Sex

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Once more unto the breach, dear friends: 'Why Readers See The Times As Liberal'

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Here is the understatement of the year: Yes, a few GetReligion readers noticed that the new Public Editor (think readers' representative or ombudsman) at The New York Times published an essay entitled "Why Readers See The Times as Liberal."

Actually, it seems like someone representing the great Gray Lady writes an essay on this basic topic every five years or so. I know, because I have been collecting these pieces for a decade-plus to use in the classroom, as part of a New York Journalism Semester lecture entitled "The Spiritual Crisis at The New York Times." In this case, "spiritual" refers to the religion of journalism itself, as in the classic 2004 PressThink essay by Jay Rosen of New York University entitled "Journalism Is Itself a Religion."

You see, many journalists see what they do as a vocation that verges on being a calling, in part because of classic American Model of the Press doctrines about accuracy, fairness, balance and truth telling. The issue is whether the doctrines of the journalism faith are changing, often because of struggles among journalism elites to do old-school journalism when covering hot-button issues linked to (wait for it) religion, morality and culture.

The surprising thing, this time around, is that the essay by Public Editor Liz Spayd talks about differences between left and right, but does not seem to be aware of the role that religious and cultural issues (as opposed to arguments about Donald Trump) have played in previous debates about this topic at The Times. Can you say "Bill Keller"?

So should we discuss all of this again? Yes, dear friends, once more unto the breach. This is why we are here, as in our Year 10 refresh.

The starting point for Spayd is the same as always, as in complaints from readers. Here is a sample:

One reader from California who asked not to be named believes Times reporters and editors are trying to sway public opinion toward their own beliefs. “I never thought I’d see the day when I, as a liberal, would start getting so frustrated with the one-sided reporting that I would start hopping over to the Fox News webpage to read an article and get the rest of the story that the NYT refused to publish,” she says. ...
Emails like these stream into this office every day. A perception that The Times is biased prompts some of the most frequent complaints from readers. Only they arrive so frequently, and have for so long, that the objections no longer land with much heft.


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Wait a minute: Does Islam's Quran really say that husbands can beat their wives?

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Wait a minute: Does Islam's Quran really say that husbands can beat their wives?

THE QUESTION:

What does Islam’s holy book, the Quran, say about husbands beating their wives?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The Guy is posting this item himself rather than our usual answer to a question posted via the Website because this oft-discussed matter has become an important public dispute. In heavily Muslim Pakistan, the nation’s Parliament is advised by a Council of Islamic Ideology, experts assigned to make sure laws fit the faith’s mandates. The Senate’s human rights committee now wants to amend the constitution in order to abolish the Council, in part because it ruled that husbands are allowed to beat their wives.

Muslim authorities emphasize that only beating “lightly” is permitted, The Wall Street Journal said, reporting this explanation from Council Chairman Muhammad Khan Sherani: “In Islam you cannot hit a woman in a way that bruises her, or break her bone, or hit her on the face, or cause bleeding.”

Amid widespread concern over spousal abuse, feminist and Christian critics of Islam regularly cite concerns about the Quran passage the Council relies upon. As with modern Jews and Christians dealing with violent Old Testament passages that disturb modern sensitivities, Muslim interpreters warn Muslim husbands about harsh misapplication of the teaching.

Here is the scriptural text involved, from Majid Fakhry’s literal-minded English translation (New York University Press) approved by Sunni Islam’s chief seat of learning, the venerable Al-Azhar University:

“Men are in charge of women, because Allah has made some of them excel the others, and because they spend some of their wealth. Hence righteous women are obedient, guarding the unseen which Allah has guarded. And those of them that you fear might rebel, admonish them and abandon them in their beds and beat them. Should they obey you, do not seek a way of harming them, for Allah is Sublime and Great!” (4:34).


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Into the guilt file: Another strange story about a newsroom that contains no telephones

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Just the other day, our own Bobby Ross, Jr., did a great job of explaining the concept of the "guilt folders" that your GetReligionistas keep, either in the back of our minds or literally in a digital folder in an email program.

Like he said, sometimes things just stack up and you forget about news stories that you intended to feature in a post. It's like those days when you see that you have 500 emails in your personal in-basket and you really don't know how they got there.

However, there's another kind of "guilt folder" story. Sometimes you read a story and your mind says, "What the heck?" You know that there's something there but it takes you a long time to put your finger on it.

This is one of those guilt-file stories. It comes from The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., and it focuses on two actions -- one by the board of Southwest Community Church and the other by its pastor. Long ago, it was a timely story, with a timely headline: "California pastor resigns over gay marriage stance."

