Scriptures

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How would Stephen Curry answer this: What does The Stephen Curry Moment mean?

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If you are a sports fan and you are currently paying any attention to events on Planet Earth, then you know that we are in the middle of The Stephen Curry Moment.

How long will this last? What is the meaning of this drama, with the elite priests of the sports-journalism world trying to figure out What It All Means? Why is his excellence causing a national debate involving some of the legends of the game? What does it mean when The New York Times runs a long feature under this headline:

It’s Stephen Curry’s Game Now
The Warriors’ butterfly with a jump shot, Curry is changing how we understand basketball

The Times concludes that Curry is transcending his sport and represents an evolutionary breakthrough along the lines of a Babe Ruth or a Wayne Gretzky. The giant photo with the piece captures Curry at the release point of his perfect jumper, with his eyes focused on the target and the most deadly right wrist in sports -- complete with its large tattoo in Hebrew -- in perfect position.

What Hebrew tattoo? Ah, there is the part of the mystery that the Times team has no interest in pursuing. The tattoo (his wife has the same one, and has been studying Hebrew for several years) is an excerpt of 1 Corinthians 13:8 that translates to “love never fails.” It's a statement about their faith, their marriage and their family. Here is the wider context in that New Testament passage:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


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Think piece after crazy week: Two logical experts strive to define the term 'evangelical'

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Any short list of topics that your GetReligionistas have been harping about from Day 1 of this weblog, 12 years ago, would have to include the mainstream news media's struggles to understand the already vague term "evangelical" (and its more conservative cousin, "fundamentalist").

In other words, this whole "Donald Trump is an evangelical" and/or "Donald Trump is the savior of the evangelicals madness" is just a more intense version of a journalistic problem that has always been around.

Here at GetReligion, this is not our first rodeo. Take it away, Bobby Ross Jr.! Also, I have written three national, "On Religion" columns about this issue as well. The headlines on those pieces are as follows: "Define 'evangelical' -- please," "Define 'evangelical' -- again" and "Define 'evangelical' -- 2013 edition."

Anyway, the evangelical pros at Christianity Today ran a very timely essay the other day with a totally logical double-decker headline:

Defining Evangelicals in an Election Year
A new research method could help us get beyond political stereotypes.

This is a must-read think piece for this weekend, in part because it was written by a highly qualified duo, if you are looking for authoritative voices on this subject. The Rev. Leith Anderson is president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pollster Ed Stetzer is executive director of LifeWay Research in Nashville. Here is a key slice of this essay, containing the thesis:

... Who is an evangelical? Many pollsters and journalists assume that evangelicals are white, suburban, American, Southern, and Republican, when millions of self-identifying evangelicals fit none of these descriptions. ... We think there is a more coherent and consistent way to understand who evangelicals are -- one based on what evangelicals believe.


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Study Quran in English? The Daily Beast details this surprising new book

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Study Bibles were all the rage when they first became popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Evangelical Protestants popularized this trend, but it wasn’t long before there was an Orthodox Study Bible, a Catholic Study Bible and a Jewish Study Bible.

But a study Quran?

How do you study a work said to have been dictated by the Angel Gabriel to Mohammed between AD 610 and AD 632 and passed along to his followers who, it’s assumed, memorized his words perfectly? Judaism and Christianity have survived critical scholarship about their holy books, but Islam has resisted such questions.

And so I was intrigued by a recent Daily Beast piece about why a new Study Quran is riling the Islamic world. It starts thus:

A new translation of the Quran, with commentary, is causing a stir—and maybe something of a revolution -- in the world of English-speaking Muslims.


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Franklin Graham: Another Trump? Yes and no, RNS profile says

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The Religion News Service takes a skeptical but fair-minded look at Franklin Graham -- his beliefs, his politics, his differences from his famed father, Billy Graham -- in a satisfyingly long profile rolled out for Super Tuesday week.

And no, that’s not a chance coincidence, as Godbeat veteran Cathy Lynn Grossman crafts the story:

While Donald Trump campaigns to "Make America great again," Franklin Graham, facing a nation where conservative believers are losing cultural clout, wants to make it Christian again. Week after week, he stands on winter-wind-swept statehouse steps and exhorts crowds like a biblical Nehemiah, warning people to repent to rebuild Jerusalem — with a gospel twist. He urges them to pray first and then vote for Bible-believing evangelical candidates.
But you can’t vote for him.
"No, no!" he is "absolutely not" running for office, said Graham, who tends to rat-a-tat-tat his points.
Instead, he exhorts his listeners to run themselves, starting with local city and county offices. Imagine, he says at every tour stop, the impact on society if "the majority of the school boards were controlled by evangelical Christians."

This sweeping, 2,200-word article is impressive, though not without a couple of issues. It tells of Franklin's rise in building the Samaritan's Purse charity, from a small medical mission into one of the largest disaster relief and development agencies in the U.S. And it adroitly parallels the presidential primary campaigns with Franklin's $10 million "Decision America" barnstorming tour, which often "takes him into town just ahead of a primary or caucus."


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Yo, New York Times sports team: Bubba Watson isn't afraid to discuss the 'ghost' in his life

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Anyone who follows professional golf knows that Bubba Watson's face is an open book when it comes to joy, sorrow, stress, elation, the whole works. His tear ducts work just fine.

There are reasons for this, of course, and Watson doesn't mind talking about them. At the top of the list is his family and his faith.

