Scriptures

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Was Hitch a man of 'faith'? Some scribes are arguing about a book they have not read

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Was Hitch a man of 'faith'? Some scribes are arguing about a book they have not read

Christopher Hitchens was a very complex man, but one thing was clear. He was not a man who was kind to scribes and debate opponents who did not do their homework.

If someone wanted to talk to Hitchens -- especially in a professional setting -- about a topic upon which he had opined, then he or she had better be ready to answer this question, delivered in that famous whiskey-and-cigarettes British baritone: "Well, you HAVE read my book, haven't you?"

Woe unto those who could not answer in the affirmative or who tried to fake their way around the question.

This brings me to the current mini-media storm, on both sides of the Atlantic, inspired by Christian apologist Larry Taunton's new book "The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the World's Most Notorious Atheist."

If you watch the BBC interview attached to this post, you can see that -- even when dealing with newsrooms at the top of the global information food chain -- it's clear that many journalists simply are not reading this book before they start arguing about it.


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The double whammy facing Baylor (with good cause) in the sexual-assault scandal

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As you would expect, I heard from quite a few people this week about the events unfolding at Baylor University, where I did my undergraduate degree in journalism and American history and a master's in church-state studies back in the 1970s.

Baylor is one of those subjects that I know too much about and the emotions are quite complex. My family's ties to the school are deep and I am well aware of the debt that I owe many Baylor people -- my journalism mentor David McHam, historian (and political gadfly) Ralph Lynn and the late choirmaster and composer Robert H. Young head that list.

Then again, the Baylor administration (camped on the "moderate" side of Baptist life at the time) turned the journalism program upside down midway through my undergraduate years after efforts to control the coverage of controversial subjects such as, you got it, sexual assaults on or near campus. I was one of a dozen or so student journalists caught up in that. When I left, I pretty much avoided coming back to the campus for several decades.

So when Michelle Boorstein called from The Washington Post -- "The Ken Starr-Baylor story shows how religious schools struggle to deal with sex assault" -- I am afraid that my comments were rather dense and complex. She was very patient and professional as we tried to figure out the heart of what I was trying to say. She ended up with this:

For such religious schools, the question is how to balance the country’s encouragement of sexual assault victims to come forward with campus rules that restrict sexual behavior and, as a result, often inhibit open discussion. Baylor’s sexual conduct policy says it expects students to express sexual intimacy “in the context of marital fidelity.”
“This raises questions about whether serious religious universities can take part in sports at the highest levels,” said Terry Mattingly, a columnist who is part of a prominent family of Baylor graduates and who founded a journalism center at the Council for Christian Colleges and University. “It could make it harder to talk about it.”


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To hell with it: No, seriously, there's a movement to eliminate doctrine of eternal torment

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What the ... ?

In case you haven't heard, there's a campaign to eliminate hell.

No, it's not a platform of Donald Trump. In fact, I can't outright dismiss the possibility that Trump might be Satan. (I kid. I kid.)

But seriously, National Geographic reports on changing evangelical attitudes toward hell in a recent feature story.

I love the lede.

See is this opening doesn't grab your attention:

Hell isn’t as popular as it used to be.  
Over the last 20 years, the number of Americans who believe in the fiery down under has dropped from 71 percent to 58 percent. Heaven, by contrast, fares much better and, among Christians, remains an almost universally accepted concept.  
Underlying these statistics is a conundrum that continues to tug at the conscience of some Christians, who find it difficult to reconcile the existence of a just, loving God with a doctrine that dooms billions of people to eternal punishment.  
"Everlasting torment is intolerable from a moral point of view because it makes God into a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die," wrote the late Clark Pinnock, an influential evangelical theologian.   
While religious philosophers have argued over the true nature of hell since the earliest days of Christianity, the debate has become especially pronounced in recent decades among the millions of Americans who identify themselves as evangelicals. The once taboo topic is being openly discussed as well-regarded scholars publish articles and best-selling books that rely on careful readings of Scripture to challenge traditional views.   


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Divorce that could happen: Newspapers sift rumors of a brewing United Methodist Church split

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Be glad you're not Bishop Bruce Ough this week. The presiding bishop of the United Methodist Church is trying to dissension at the general conference in Portland, Ore., while denying persistent rumors that a UMC committee is already drawing up divorce papers.