Here's the top of that story. Try to spot the journalism landmine that it took me some time to figure out.

A few months ago, Pastor Gerald Sharon -- who has been lead pastor of Southwest since 2013 and previously served at Saddleback Church in Orange County -- asked the church hierarchy to look into “the extent to which a homosexual individual could be involved in the life of Southwest Church.”
While the church leadership initially seemed engaged in the discussions, they recently sent Sharon a letter in which they unanimously affirmed Southwest’s current position on homosexuality.
Southwest’s LGBT policy is written down in a document titled “Homosexuality and Human Sexuality.” The document does not appear to be publicly available.


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Journalism f-word alert: New York Times serves up classic hit piece with Tim LaHaye obit

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You may have heard of hit pieces, which is journalism aimed at taking a person down. Here is a hit obituary -- The New York Times’ article on the passing of evangelical superstar Tim LaHaye.

Check out the headline: "Tim LaHaye dies at 90; fundamentalist leader’s grisly novels sold millions." That gives you an idea of where this article is headed.

Now tmatt has, through the years, written time and time again urging journalists to heed the advice of the Associated Press Stylebook and to avoid most uses of that particular f-word, along with Mollie Hemingway and others in the GetReligion pantheon.

Now, it is certainly true that LaHaye went to Bob Jones University, a campus that has long embraced the "fundamentalist" label, but he also led a Southern Baptist church and most members of America’s largest non-Catholic Christian denomination would never call themselves fundamentalists. Also, his audience as a writer and speaker was much larger than the "fundamentalist" niche.

Guess the Times didn't get that memo. Here’s how the piece starts:

The Rev. Tim LaHaye, a leader of the Christian fundamentalist movement and co-author of the best-selling “Left Behind” series of apocalyptic novels prophesying mass slaughters and the end of the world, died on Monday in a San Diego area hospital. He was 90.
His death, days after he had a stroke, was announced on the website for his Tim LaHaye Ministries.
In an age of seemingly endless natural and man-made disasters, the action-packed tales by Dr. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins struck readers as all too realistic, even if they were based on biblical accounts of the Second Coming, the appearance of an Antichrist and multitudes leaving a calamitous dying world for heaven.


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Correction please: Concerning that Catholic 'ordained minister' arrested for child porn

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For me, one of the most fascinating (and complex) parts of working on the religion-news beat has been learning the many theological, technical and even legal differences that exist between the roles played by "clergy" in different religious movements.

Let me stress that I put the word "clergy" inside quotation marks for a non-scare-quote reason.

When it comes to history, some religious movements insist that they don't have ordained clergy -- yet clearly they have leaders who play some of the roles that ordained clergy play in other flocks. Remember all the controversies a few years ago about GOP White House candidate Mitt Romney and his time as a "bishop" in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Suffice it to say that a Mormon bishop is not the same as a Pentecostal bishop, or a United Methodist bishop, or a Lutheran bishop, or an Anglican bishop, or an Eastern Orthodox bishop. Reporters need to understand these kinds of facts, when dealing with stories that involve clergy or other "ministers" in various religious traditions.

This brings me to a bizarre religious language issue in a story that ran the other day in The Huntsville Times in Alabama. It focuses on the arrest of a man named John Lindbergh Ellar Martin, who has been accused of possession and dissemination of child pornography. The headline: "North Alabama Catholic church staffer arrested on child porn charges."

Note the word "staffer." What, precisely, does that mean? Read carefully.


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Ciara and Russell Wilson wedding: What's God got to do, got to do with it?

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I will be the first to admit that I know absolutely noting -- nichevo, zip, nada, zero, niente -- about how serious journalists are supposed to cover celebrity weddings.

The dress is supposed to be important, right? I understand that. But might the actual content of the wedding have something to do with the, well, wedding?

I ask this because the glamorous power duo of Ciara and Russell Wilson have finally tied the knot and the chatty folks at USA Today are so, so excited. Is this a news story?

Ciara and Russell Wilson are married!
The R&B star wed the NFL quarterback in England on Wednesday and confirmed the news on social media, sharing a photo of their happy day with the caption, "We are the Wilsons!"
The nuptials took place at Peckforton Castle in front of roughly 100 of their closest friends and family members, according to TMZ. The bride wore a custom lace gown by Roberto Cavalli and carried a bouquet of snow white blooms. On Tuesday, Ciara, 30, and Wilson, 27, were captured by paparazzi dressed up for their rehearsal dinner at Liverpool's Titanic Hotel.

