Social Issues

, , , , , , , ,

Evil choices vs. lesser evils vs. idealistic third-party dreams and other 2016 ghosts

, , , , , , , ,
Evil choices vs. lesser evils vs. idealistic third-party dreams and other 2016 ghosts

You may recall a recent post in which our own Bobby Ross, Jr., was happy to see The New York Times produce a real, live, freakin' news feature in which it was made perfectly clear that there are evangelicals out in the American heartland who are not amused by facing a choice between Citizen Donald Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It was a strong story over at the Times. If you missed it the first time, circle back and check it out.

This was, of course, a return of the whole "lesser of two evils" theme that your GetReligionistas have been writing about for months. The fact that many religious traditionalists -- especially those in pulpits, seminaries and other places of leadership -- were in the #NeverTrump and #NeverHillary camp was no surprise to people who read publications such as World Magazine and Christianity Today, newsrooms that have covered this painful divide since Day 1.

In the comments section on Bobby's much-circulated post, I added the following (which I have cleaned up a bit for clarity). To be blunt, it was good to see the Times piece, but:

News media in early primaries say: Evangelicals love Trump! GetReligion: Some do, but very few leaders. Serious division here!
News media as Trump surges to lead: Evangelicals love Trump! GetReligion: A few more are biting their lips and moving that direction, but they are mad as heck to have to do it. Some are mad at God about it.
News media as Trump gets nomination: Evangelicals love Trump! GetReligion: Hello? Hello? Anyone out there?
The New York Times, as Trump and Clinton in near tie: Evangelicals seriously divided over Trump. Some are really angry about this. Despair is a good word.
Sigh.

"Crossroads" host Todd Wilken and I worked our way through this timely thicket again in this week's podcast.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

That InterVarsity headline at Time: New sign of LGBTQ ferment on evangelical left?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you were following religion-beat news on Twitter yesterday then you know that the first big question for today is: "What did the leaders of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship say and when did they say it?" Mainstream reporters also need to keep asking, "Why did they say it now?"

The buzz started with a Time article that ran with this very direct headline: "Top Evangelical College Group to Dismiss Employees Who Support Gay Marriage."

It's clear that the story began with material and input from InterVarsity staffers who disagree with the theology behind this decision by the parachurch ministry's leadership. This is not surprising, to anyone who follows trends and news among evangelical progressives.

Thus, the online piece actually ends with the full text of the document circulated among InterVarsity staffers (following a four-year "discernment" process in the organization) that is at the heart of the dispute. Here is the top of the article:

One of the largest evangelical organizations on college campuses nationwide has told its 1,300 staff members they will be fired if they personally support gay marriage or otherwise disagree with its newly detailed positions on sexuality starting on Nov. 11.
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA says it will start a process for “involuntary terminations” for any staffer who comes forward to disagree with its positions on human sexuality, which hold that any sexual activity outside of a husband and wife is immoral.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

USA Today somehow manages to offer faith-free 'lesser of two evils' White House feature

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have been away from my computer keyboard, for the most part, this past weekend due to (a) what amounted to the major-league baseball playoffs starting early and (b) long flights from Southern California back to the hills of Tennessee, via Detroit for some reason known only to the airline gods.

It is that second activity -- sojourns in airports and airplanes -- that is relevant to my strong reaction to the USA Today political feature that ran under the headline, "A sharpened debate: Is it ethical to not vote this year for president?"

You see, I made that journey while wearing a t-shirt containing this statement about the current White House race: "Giant Meteor 2016 -- Just End It Already." By no means did this represent a scientific poll of the electorate, but it did spark some interesting conversations. (Yes, my #NeverTrump #NeverHillary stance remains intact.)

Here is the bottom line: I have no idea how USA Today published an update on the whole "lesser of two evils" angle of the current White House campaign without mentioning religion and, in particular, the plight of conservative Catholics, evangelical Protestants and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Among frequent occupants of pews, the argument I keep reading and hearing can be stated like this: Yes, no one knows what Donald Trump will do since he is a reckless, unstable gambler with ethics as deep as an oil slick. However, on issues linked to the First Amendment and religious freedom (think U.S. Supreme Court) everyone knows that the only thing certain about Hillary Rodham Clinton is that she is a fierce warrior for the cultural left.

Here at GetReligion, we have been urging reporters to dig into the true Catholic swing vote -- which is Catholics who regularly attend Mass. I would assume the patterns there are similar to those found among evangelicals by Pew Research Center professionals when they did that poll showing (as covered by Christianity Today):

More than three-quarters of self-identified white evangelicals plan to vote for Donald Trump in the fall (78%). But they aren’t happy about it.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Question for reporters, politicos and citizens: Is it dangerous to talk about religion?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Question for reporters, politicos and citizens: Is it dangerous to talk about religion?

