Terry Mattingly

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This week's podcast: They shoot (or shun) old United Methodists, don't they?

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Before we get to the story (AP headline: “Struggling Minnesota church asks older members to go away”) behind this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), I would like to share a parable.

It’s about some elderly Lutherans and an old hymnal.

In the early 1980s, while working for The Charlotte News (RIP), I wrote a feature story about the last congregation in town that was resisting the use of a new hymnal prepared for the churches that merged to form the progressive Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Everyone called the “Service Book and Hymnal” the “red book,” and emerging ELCA elites thought it was old fashioned. Thus, the modernized “Lutheran Book of Worship” came out in 1978. It was the “green book.”

At this Charlotte church, I met with an older man who led the fight to retain the “red book.” He had a long list of reasons — historical and theological — for why the old hymnal and prayer book was superior to the new. A teacher by trade, he was very articulate and calm.

When the interview was over, we walked the center aisle toward the foyer and main exit. At the last pew, he stopped and picked up a battered red hymnal. Tears began running down his cheeks.

“I married my wife with this book,” he said. “Our children were baptized with this book. I buried my wife with this book. … They are not going to take it away from me.”

Forget his long list of defenses for the “red book.” What I was hearing was a cry from his heart, as well as his head. Church officials had ruled that his faith — his life — was out of date and he was hurting.

With that in mind, think about the press coverage that grew out of a Twin Cities Pioneer Press story that ran with this headline: “Cottage Grove church to usher out gray-haired members in effort to attract more young parishioners.” Here’s a key passage that captures the tone:


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Life on religion-news beat: Update on the health of Rachel Zoll of Associated Press

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We are almost a month into life here at the somewhat downsized GetReligion.org, with me working roughly half of the time — like in the blog’s first decade.

We are publishing less material and, frankly, there are times when it is agonizing to have to let some subjects and news articles pass without commentary (either positive or negative). We really do appreciate all of the story tips from readers. Keep them coming, even if we are not able to post about them.

We are still trying to figure out how to handle some items of business, especially without the regular work of Bobby Ross, Jr., and his Friday Five collective. His new “Weekend Plug-In” feature for Religion UnPlugged helps. But there are still times when we all think, “Oh, I’ll send that to Bobby for the Friday Five,” and then we have to say, “Oh, right.”

Not all of this material is light-hearted. Take, for example, this serious life-on-the-beat update from patriarch Richard Ostling — focusing on the health of his colleague Rachel Zoll, with whom he shared religion-beat duties for years at the Associated Press.

So here is the note from Ostling:

Along the beat: Our highly respected colleague, former AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll,  is still being treated for brain cancer. 

People who follow the religion beat closely will remember that she was suddenly stricken on Martin Luther King Day two years ago. However, this encouraging New Year's update was posted by her sister Cheryl:


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Tim Tebow marries Miss Universe: It's tabloid heaven, but there's a deeper story there

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Let’s face it. A New York City tabloid is going to do what a New York City tabloid is going to do.

So, if you had to make a prediction, what do you think would be in the lede of a New York Daily News report about Tim Tebow marring a woman who had been named Miss Universe?

Think it through. What aspect of Tebow’s life have more than a few journalists (and activists with lower motives) probed ever since That Press Conference during his playing days at the University of Florida?

So here we go:

Tim Tebow has scored.

The former NFL quarterback and current Mets minor leaguer, who has said he planned to remain a virgin until he gets hitched, is now a married man.

Tebow wed 2017 Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters in Cape Town, South Africa, about a year after getting engaged, People reported.

Believe it or not, the Page Six team at The New York Post stayed quite tame, with: “Tim Tebow marries former Miss Universe Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters.” I don’t know what I expected, but that wasn’t the Post headline I thought that we would see.

So what was the story here?

On one level, of course, this was a celebrity wedding. Thus, the stories had all the details about the bride’s gown, the groom’s tux, the menu for the reception (Tebow has a special diet when he is in training for baseball), etc., etc. Readers also need to know why Tebow has been so controversial, in the first place. Thus, the Daily News tossed in this passage late in the story:

Tebow’s personal life has been a hot topic over the years, including him stating in 2009 that he planned to practice abstinence until marriage due to his Christian faith. He proposed to Nel-Peters in January 2019 at his family’s farm near Jacksonville, Fla.

In addition to his baseball career, Tebow works as a college football analyst for ESPN’s SEC Network.

USA Today offered a kind of wink-wink passage high in its report, centering on Tebow’s expectations about this event:


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Facing ties that bind between 'pro-life' issues, like human trafficking and immigration

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Facing ties that bind between 'pro-life' issues, like human trafficking and immigration

It's hard to talk about the horrors of human trafficking -- including young women and children forced into the sex trade -- without mentioning the I-10 corridor across northern Florida and over to California.