Thus, I kind of expected the "On Golf" feature that ran the other day at The New York Times -- "Bubba Watson, a Candid and Sensitive Champion, Shows His Vulnerable Side" -- to deal with these spiritual issues. I mean, after all, the article was very clear that the goal was to get inside this unique personality and find out why he is the man he is. For example, early on, readers are told:

Watson is good company and better copy. Anyone inclined to give him a wide berth must have a pretty narrow view of what makes for interesting conversation. Unfailingly honest and unshakably human, Watson, 37, held a news conference after his victory at the Northern Trust Open that unfurled like an Erhard Seminars Training session.
It was more than 30 minutes of public therapy, during which Watson talked about how he dreads the day when he’ll tell his two small children they’re adopted, the tightrope he walks being a performer with social anxiety -- and, oh, yeah, how the long par putt he drained on 10 at Riviera Country Club on Sunday was the key to his ninth P.G.A. Tour victory since 2010.

At one point, Watson just came right out and admitted that he tends to win, whenever "my head’s in the right spot.”

Right, and then he struggles when his head is not in the right spot. What's the larger point here?


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Talking Dallas, twisters, theodicy and the Book of Job -- from one theological perspective

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Spring is approaching in the Sunbelt, which means one thing to people in places like North Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Western Tennessee.

Here come the tornadoes.

As someone who was a child in Wichita Falls on April 3, 1964 (and several other relevant dates), I know quite a bit about the astonishing, random, mysterious power of twisters. If you were looking for a natural phenomenon that can jump start a debate about "theodicy" -- the technical term for "God in the dock" arguments about good and evil -- a tornado will do the trick.

What does it mean when a twister destroys a neighborhood and leaves a church standing? What does it mean when the church is destroyed, as well? No, I don't think this is a denominational thing.

To cut to the chase, I was glad when The Dallas Morning News did something interesting the other day, offering a question-and-answer piece that ran with this headline: "Texas Faith: How a loving God can permit killer tornadoes." It's well worth the time and raises some interesting questions and hints at ONE TAKE on some answers. Hold that thought.


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Move over, 2 Corinthians: Proverbs takes center stage in latest Bible flap of GOP campaign

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Proverbs 14:7 says:

Stay away from a fool, for you will not find knowledge on their lips.

That verse seems appropriate in light of the latest Bible-related scrap by GOP presidential contenders — this one involving Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.

In case you missed it, Cruz fired a top aide Monday over — as the Los Angeles Times characterized it — a "charge of dirty tricks":

Already fighting accusations of underhanded campaigning, Cruz asked his communications director, Rick Tyler, to resign after Tyler posted a video on social media and claimed that the senator from Florida could be heard disparaging the Bible. The allegation was false and Tyler apologized.
“This was a grave error of judgment,” the senator from Texas told reporters in Las Vegas. Even if the charge had been true, he said, “we are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of another candidate.”

The Los Angeles newspaper noted that Republican frontrunner Donald Trump — who made headlines when he said "2 Corinthians," not "Second Corinthians" at Liberty University — was quick to weigh in:


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Dear New York Times editors: Did Harper Lee's faith have anything to do with her art?

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If you know anything about the South, then you know that there are, literally, United Methodist churches everywhere you go in the Bible Belt.

You also know that United Methodist churches down South are usually not as "conservative" as, say, their Southern Baptist counterparts, but they tend to be more conservative -- "evangelical" in some cases -- than UMC flocks in other parts of the country.

Thus, it is certainly interesting that the celebrated, and ultra-private, author Harper Lee was an active member in her local United Methodist congregation down in Alabama. That detail made it into the New York Times story about her funeral, since it's hard to cover a funeral without saying where it was held. However, the story managed to avoid any of the details of that rite of worship or of the implications of her faith for her life's work.

It's interesting to note that the very first pages of "To Kill a Mockingbird," published in 1960, include references both to Methodism and to its founder, the Rev. John Wesley. Hold that thought.

The Times funeral story does include this information about the setting:

MONROEVILLE, Ala. -- Friends and family from around the corner and across the country gathered here on Saturday to pay final respects to Harper Lee, the author whose Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about racial inequality in the South during the Jim Crow era inspired generations of readers.
A dense fog that had shrouded this small town lifted as mourners filed into the First United Methodist Church, which Ms. Lee attended for many years, for a simple, private service that lasted about an hour.


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Bible puzzler: Did John write the Gospel of John or not?

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Bible puzzler: Did John write the Gospel of John or not?

PATRICIA’S QUESTION:

Who do you think authored the Fourth Gospel?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

This follows up on our Dec. 10 item about whether the apostle John wrote the Bible’s Book of Revelation. The Religion Guy will report what some experts say, not what a mere journalist thinks. The full question from seminary graduate Patricia shows she’s familiar with this debate. Bottom line, there’s no simple answer.

The headline sounds like a conundrum. But remember the Gospel text itself names no author; only later did Christians tack on “according to John.” (The other three Gospels, conventionally named for Matthew, Mark and Luke, are likewise anonymous compositions.) However, the tradition that the author was John, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles and thus an eyewitness, was firmly established by A.D. 180.

That’s when Bishop Irenaeus’ work “Against Heresies” said that “John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon his breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus” (3.1.1). Reinforcing this, it’s quite possible Irenaeus (born circa A.D. 125) learned such things from his hometown mentor Bishop Polycarp (born circa A.D. 70) who in turn had obtained information directly from the apostle John who was his boyhood friend.

Unlike the other three Gospels, the Fourth refers to a writer though without naming him, as “the disciple who had lain close to his breast at the supper . ... This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:20 and 24). Also, the crucifixion narrative says “he who saw it has borne witness -- his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth” (19:35).


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