Several years ago, I took what I thought was a liberal course of action on a day when Facebook users were signaling, or shouting, their political and cultural views at one another. I changed the banner photo on my page to a red, white and blue semi-flag image that contained the text of the First Amendment.

Trigger warning: Here is that text again.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

At that point something interesting happened. I received several emails and messages, including several from former students, accusing me of hate speech for waving, so to speak, the First Amendment flag. It was clear, they said, that I did this to promote religious liberty.

What they were saying was perfectly captured the other day in a "Peaceful Coexistence" document released by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. This document played a key role in my "On Religion" column this week, as well as the latest GetReligion "Crossroads" podcast. Click here to tune that in.

The bottom line: The commission argued that "civil rights" now trump the First Amendment. As I noted in my column:

The commission stressed: "Religious exemptions to the protections of civil rights based upon classifications such as race, color, national origin, sex, disability status, sexual orientation, and gender identity, when they are permissible, significantly infringe upon these civil rights."
In a quote that went viral online, commission chair Martin Castro added: "The phrases 'religious liberty' and 'religious freedom' will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia or any form of intolerance."

Castro added:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

After 75 years, evangelicals in science still debate Darwin, Bible and evolution

, , , , , , , , ,
After 75 years, evangelicals in science still debate Darwin, Bible and evolution

This past July the annual conference of the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), an organization of Christians in the sciences, offered a high-powered speaker lineup on the human brain and mind: Justin Barrett, director of the psychological science program at Fuller Theological Seminary; Audrey Bowden, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University; Edward Davis, historian of science at Messiah College; Douglas Lauffenburger, biological engineering professor at M.I.T.; William Newsome, director of Stanford’s Neurosciences Institute; and Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Roger Wiens.

The equally intriguing 2017 conference, July 28-31 at Colorado School of Mines, will focus on environmental science and -- yes –- “climate change.” And on Oct. 11 the organization will be marking the 75th anniversary of its founding with a banquet at Wheaton College in Illinois. The current issue of the ASA quarterly, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith (check here), is devoted to the group’s history, and Colorado State University molecular biologist Terry Gray has posted a series of historical articles.

Full membership in ASA is restricted to persons with bachelor’s degrees or beyond in the sciences who affirm the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds and belief in “the divine inspiration, trustworthiness and authority of the Bible in matters of faith and conduct.” Most are evangelical-type Protestants.

Though members’ interests range from chaos theory to entomology to the morality of fracking, the most heated debates usually swirl around Darwin, evolution, creation, the Book of Genesis, origin of the universe and of earthly species and, therefore, what it means to be human.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , ,

Life after Hillary or Trump: Can public faith in American press drop even lower?

, , , , , , , , , , ,
Life after Hillary or Trump: Can public faith in American press drop even lower?

Back in the early 1990s, when I began teaching journalism and mass media full-time, I used to ask my Communications 101 students a simple question: How many of you grew up in a home in which your parents subscribed to a daily newspaper?

I also asked them how many televisions were in the homes in which they were raised, which yielding some shockingly high numbers.

I would say that, semester after semester, it was normal for about 75 percent of the entering mass-communications students in that particular Christian liberal arts institution to say that there was no daily newspaper in their homes. When I asked why that was the case, the most common answer was that their parents believed that their local newspaper couldn't be trusted because it leaned way to the left and offended their beliefs as traditional Christians.

Do the math. A student who was 18-19 years old in the early 1990s would be how old today? That would be 40-ish?

I thought of this when I was reading mainstream press materials about (1) that recent blast of dire Gallup Poll numbers (click here and then here for earlier GetReligion posts) about public trust in the news and (2) the growing awareness that elite journalists have given up pretending that they can cover Donald Trump and, more importantly, the views of supporters (many of them reluctant supporters), in a fair, balanced and accurate manner. On that second topic, see this conversation-starter of a piece at The Atlantic, with the headline, "The Death of 'He Said, She Said' Journalism."

All of this factored into this week's Crossroads podcast with host Todd Wilken. Click here to tune that in.

As you would expect, we were still mulling over the ramifications of the Gallup numbers. Click here to see a Gallup executive summary of those stats. Here is the hook that drew some (but surprisingly muted) media coverage:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear editors at The New York Times: Vladimir Putin is a Russian, but Putin is not Russia

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

As you would expect, quite a few GetReligion readers have asked for my take on the recent New York Times analysis piece about Russia and the Orthodox Church that ran under this headline: “In Expanding Russian Influence, Faith Combines With Firepower.”