Florida and California are in the top three on the list of U.S. states involved in human-trafficking cases, according to Florida State University's Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. Any realistic discussion of this crisis has to include women, children, poverty, prostitution and crisis pregnancies.

"There are so many overlapping issues in all of this. But you know you're dealing with abused women and, often, their pregnancies," said Ashlyn Portero, co-executive director of City Church in Tallahassee, Fla., which has two campuses close to I-10.

"Churches that want to help can start right there. …When you see those connections, you know you're talking about issues that fall under the pro-life umbrella."

Thus, human trafficking is an issue that "pro-life" religious leaders in Tallahassee, as well as many other urban areas, need to face if they want to minister to women in crisis pregnancies and their children, she added. The problem is that tackling this issue also involves talking -- or even preaching -- about subjects that many people will call "political" in a state like Florida. Take immigration, for example.

Timing is crucial. Right now, thousands of Americans are preparing for the annual March For Life, which is linked to the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1973 legalizing abortion. This year's march in Washington, D.C., will be on Jan. 24.

"When people come back from something like the March For Life, lots of them will be asking, 'What can we do now?' They want to do something practical," said Portero, in a telephone interview. "But these issues all seem so big and complex. It's hard to know where to start, in terms of ministries that will help real people."

One thing is certain: Nothing happens in a typical church without clear communication through preaching. That's where things can get tricky.


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Concerning a Christian-school student and her rainbow birthday cake (and online pics)

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If GetReligion readers search the nearly 17 years of material on our site for this term — “doctrinal covenant” — they will find five or six screens (depending on browser settings) worth of posts. Click here and explore that if you wish.

What we have here is story after story about disputes between private religious schools (or similar institutions) and students, parents, faculty members or staffers. The vast majority of the reports are about LGBTQ-related clashes rooted in centuries of Christian and Jewish doctrines about sexuality and marriage. There may be cases involving Muslim doctrine, but they don’t seem to make it into the news.

Private religious schools — whether on the doctrinal left or right — are voluntary associations, and the word “voluntary” is crucial. No one has to attend one of these religious schools or work for them. However, it’s important (from a legal point of view) that students, parents, etc., clearly acknowledge that they are consenting to follow — or at least not openly attack — the doctrines and traditions that define the life of a religious private institution.

Thus, most of these religious schools require students, parents, faculty, etc., to SIGN a “doctrinal covenant” that states these teachings and the school rules that are linked to them.

Readers who glance through those GetReligion posts about news coverage of these cases will notice that these media reports rarely mention the existence of these covenants (they are often referred to as mere “rules,” thus failing to note their doctrinal content) and, if they are mentioned, the stories usually fail to note that people involved in disputes with these schools voluntarily signed them. In other words, who needs to know that First Amendment issues are involved?

This brings us to the “rainbow cake girl” story, as covered by The Louisville Courier Journal, The Washington Post and other newsrooms. The headline in the Courier Journal shows how this story is being framed: “Louisville Christian school expelled student over a rainbow cake, family says.”


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Think about this: How many religious flocks are ready for children with 'hidden' disabilities?

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On one level, this week’s think piece is not about religion. Then again, it is a personal and transparent piece from The Seattle Times — written by GetReligion contributor Julia Duin, a veteran religion-beat professional.

It’s a piece about what it’s like to travel with one or more children with “hidden disabilities.” She is talking about PTSD, autism, anxiety disorders and other intense conditions that, to be blunt, may not immediately be obvious to people at nearby restaurant tables, in lines at theater parks or jammed into adjacent airplane seats.

OK, what about people of various ages who are settled in for peace and quiet, or even transcendence, in a nearby pew during Mass?

So read Duin’s article and picture that in your mind. Look for the situations that religious leaders of all kind need to stop and think about, in terms of their own communities, activities and facilities. Think about that as you read this:

You’ve seen them at the airport, at the beach or in a restaurant. A child is thrashing or kicking or on the ground while a desperate parent hovers nearby, trying to ignore angry glances from passersby. I know because I’ve been that anguished parent.

On display are “cognitive disabilities,” invisible handicaps related to how children’s brains work. For many kids with cognitive disabilities or developmental disorders, a car can be a prison, a plane or a new hotel room can be sheer terror.

In the past, families were stuck, barely venturing outside the county, certainly not on an overnight trip. Travel meant potential trauma minefields, and unfortunately, we live in a world where bystanders are more apt to call the police or Child Protective Services than offer help to the parents.

Can you see the potential for any of that in, oh, a loud suburban megachurch?


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And this just in: Religious left is real, important, rather small and it's old news

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And this just in: Religious left is real, important, rather small and it's old news

Every four to eight years, mainstream journalists start writing hopeful stories about the potential for the religious left — that should be Religious Left — to rise up and save America from the Religious Right.

