Terry Mattingly

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Is there a religion ghost in Brexit victory for angry old Brits who keep clinging to the past?

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Is there a religion ghost in the shocking, to many, Brexit vote?

Of course there is. Any issue this, well, HUGE is going to have links to religious beliefs and institutions, on both sides of the debate. However, it will take a while for that shoe to drop, methinks, as secular journalists begin their work -- of course -- with waves of news about the political and economic fallout.

That is to be expected. However, we can begin our search for the religion ghost in this story by asking two rather basic questions: In terms of media and cultural elites, who is upset about the Brexit victory? And these grieving people in the mainstream media (looking at you, Christiane Amanpour), who are they blaming for this defeat for rational thought and the world's glowing future?

For example, I have no idea who this young journalist is -- Rebecca Pinnington -- but I would imagine that there were plenty of professionals in major newsrooms thinking this exact same thought in the wee hours of this morning. What does it say that CNN has this quote on its front page, as I write this?

"When Donald Trump congratulates you on a political decision, that’s how you know you’ve made a mistake #EUref"

So who is to blame for this attack on the European Union and its supporters? It would appear, based on my early reading, that the chattering classes see this as a victory for old people who yearn for the values of the past and fear the wide open, evolving future. The word of the day appears to be "xenophobia."


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Omar Mateen's interesting trips to Saudi Arabia: The details are 'conservative' news?

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Journalists and all you careful consumers of foreign-news coverage, I have a question for you. At this stage, after the horrors of the massacre inside The Pulse gay bar in Orlando, what elements of the case do you think are drawing the most attention from investigators at the local, national and global levels?

Everyone (well almost everyone) is really interested, of course, in learning more about the motive for the crime.

That could be a local question or it could be a national question. That could be a global question. I can imagine a scenario in which it is all three and, for national-security experts, that is the nightmare scenario. What if the lone wolf wasn't really a lone wolf?

If that is the case, then it is fair to ask when Omar Mateen met radical jihadists with ties to ISIS or, at the very least, ties to radicalized forms of Islam that might lead a young man to sympathy for the Islamic State. Yes, the internet is a likely channel But the World Wide Web alone?

This brings me to the question that I have been asking for a week or so now. I would imagine that investigators are rather interested in what did or did not happen during Mateen's two relatively recent trips to Saudi Arabia, as in 2011 and 2012.

What? You have not read much about those rather expensive and flexible trips? Well, that's because, when it comes to follow-up work among journalists, these trips appear to be (wait for it) "conservative news."

Here is a typical New York Times reference, from early reporting:


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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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Trump meets some evangelicals: Looking for drops of journalism in a social-media storm

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Let's face it, the Donald Trump semi-rally yesterday in New York City with 1,000 loyal or semi-sympathetic evangelical leaders was (a) the perfect viral event in the social-media era, (b) the logical outcome of religious conservatives' fears about the mainstream press (some of which are justified), (c) a nightmare for old-school reporters committed to personal interviews and real questions or (d) all of the above.

It's next to impossible to separate what may or may not have happened in this event from the tsunami of spin and invective that roared through social media.

Why? Well, because the only source materials reporters had to work with, in terms of obtaining direct quotes from the presentations by Trump and others, were clips circulating in social media. Most of these materials were put on Facebook by an African-American church leader, Bishop E.W. Jackson. One key clip is found here.

If the goal was to turn this into a news event that was almost impossible to cover, in a responsible and/or conventional manner, then the folks at United In Purpose got what they wanted. Yes, yes, I know: Have we reached the point where many reporters -- on left and right -- have next to zero commitment to fair coverage of the 2016 campaign? That's a valid question.

Meanwhile, I have no intention of trying to parse the evangelical vs. evangelical shouting on Twitter (and I say that as someone trying to write about these subjects in my Universal syndicate column). So what can we learn from the actual news coverage?

Not much. Some of the main players basically punted. Consider the top of this short report from The New York Times:


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Election-year theodicy? Washington Post explores rise of faith-haunted, political obits

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So do you remember Mary Anne Noland of Richmond, Va.? Her name surfaced recently in a way that was both humorous and poignant, during a "Crossroads" podcast about the "lesser of two evils" dilemma faced by many voters in this year's White House campaign.

All over America, people were talking about her obituary in The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Some people thought this was a hoax, perhaps something from The Onion. The folks at Snopes.com quickly verified that this viral sensation was the real deal.

If you do not recall the details, here is how the Noland obit opened:

NOLAND, Mary Anne Alfriend. Faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the age of 68. Born in Danville, Va., Mary Anne was a graduate of Douglas Freeman High School (1966) and the University of Virginia School of Nursing (1970). A faithful child of God, Mary Anne devoted her life to sharing the love she received from Christ with all whose lives she touched as a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, friend and nurse. ...

You could see, in the Noland obituary, that this family's faith was woven into this story and linked, somehow, to the disdain they felt toward the two major candidates (depending, of course, on the outcome of the crucial FBI primary and the growing revolt among GOP delegates, many of them cultural and moral conservatives).

Surely this obituary was a one-of-a-kind heart cry, right? As it turns out, it was not. That leads us to a quite amazing feature in The Washington Post that ran under the headline, "Disdain for Trump and Clinton is so strong, even the dead are campaigning."

Did this feature deal with the moral and religious elements of this phenomenon? Sort of.


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That key weekend think piece I didn't have time to post: God and the EU referendum?

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Are you following the many angles of the debates in Great Britain about the future of the European Union?

To say that this is an emotional and explosive debate would be a great understatement. That would have been true even before the brutal killing of British MP Jo Cox, a rising Labour Party star who was outspoken in her support for staying in the embattled EU.

