumping the specialty in recent years. So those who attended the Reporting on Religion Conference this week showed not only an idealism about the Godbeat; they also showed courage and determination.

About 200 people -- students, journalists, religious leaders and speakers including myself -- converged on Madison, Wisc., for a broad variety of topics. Things like the kinds of cuisine from different lands. And the broad scope of social changes in America, highlighted by people's deepest thoughts and feelings? And finding a way to get attention for issues that don’t strike sparks but still speak to our deepest questions.

Madison itself embodies the tensions of religion in American public life. The city is home to the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, an evangelical ministry to college campuses. It's also home to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, famous for its opposition to institutional religion.

The conference, however, was held at a sacred space: Upper|House, a combination lounge, study center and worship site at the University of Wisconsin. With comfy booths, hanging couches and a crescent-shaped amphitheatre, Upper|House served as an apt cosponsor of the conference, along with the Lubar Institute for the Study of the Abrahamic Religions.

The 15 speakers contributed a variety of understandings of the religion-news craft. Among them:

* Besheer Mohamed, despite his job at the number-crunching Pew Center, said that "Sometimes, a trend is better than a perfect question." For instance, people may mean different things by "evangelical," but fewer want to so label themselves than in 2007.


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Muslims are pretty much like the rest of us: RNS steps lightly through new survey

Despite the furor by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz over Muslims, those believers are pretty much like other Americans, according to a Religion News Service story on a new survey of various kinds of believers.

With this piece, RNS' Cathy Lynn Grossman shows her talent once more for turning survey numbers into timely news copy. She also proves her nimbleness: Just the other day, we shared a stage as speakers for the Reporting on Religion conference in Madison, Wisc.

Right in the lede, Grossman plugs in the survey results with the presidential primaries:

(RNS) This election season, Muslims face a slate of Republican candidates who demand curbs on immigration and compete over how tough they’d be on Islamic terrorism, if elected.
But a new survey finds U.S. Muslims are looking at American society and its future much the same as their non-Muslim neighbors. Like non-Muslims, the economy is their top concern. They are engaged in community life and share similar attitudes on several significant issues.

The article is upfront about the Muslim source of the survey and, through the main researcher, the motives:


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House says (393-0) that Christians are victims of ISIS genocide, but key voices are missing

Clearly, "bipartisan" has to be the last adjective any journalist would use to describe the current political climate in the United States.

Thus, a 393-0 vote on a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives is an eyebrow-raising moment, no matter what issue is involved. In this case, it's crucial that the issue is linked to the Islamic State and its hellish massacres of religious minorities in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere -- including Orthodox and Catholic flocks that have lived and worshiped in these lands since New Testament times.

ISIS has destroyed ancient monasteries and churches, has razed or looted irreplaceable ancient libraries and sacred art. It has become rational to consider that Christianity may be wiped out in the region in which it was born.

So here is my question: Yes, this is a political story. But, for most readers, is this JUST a political story? Here is the top of the Associated Press "Big Story" report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ratcheting up the pressure on the Obama administration, the House has overwhelmingly approved a resolution that condemns as genocide the atrocities committed by the Islamic State group against Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria.
The non-binding measure, passed Monday by a vote of 393-0, illustrated the heavy bipartisan support for action on Capitol Hill. Secretary of State John Kerry is leaning toward making a genocide determination against the Islamic State and could do so as early as this week, when a congressional deadline for a decision has been set.
But the Obama administration officials have cautioned that a legal review is still under way and said it is likely Kerry will not meet Thursday's deadline.


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The Atlantic asks great question: What if your corporate chaplain needs a prayer rug?

Anyone who has walked the religion-news beat for even a year or two knows that it's amazing how often questions of a truly theological nature can show up in daily life -- including in the workplace.

I've been meaning to pass alone an interesting piece in The Atlantic about the rise of corporate chaplains in major businesses and industries. It's all part of trying to increase worker wellness and the story does a good job of taking this concept seriously.

That's where the theology comes in. The following passage really surprised me with its dead-on accurate reflection on whether all faiths are created equal when it comes to the ability to practice them freely in a corporate space.