Now, this "story" had to deal with the big news hook in this relationship (other than possible recent rap-related death threats and stuff) over the past year or two. You remember that, of course. In an earlier post I talked called it "Tim Tebow syndrome" and added

Good grief. Have we really reached the point where journalists are shocked, shocked that traditional Christian believers strive to follow 2,000 years of doctrine asking them to hold off on sex until after they have taken their wedding vows?


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The Supreme Court and pharmacists: CNN shines while Washington state newspapers punt

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Although I just moved to Washington state a year ago, I was unaware it is the only state in the country that mandates pharmacists to supply medicines they are opposed to on religious grounds. All other states have some sort of right of refusal for pharmacists.

Then along came Stormans Inc. v. Wiesman, a case involving an Olympia, Wash.-based pharmacy that objected to a state law mandating it sell certain forms of emergency contraception. The Tacoma News Tribune describes the background here.

Here is what CNN wrote about the latest Supreme Court action on this case:

Washington (CNN) -- Over the dissent of three conservative justices who expressed concern for the future of religious liberty claims, the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a case brought by the owner of a pharmacy and two pharmacists who objected to delivering emergency contraceptives such as Plan B.
The plaintiffs in the case, the Stormans family, sought to challenge Washington State regulation mandating that a pharmacy may not "refuse to deliver a drug or device to a patient because its owner objects to delivery on religious, moral or other personal grounds."
The Stormans are devout Christians and own a pharmacy in Olympia, Washington.
A federal appeals court held that the Washington regulations did not violate the First Amendment.


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Istanbul's LGBTQ community: Dealing with 'conservative attitudes' or DNA of Islamic law?

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If you are reading a newspaper in India and you see a reference to "community violence," or perhaps "communal violence," do you know how to break that code?

As I have mentioned before, a young Muslim journalist explained that term to me during a forum in Bangalore soon after the release of the book "Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion."

Whenever there are violent clashes between religious groups, especially between Hindus and Muslims, journalists leave out all of the religious details and simply report that authorities are dealing with another outbreak of "community violence." Readers know how to break the code.

As the student told me, if journalists write accurate, honest stories about some religious subjects in the nation's newspapers, then "more people are going to die."

I thought of that again reading the top of a recent Washington Post story about the tensions in Istanbul between civil authorities and the LGBT community in modern Istanbul, symbolized by confrontations during gay pride parades. Please consider this a post adding additional information to the complex religious issues that our own Bobby Ross, Jr., described in his post about terrorist attacks -- almost certainly by ISIS -- at the always busy Ataturk International Airport in that city.

Here is the overture for that earlier Post report:

ISTANBUL -- It was just after sunset when patrons began to arrive, climbing a dark stairwell to the bar’s modest entrance. Here, in dimly lit corners, is where the mostly gay clientele come to canoodle and drink -- but without the threat of violence or harassment.


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That'll preach: GQ nails down the sins of Alabama's governor, but only in political terms

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Long ago, when I taught media and culture classes at Denver Seminary, I had a large bulletin board in the lobby outside the auditorium on which I pinned all kinds of items from the mainstream press.

This wasn't a current events board. Instead, my goal was to show the seminary community that all kinds of things were happening in the world around them that raised questions that were essentially moral and theological in nature.

There was, for example, a newsweekly cover about female anger and the movie "Thelma and Louise." I wasn't suggesting that pastors show video clips from this R-rated drama. My point was that the controversy swirling around it was important -- especially for people whose churches were involved in divorce-recovery ministry.

Mostly, I was trying to get seminary people to tune in, whenever the culture talks about ultimate questions. Hang on with me for a minute, because this is taking us into the pages of GQ and that feature story called, "The Love Song of Robert Bentley, Alabama's Horndog Governor."

Here is a piece of a book chapter from that time, explaining this "signal" concept:

I believe that our media are constantly sending out "signals" that can help the church go about its ministry and mission work in this post-Christian culture. Sadly, the church and our seminaries are ignoring both the content and social role of popular culture mass media, which are among the most powerful cultural forces in the modern world.
So what is a "signal?" I have defined this as a single piece of media or popular culture focusing on a subject that is of interest to the church. It can be a newspaper article, a single episode of a television show, a compact disc, a movie, a new video, a best-selling book or some other specific item.

Thus, a prime "signal" is when the mass media raise crucial questions, even if their proposed answers are less than adequate, from the church's point of view.


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