This is the sort of thing that we write about here at GetReligion and the topic came up again in a post called, “Mayor Pete evolving into Pastor Pete? Prepare for latest uptick in MSM ardor for religious left.” That led to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here, please, to tune that in.

The religious left, of course, has changed and evolved over the decade that I have followed it and reported stories about it. But, basically, we are talking about liberal Mainline Protestants, liberal Catholics, a few evolving evangelicals, liberal Jews and so forth and so on.

The problem, of course, is that so many of those ancient doctrines keep clashing with the creeds of the emerging Zeitgeist (mostly the Sexual Revolution, in post-Roe v. Wade America).

Lots of folks who were part of the old religious left go with the flow. But some are troubled. Go to any traditional African-American church and talk to people. Go to a multi-racial Assemblies of God church. Talk to Catholics who go to Vespers and then stay for Confession.

So, White House race after White House race, we see stories about the latest set of “lesser of two evils” challenges faced by people who are, sincerely, religious/moral traditionalists, but they are also economic populists. There are the people who do not exist, according to MSNBC and Fox News. They don’t fit in the Democratic Party’s faculty lounge or the GOP’s country club.

So is the latest attempt to raise up the religious left a valid story?

Of course it is. The African-American church vote really mattered to Barack Obama (think his evolving beliefs on gay marriage) until the moment in time when he no longer needed those votes.

Latino voters matter, as well. Hold that thought!

The religious left also is very important in mainstream newsrooms — at least the ones in which I have worked.


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On M.Z. Hemingway, The New Yorker and the return of the vast Opus Dei conspiracy

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Since I am not living in Washington, D.C., during this current acid-bath of an era (thank you, Jesus), I no longer get to hang out every now and then with former GetReligionista Mollie Hemingway. I wish I could, though. She’s a witty riot of a conversationalist and it doesn’t matter if she’s surrounded by packs of liberals or conservatives (or both).

We probably wouldn’t talk about politics, since I’m still enforcing my policy that Donald Trump’s face is not allowed to appear on the television in my sports-and-movie cave. (I’m bracing myself for Hillary Clinton’s comeback, when I can renew her ban.) We could talk about journalism, of course, since we both enjoy the work of reporters who quote lots of on-the-record sources (as in the “Justice on Trial” book that MZ wrote with Carrie Severino).

I am sure that we would discuss mainstream media coverage of religion news, since that’s a topic she frequently raises in her work with Howard Kurtz on the MediaBuzz show. (Why does that have to air on Sunday mornings?)

That brings me to that very MZ blast the other day about that piece in The New Yorker that ran with this headline: “William Barr, Trump’s Sword and Shield.” This feature by David Rohde — with a big dose of paranoia about conservative Catholics — served as a reminder that there are dangerous religious believers in the world other than white evangelicals.

Here’s MZ:

… (In) the second paragraph, Rohde writes about a speech Barr recently gave at the University of Notre Dame. Barr asserted that declining religious influence in American life has left the country more vulnerable to government dependency. He also noted that some of the left’s secularists are not particularly tolerant.

For Rohde, the speech was “a catalogue of grievances accumulated since the Reagan era, when Barr first enlisted in the culture wars. It included a series of contentious claims. He argued, for example, that the Founders of the United States saw religion as essential to democracy. ‘In the Framers’ view, free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people — a people who recognized that there was a transcendent moral order,’ he said.”


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Mayor Pete evolving into Pastor Pete? Prepare for latest uptick in MSM ardor for religious left

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If you have been paying any attention at all to the 2020 White House race, you were ready for the latest mini-sermon from Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The setting, of course, was the last debate between Democratic Party hopefuls staged before the Iowa caucuses. Here is the key soundbite from Buttigieg, care of CNN, as the frequent churchgoing Episcopalian took yet another shot at Citizen Donald Trump, who — until recently — has been linked to mainline forms of Presbyterianism in great New York City.

Let us attend.

“If he keeps trying to use religion, if a guy like Donald trump keeps trying to use religion to somehow recruit Christianity into the GOP, I will be standing there not afraid to talk about a different way to answer the call of faith,” he said. “And insist that God does not belong to a political party.”

If that kind of language sounds familiar, there’s a good reason for that. Consider the top of the recent New York Times feature that ran with this double-decker headline:

Why Pete Buttigieg Has Made Religion Central to His Campaign

The former mayor is not only trying to bridge ground within the Democratic Party, he’s also making a direct appeal to disaffected conservatives who cannot stomach President Trump.

The overture, logically enough, is from a Sunday morning sermonette in which Mayor Pete proclaims:

“Look at what they do,” he said at a campaign stop about 45 minutes outside of Des Moines, calling out Republicans for “using faith as a way to tell some people they don’t belong.”


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