Many programs are contracted out through non-profit organizations such as Marketplace Ministries, a global, Protestant non-profit that claims to be the largest provider of workplace-chaplaincy services in the U.S. According to its CEO, Doug Fagerstrom, the organization added more new companies to its roster in 2015 than ever before.
... Workplace chaplaincies do seem to be overwhelmingly Christian. When I asked Fagerstrom about the diversity of Marketplace Ministries’ staff, he clarified that they have “over 50 different denominations represented” among their roughly 2,800 chaplains -- they’re all Protestant, in other words. In its mission statement, the company says it “[exists] to share God’s love through chaplains in the workplace.” And Fagerstrom said he and his staff try to hire folks who have biblical training -- “it helps them to be able to answer or direct some of those tough questions.” One of their closest competitors, Corporate Chaplains of America, has a similar mission: to “build caring relationships with the hope of gaining permission to share the life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ in a non-threatening manner.

This leads us to the following observation:

There’s nothing wrong with Christian chaplains, of course. But there is something specifically Protestant in the notion that spiritual fulfillment -- that “whole self” someone can bring to work -- is best attained through intellectual and emotional coaching, rather than the physical ritual of religious practice.

Precisely.


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How to stack the deck against Christian teachers expressing their faith at public schools

"These Christian teachers want to bring Jesus into public schools," declares the clickbait headline on the Washington Post's long, winding profile of the Christian Educators Association International.

Read all 2,400 words, and the Post actually provides quite a bit of firsthand information from the organization itself about its purpose and approach.

But up high, the newspaper seems intent on stacking the deck against the Christian Educators Association and making it clear that these teachers are really, really scary. 

As in: Run for your politically correct lives!

The piece opens with this three-paragraph, 144-word lede featuring the association's executive director:

Finn Laursen believes millions of American children are no longer learning right from wrong, in part because public schools have been stripped of religion. To repair that frayed moral fabric, Laursen and his colleagues want to bring the light of Jesus Christ into public school classrooms across the country — and they are training teachers to do just that.
The Christian Educators Association International, an organization that sees the nation’s public schools as “the largest single mission field in America,” aims to show Christian teachers how to live their faith — and evangelize in public schools — without running afoul of the Constitution’s prohibition on the government establishing or promoting any particular religion.
“We’re not talking about proselytizing. That would be illegal,” said Laursen, the group’s executive director. “But we’re saying you can do a lot of things. . . . It’s a mission field that you fish in differently.”

How does the Post follow up that opening? By doubling down — literally — against the Christian teachers. 

The next seven paragraphs and 288 words explain what's wrong with the organization:


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Fighting radicalism: Los Angeles Times offers glossy look at new Muslim efforts in Sweden

It's one thing to light a candle rather than curse the darkness. It's another thing to ignore or gloss over what could very well be darkness. The Los Angeles Times comes close to the latter in its feature on Muslim efforts at peace in Malmo, Sweden.

The article begins with the three-year-old Islam Academy, which attempts to make young students not only better Muslims, but better Swedes.

In other words, this is a madrasa with a difference:

Like other madrasas, as Muslim religious schools are known, the academy teaches the Koran, traditional Sunni Islamic spirituality, sharia law and Arabic.
Unlike many, it also teaches secular topics. Among them: the Swedish language, nature and sports activities, and social responsibility. The last of these includes interreligious dialogue, especially with the Jewish community.
"All our education programs have the effect of immunizing our youth against radicalization," said Barakat, a 34-year-old imam, who was sitting in his office above the academy's prayer hall dressed in a pale, ankle-length robe and skullcap.

The story, which was funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, continues with a briefing on Malmo, the point of entry for most immigrants to Sweden. "About 20% of Malmo's 300,000 people are Muslim, making it one of the most Muslim cities in Western Europe," the Times says.

But the Rosengard district, where many of the Muslims finally settle, is the focus of this story. Rosengard was the site of riots in 2008 and 2011. Many outsiders regarded the area as a "no-go zone," hazardous for non-Muslims.

Clearly, the goal of this Los Angeles Times piece is to change that image:


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Proof that it's hard to cover an equal access story without mentioning Equal Access laws

A long-time reader of GetReligion recently sent me a pack of URLs pointing to coverage of debates -- public and in social media -- about the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance organization at Franklin County High School in rural Tennessee The coverage in The Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro has, in the past, featured quotes from a wide range of voices in this tense and at times nasty debate.

So what's the journalistic problem? Ironically, the best place to start is with an advocacy piece at the website of The New Civil Rights Movement. This piece is, as you would expect, packed with loaded language -- but look for the actual news development in this story.