Meanwhile, major media are already doing what they do best: ferreting out the possibility that after decades of debate, leaders of the second-largest Protestant denomination may finally part ways over gay marriage and gay ordination.

The Washington Post does a fine, professional job of gathering facts from secondary sources, then reporting its findings in a non-sensational yet riveting way. It even gives the good bishop a chance to spin it his way:

Amid reports that United Methodist leaders are considering dividing over LGBT equality disputes, the denomination’s top bishop on Tuesday asked members to recommit to remaining together, even though he described their community as having a "broken heart" and in the views of many being "out of time."
Bishop Bruce Ough spoke during an unscheduled appearance at the major, once-every-four-years meeting of the global denomination, which is being held in Portland, Ore. Ough, the incoming president of the Council of Bishops, said he was responding to a flood of social media leaks about secret meetings top church leaders were having in the last week about the possibility of separating. The meeting is called a General Conference.

Ough may not want to play up the private meetings; however, he not only acknowledged to the Post that they’ve been held, but that he attended them. The group "reportedly discussed breaking into conservative, moderate and progressive communities," the article says.

The lengthy WaPo article, more than 1,270 words long, notes the rising numbers and influence of Methodists in Asia and Africa -- who confirm the church's current stance against homosexual practice as "incompatible with Christian teaching."  I also admire how the paper sought viewpoints of more conservative sources like Good News and the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Mark Tooley of the IRD, in fact, says that in a few years, "the whole United States will be a minority and the liberal parts of the United States will be a minority within a minority."


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Wine? Juice? Water? Wheat bread? What should be served at Holy Eucharist?

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Wine? Juice? Water? Wheat bread? What should be served at Holy Eucharist?

GORDON’S QUESTION:

Why do some Christians use (unfermented) grape juice or leavened bread in Communion since what was on the table at the Last Supper was almost certainly unleavened bread and fermented wine?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The Bible records that on the night of Jesus’ arrest he blessed and distributed bread saying “take; this is my body,”  and shared a cup saying “this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” He concluded with “do this in remembrance of me,” and billions of Christians have done just that across the centuries in rites known as Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper, Mass, Holy Eucharist or Divine Liturgy.

Historians assume that, yes, Jesus’ “Last Supper” would have consisted of commonplace fermented wine, not fresh and non-alcoholic grape juice, and bread without leavening since this occurred during Jewish Passover. Modern Christians differ on the elements they serve, as we’ll see, but there’s a limit. Believers were offended by a TV ad produced for the 2011 Super Bowl (but never aired) with a pastor boosting church attendance by providing sacramental Doritos and Pepsi.

Roman Catholic canon law is precise about using the literal elements from the Last Supper at daily Masses.


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Dare ya! Just try to imagine a Texas 'way of life' that doesn't include a lot of religious stuff

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Dare ya! Just try to imagine a Texas 'way of life' that doesn't include a lot of religious stuff

Believe it or not, candidate Barack Obama was not talking about Texas when he was taped explaining the whole red-zip-codes God, guns and gays puzzle to the elite audience at a San Francisco fundraiser back in 2008.

Think back. You may recall that he was talking about the culture of small towns and working-class people in Pennsylvania and across the heartland Midwest.

Now what was the guts of that infamous quote? 

... It's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them. ...

Wow. Times sure have changed.

It's good to see that all of those cultural warfare issues have faded into the background, far from the headlines. Especially in places like Texas.

Oh wait. There is this rather epic headline at The Washington Post right now:

‘Straight into the paper shredder:’ Texans the first to decry Obama’s schools directive about transgender bathrooms

OK, journalists, make that God, guns, gays and gender (as in clinging to biologically based concepts of gender).

Now, this latest lighting strike of executive privilege had not come down from on high when we record this week's Crossroads podcast (click here to tune that in). But we did talk about the great and very unique state of Texas and that recent attempt at The New York Times to explain Texas to the rest of America.


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Deaconesses or female deacons? Journalists do you know the history of these terms?

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Once again, it is time to play that popular news-media game, "What did Pope Francis say and what might it mean?" The goal is to fit a bite or two of church history into the rapid-fire and breathless responses of journalists in some elite newsrooms, where a papal call for clarification on female deacons is being hailed as a possible door to the ordination of women as priests. 