Now, the editorial powers that be at the Gray Lady did not label this sprawling piece as a work of analysis, but that is what it was.

It was packed with all kinds of material that Orthodox people could argue about for hours (members of my flock, especially Russians, love a good argument). In many crucial passages, the Times team didn’t bother to let readers know who they were quoting — which usually means that they are quoting themselves or quoting beloved advocacy sources over and over and over and they didn't want to point that out with attribution clauses.

Thus, I am not going to try to dissect this piece, in part because (1) I am an Orthodox Christian and (2) I spend quite a bit of time hanging out with Russians and with other Orthodox Christians who hang out with Russians. But I do want to share one big idea.

You see, I hear people talking about Vladimir V. Putin quite a bit. I would divide these people into at least three groups.

* First, there are the people who consider him a corrupt, brutal strongman, at best, and a tyrant at worst. 

* Second, there are people who do not admire Putin at all, but they enjoy the fact that he gets under the skin of liberals and post-liberals here in the West. Putin is, in other words, a Russian and he drives elites in the West a bit mad.

* Third, there are Orthodox people who appreciate the fact that Putin -- for whatever reasons -- is defending some (repeat “SOME”) of the teachings of the Orthodox faith, whether he sincerely believes these moral doctrines or not. Of course, Putin's sins against Orthodoxy on many other issues are perfectly obvious.

Now, the tricky thing is that most of my Orthodox friends who closely follow events in and around Russia are in all three of these camps at the same time.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Those acidic Gallup numbers about the news: CNN blames it on Trump and Trump alone

, , , , , , , , ,

Donald Trump's campaign for the White House has not been friendly to the American model of the press, that old-school approach in which journalists strive to offer balanced, accurate coverage of both sides in public debates and contents.

For starter's, Citizen Trump's approach to debates and to the concept of verifiable facts is a unique one, to say the least. Saying that Trump struggles with logic, truth and facts is something like saying that, for several decades, Hillary Clinton has struggled with basic questions of law, ethics and accountability. #DUH

But let's focus on Trump, as we take a second look at those stunningly depressing Gallup Poll numbers about the public's increasingly acidic view of journalism. Is there a religion -- or moral and social-issues -- angle in there somewhere? That's the question I asked yesterday.

Also, we're going to look at Trump, because that's precisely what CNN did when considering the Gallup numbers. Check out this headline: "Fueled by Republicans, Americans' trust in media hits all-time low."

The report starts out like this, logically enough (in light of that headline):

In a climate of bitter political partisanship, anti-media rhetoric and diversified media options, just 32% of Americans now say they trust the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" -- the lowest level since 1972, when Gallup began polling. ...
While Americans' faith in media has been in decline for over a decade, this year's findings represent a sharp drop from the previous eight years, when between 40 and 45 percent of Americans expressed trust.
The change is largely fueled by the aggressive anti-media rhetoric of Donald Trump and other Republicans, Gallup said.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , ,

Religion ghost? Concerning the shocking Gallup numbers about public trust in news media

, , , , , , ,

A long, long time ago, I wrote my journalism graduate project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign about -- I am sure this will be a shock -- why so many mainstream newsrooms tend to ignore (or mangle) the role that religion plays in local, national and global news. Click here for the condensed version of that project that ran as a cover story with The Quill.

When talking to newspaper editors back in academic year 1981-82, I heard two things over and over: (1) religion news is too boring and (2) religion news is too controversial.

As I have said many times, the world is just packed with boring, controversial religion stories. The only way to make sense out of those answers, I thought at the time, was that editors considered these stories "boring" and they could not understand why so many readers cared so deeply about religious events, issues and trends.

At one point in that project, I discussed research done for the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company late in the 1970s. Yes, that was long ago. However, I believe some of those survey results remain relevant today, as we consider the stunning numbers in a new Gallup Poll that indicate that consumer trust in the American news media has crashed to a new low.

We will come back to those numbers in a moment. The key question: Is the public attitude toward the press linked, in some way, to issues of media bias in coverage of moral, cultural and religious news, as well as the predictable levels of anger linked to coverage of the remarkably unpopular major-party candidates in this year's White House race.

So back to 1980 or so. The Connecticut Mutual Life study found, as I wrote for The Quill, that:

... (The) sector of the public that is the most religiously involved is also highly involved in the local news events that dominate daily newspapers. ... About 20 percent of all Americans, a group the survey calls the "most religious," are the people most likely to be involved in, and interested in local news. The survey shows:


Please respect our Commenting Policy