School board members in Franklin County, Tennessee, may consider eliminating all extracurricular clubs in an effort to get rid of a newly formed Gay-Straight Alliance.
The GSA at Franklin County High School in Winchester has been under attack since it first met in January, with parents comparing it to ISIS, and students vandalizing the club's posters and wearing "Straight Pride" signs in protest. ...
In response to the controversy over the GSA, the Franklin County School Board has decided to draft new guidelines for student organizations. Under the federal Equal Access Act, officials must allow the GSA unless they eliminate all extracurricular clubs, from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to the Student Council.

What we have here is the flip side of debates led by secularists about the creation of Bible studies and prayer circles at public schools (think military academies, for example). The bottom line: People on both sides of these debates have First Amendment rights that must be protected. This truly liberal task is not easy in modern public schools.


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Trump and Muslims: Politico in-depth piece misses key questions about Muslim-led city

Politico's indepth story on Hamtramck, Mich., makes much of the fact that it's the only American city with a Muslim-majority government. So how many Muslims does it quote?

Just five. Out of 13 quoted sources.

"What America’s Only Muslim-Governed City Thinks of Donald Trump," the headline teases us. Politico paints Hamtramck as a model of diversity and acceptance, with Poles, Ukrainians, Albanians, black Americans and other folks besides Middle Easterners. Just the kind of place that Trump -- with his anti-Muslim, anti-immigration message -- says would erode American values.

OK, that's a valid starting thesis -- for an editorial or an opinion column, rather than the newsfeature this was supposed to look like. But the Muslim subjects in question aren’t even quoted until more than halfway down this 2,600-word story.

And the argumentative theme starts in the second paragraph:

After a November 2015 election, four of the City Council’s six seats are now held by Muslims—three of them immigrants—making Hamtramck’s council the first in the United States with a Muslim majority. Predictably—if ridiculously—the city has become a lightning rod among conservatives in fear of Islamic law erupting in America. At a recent talk in Boston, a Somali women’s-rights activist named Ayaan Hirsi Ali warned an audience of academics and real estate developers that Hamtramck’s City Council would soon bring Sharia to their American backyard.
But here in Hamtramck, on the eve of a Michigan primary in which Donald Trump is ahead in the polls by double digits, residents aren’t afraid that their city is about to suddenly establish a foothold for the caliphate. They’re more afraid of the Republican Party’s front-runner. "It’s unbelievable Donald Trump has made it this far," says friend and resident Aaron Foley, who is gay, African-American and the editor of a Detroit lifestyle magazine called Blac. "It really feels like a bad dream that we haven’t woke up from yet. This can’t happen. It upsets me that he’s made so many disparaging remarks, not just about Muslims, but about everyone."

That's right. In this story about Muslim-ruled Hamtramck, the first quote is from a non-Muslim who doesn't even work in town. Would have been interesting to get a quote also from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, instead of lobbing a glancing reference. The writer might have learned that she's an atheist, not a card-carrying conservative. Also that she's been under death threats for years for opposing Muslim extremists. So whether Hirsi Ali is accurate about Shariah, she speaks from experience.


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An old GetReligion question: Why doesn't the press offer more coverage of liberal faith?

An old GetReligion question: Why doesn't the press offer more coverage of liberal faith?

From Day 1, your GetReligionistas have argued that the mainstream press in American doesn't do a very good job of covering the religious beliefs of people in doctrinally liberal faith traditions.

Every now and then I hear from people who think I am joking whenever I say this (and I made this point once again during this week's Crossroads podcast, with host Todd Wilken).

I'm serious. First, let's do the obvious and look at this in political terms. Run an online search for "Religious Right," inside quote marks, and you get something like 680,000 hits. Run the same search in Google News and, at the moment, you get 57,100 hits.

Now do the same with "religious left" and you get 91,900 in the general search and 4,500 in the "news" search. Now, surf through that "news" file and you'll find that very, very few of these references are in the news pages of mainstream publications. Most are in commentary pieces.

Why this massive gap in information and coverage?

Part of the problem, of course, is that the "Religious Right" is viewed as a political movement -- thus the uppercase "R" style. We're talking about something unique and dangerous and part of the real world, which is politics, of course.

There really isn't a "religious left" in the eyes of most reporters because liberal, or progressive, oldline churches are not new and unique. They are normal, "mainline" churches and, on their own (especially the Episcopalians), make lots of news -- especially when changing their doctrines and practices to move to the doctrinal and cultural left. Glance through this list of the annual Religion Newswriters Association poll to pick the year's Top 10 news stories and you will see what I mean.

So news consumers are hearing about the Religious Right all the time, creating a feedback loop that keeps producing news coverage.


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