Let's start with some basics: The word used in Romans 16:1 to describe the woman named Phoebe is diakonos -- which some have translated as "servant," while others use "deacon. In the New International Version, that would be:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae.

In the classic King James Version, that reads: 

I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea.

Scan through this Bible Hub search and you'll see a variety of translations that go each way. But we can start our discussion with an acknowledgement that the early church did include some kind of role for women known as "deaconesses." 

Now, we also need to recognize that in the modern world, a rapidly rising number of Catholic parishes and ministries are featuring the ministry of men ordained as "permanent deacons," as opposed to deacons who will soon transition into the priesthood. This is a very newsworthy trend.

So, when you clicked on your news source of choice (or perhaps even opened a newspaper) today, did the story you read contain some material resembling the following from the report in Crux?

Currently, canon 1024 of the Code of Canon Law says that only a baptized male can receive the sacrament of ordination, so the law does not presently permit female deacons. The question, however, especially in light of the Biblical evidence for women being referred to as “deaconesses” in early Christianity, is whether that law could be changed.


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Evangelicals and Trump, chapter 666: In which The Washington Post misses one crucial detail

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Let's talk about evangelical Protestants and Donald Trump, shall we? After all, that has been one of the two or three dominant storylines of the entire Republican race for the White House. Your GetReligionistas have poured out an ocean of digital ink on press coverage of this topic.

But now the reality is beginning to sink in, out there in some pews and pulpits, that this race is really going to come down to Trump vs. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Viewed as a political choice, that is agonizing. Viewed as a theological choice, things are even worse for Christians who embrace centuries of church teachings on moral theology.

If you peel off the layers of political language, the Washington Post has offered a piece -- "‘There’s nobody left’: Evangelicals feel abandoned by GOP after Trump’s ascent" -- that features a few key voices describing this agonizing puzzle in their own words.

In terms of journalism, this is business as usual. In terms of coverage of doctrinally conservative believers, this is called progress. Still, this story is sadly simplistic. Hold that thought.

The key voice early on is the Rev. Gary Fuller of the Gentle Shepherd Baptist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, who was a supporter of Sen. Ted Cruz. By the way, in this piece it would have helped to have known that Fuller is not a Southern Baptist (it took two clicks to find that out), since other key voices in this piece are from the SBC or an institution on the left edge of Southern Baptist life. Why does this matter? It only matters if you think this is a religious story, as well as a political story.

Here is a key passage near the top:

... Fuller has a hard time stomaching Trump as the Republican nominee and plans to vote for Cruz on Tuesday, even though the senator has dropped out of the race.
“In a sense, we feel abandoned by our party,” Fuller said. “There’s nobody left.”


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The New York Times tries to explain Texas to America: Oh my God they just don't get it

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For years now, my online GetReligion mini-biography has identified me as a "prodigal Texan." That has been my way of saying that I will always, to some degree, be a Texan, but that my view of the Lone Star state is not quite the same as the natives who cannot conceive of living anywhere else.

But I get Texas. Please trust me on that, by which I mean that I understand the forces that make Texas tick. I keep a can of Wolf brand chili in my kitchen pantry just in case any visiting Texans ask me That Question.

This leads me, of course, to that first-person piece called "What Makes Texas Texas" written by Manny Fernandez of the New York Times office in Houston.

First things first: You mean he isn't based in Austin? I can't believe that someone from the Times would consent to work in Texas and not be based in the people's republic of Austin. Seriously. Well, I guess there are a few Austin-friendly neighborhoods in hip Houston.

This isn't a hard-news piece, but it contains some crucial information that news consumers on planet earth need to read in order to understand the elite cultural forces that shape our news. Let's start with this church of personal material by Fernandez right up top:

I was born and raised in Central California, and I moved to Houston from Brooklyn in June 2011 to cover Texas for The New York Times. I live here with my wife, my 7-year-old son and my 3-year-old daughter, who keeps a pair of pink cowboy boots outside on the porch or inside by the front door. I have covered stories in the South, the Midwest and other parts of the country. People in those places identified with their political party, their job, their cause, their sexual orientation, their city, their race. Almost no one identified with their state the way Texans do.
Who are these people, these Texans?

Well, for starters, hit pause. Look at that list of life-shaping forces: That would be "political party," "job," "cause," "sexual orientation," "city," "race" and "state." OK, Texans, can I get a witness? What is missing from that list?


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