Her attacker, of course, was said to have shouted, "Put Britain first!"

All kinds of ultimate questions about culture and national identity loom in the background during these debates, including rising tensions about the role of Islam in what is clearly post-Christian European culture.

This leads me to another essay that has been published by Lapido Media, a London-based think tank dedicated to promoting literacy on religion issues in the mainstream press, among political elites and in public life, in general. Lapido is led by a friend of this blog, Dr. Jenny Taylor.

This piece by Peter Carruthers ran under the headline, "Still time to face facts: the EU referendum is a religious issue too." You should read the whole thing, but here is a slice of two of the context, starting with the overture.

POLITICIANS are ignoring research that shows that religious affiliation could determine the EU referendum.


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New York Times offers partial headline about Mateen, ISIS and calls from inside The Pulse

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If you have followed this blog for long, then you have heard your GetReligionistas -- in a kind of whiny voice common among offended reporters -- stress that reporters do not get to write the headlines that run on top of their stories.

Nevertheless, readers often blame the contents of a headline on the person named in the byline. People who study these kinds of things will tell you that a high percentage of readers only scan the headlines and then skip all but the first few lines of most news stories, if they read that much.

So what's my point? Headlines really matter.

Case in point: I got excited today when I saw the following headline as I worked my way through my morning email summary of the top news in The New York Times. I'm talking about the one that said: "Transcripts of Calls With Orlando Gunman Will Be Released."

That's important news, in light of all of the speculation there was been about the "Why?" part of the "Who, what, when, where, why and how" equation linked to Orlando gunman Omar Mateen. I mean, there are many mysteries about what was happening inside the mind of this sexually conflicted (possibly gay), Muslim with Afghanistan roots who was a registered Democrat and, with his job as a low-level worker in a security firm (that even had ties to the Department of Homeland Security), had no trouble legally purchasing weapons.

This news about the transcripts of the cellphone calls between the police and Mateen -- during his rampage inside the gay bar -- is crucial. These transcripts would, apparently, give the public a chance to hear the gunmen talking about his actions, even his motives, in his own voice. 

The problem with this soft Times headline is that it was missing a crucial word that readers needed to know. Let's see if you can spot it in the lede:


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Flashback to Godbeat past: Several symbolic stories from front lines of the SBC wars

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Flashback to Godbeat past: Several symbolic stories from front lines of the SBC wars

Here is an idea for the current leaders of the Religion Newswriters Association.

What if we held a reunion for the army of Godbeat pros who worked in the 1980s and '90s? You know, gather up the folks who used to trek from one annual denominational gathering to another -- two, three or, for reporters from big newsrooms, even more events -- each summer. Call up Bruce Buursma and let him organize the whole thing. Louis Moore and Virginia Culver can plan the program. Russ Chandler can handle the after-party (more on that in a minute).

Then everyone can get together and tells stories about what life was like back in the age of travel budgets. I promise you that, within 10 minutes, folks would start telling Southern Baptist Convention stories. Everybody who worked the beat during that era has several great SBC civil-war stories.

This is sort of what host Todd Wilken and I talked about during this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to tune that in).

We started talking about the news from this year's SBC gathering in St. Louis -- click here and then here for GetReligion background. But we ended up focusing on how important it is for journalists who cover this kind of gathering to actually know something about the religious group's life, past and present. Try to imagine having a Super Bowl and newsrooms sending reporters who know little or nothing about football.

Of course, very few news organizations spent money to send reporters to this year's SBC gathering. In the 1980s there would be 30-plus religion-beat pros at SBC meetings, scribes with folders packed with background material and notebooks full of sources. This year? At best, some organizations asked religion-beat reporters to watch the video feeds. It's like being a hoops reporter and covering the NBA finals -- without being at the games.

Does this affect the coverage? You think?


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Classic M.Z.: When it comes to Christianity 101, The New York Times flunks out -- again

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Attention: Copy desk at The New York Times

Subject: Reading adult books

To whom it may concern:

I have a journalistic question, a question centering on basic facts about religion, that I would like to ask in light of the following statement that ran in a political report in The Times under the headline, "After Orlando, a Political Divide on Gay Rights Still Stands." Context is important, so here is the complete reference:

... The deep divide over gay rights remains one of the most contentious in American politics. And the murder of 49 people in an Orlando gay club has, in many cases, only exacerbated the anger from Democrats and supporters of gay causes, who are insisting that no amount of warm words or reassuring Twitter posts change the fact that Republicans continue to pursue policies that would limit legal protections for gays and lesbians.
In the weeks leading up to the killings, they pointed out, issues involving gays were boiling over in Congress and in Republican-controlled states around the country. More than 150 pieces of legislation were pending in state legislatures that would restrict rights or legal protections for sexual minorities. A Republican congressman read his colleagues a Bible verse from Romans that calls for the execution of gays. Congress was considering a bill that would allow individuals and businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian couples.

My question: When it comes to the authoritative interpretation of Christian scripture, who has the highest level of authority for the Times, the leaders of Westboro Baptist Church or legions of Christian saints, hierarchs and theologians (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestants) over 2,000 years of church history? Who do you trust more, Pope Francis or the Rev. Fred Phelps?

The answer, to my shock, appears to be -- Westboro Baptist. When it comes to St. Paul and the interpretation of his Epistle to the Romans, the Times leadership appears to believe that the tiny circle of Westboro activists represent all of Christendom.

How did the Times leadership reach this decision on such an important theological issue?

Sincerely, Terry Mattingly

*****

My question is sincere.

If you have doubts about this, let me point you toward a work of classic M.Z. Hemingway media criticism over at The Federalist that is currently going viral in social media.


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