Terry Mattingly

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Which issue drew more ink? SBC on Trump-era rifts, race, #ChurchToo abuse, gay marriage

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Which issue drew more ink? SBC on Trump-era rifts, race, #ChurchToo abuse, gay marriage

Here’s a question for GetReligion readers, including journalists: Are you surprised that the Southern Baptist Convention still believes sex outside of marriage is sin and, yes, that marriage is defined — by two millennia of Christian teaching — as the union of man and woman?

All of you who are surprised, please raise your hands.

There shouldn’t be many hands in the air on that one.

Now, would you say that SBC action on that question is, well, sexier than the decision by the national convention’s executive committee to oust two congregations for violating guidelines on sexual abuse, following in the wake of many #ChurchTwo revelations (especially in major Texas newspapers)?

Meanwhile, SBC President J.D. Greear offered up a blistering speech to the executive committee in which he addressed what he called demonic attacks on SBC unity, attacks centering on two hot-button topics — racism and (to be blunt) Donald Trump-era politics.

Of these four issues, want to guess which drew mainstream-press headlines? That’s the question that host Todd Wilken and I discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here to tune that in or head over to iTunes to subscribe.

According to the Associated Press, the biggest news was that totally predictable decision linked to marriage and sex. Meanwhile, I am happy to report that The New York Times produced a story that, while the headline was predictable (“Southern Baptists Expel 2 Churches Over Sex Abuse and 2 for L.G.B.T.Q. Inclusion”), was updated to become a solid look at the tensions surrounding Greear and some of these issues. We will come back to both of those stories.

But first, I think GetReligion readers need to read a large chunk of the (edited) text from the Greear broadside. (Click here for Baptist Press coverage and, most of all, here for a file that includes the full video.)

The key: Greear sets out to affirm the 1980s SBC move to the right on issues of biblical authority, while repudiating what he calls the “leaven of the Pharisees” emerging on the SBC’s right flank. The following is long, I know, but essential to understanding what is happening right now in America’s largest Protestant flock:


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NFL leap of faith? Indy Colts coach is an ordained minister; his QB is a strong believer

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NFL leap of faith? Indy Colts coach is an ordained minister; his QB is a strong believer

Here is a trivia question for (the few) GetReligion readers who follow sports, and professional football in particular.

Name the only head coach in the National Football League who is a (a) former pro quarterback, (b) an ordained minister and (c) the former head of a seminary?

Yes, I am not making up that last detail. The answer? That would be (the Rev.) Frank Reich of the Indianapolis Colts.

Now, there is another reason that I brought up Reich and his unique resume (see this Baptist Press piece by Tim Ellsworth, one of my former students in Washington, D.C.), including his service as president of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, N.C.

The big NFL story, these days, is the unusually high number of big name quarterbacks who are either on the move or asking (or hinting) that they would like to move to other teams. The first big domino to fall in this story was Carson Wentz moving from the Philadelphia Eagles to the Colts.

Wentz should be in the prime of his career, but had an epic slump in 2020, a collapse that was clearly mental and emotional, as well as physical. As many pundits and journalists noted, Wentz hadn’t really been at the top of his game since he lost the quarterback coach — that would be Reich — who helped him become a potential superstar.

ESPN noted that the Colts are:

… banking on their present -- and future -- with Wentz to solve what has unfortunately been a revolving door at quarterback in Indianapolis over the past few years. …

The person responsible for ensuring Wentz is the answer for the Colts?

Reich.

The coach is putting his reputation on the line by believing he can get Wentz, who was his quarterback when he was the offensive coordinator in Philadelphia, back to the level when he was considered an MVP contender before a season-ending knee injury in 2017. …


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Reader asks: How can news consumers decide if Ethiopian massacre reports are true?

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Reader asks: How can news consumers decide if Ethiopian massacre reports are true?

While Americans focused on the dramatic conclusion of 2020 White House race, reports began circulating in the overseas press claiming that a sickening massacre had taken place in a famous church — a pilgrimage site for the Ethiopian Orthodox.

How famous? For centuries, church officials have claimed that the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum contains the Ark of the Covenant.

This was, from the start, a journalism horror story — since Ethiopian officials were preventing foreign journalists from reaching the site of the alleged massacre. At the same time, activists on both sides of the stunningly complex conflict appeared to be working hard to shape the coverage that was taking place.

The other day, a frustrated reader sent me this note, after seeing materials posted online attempting to undercut claims that this massacre of 700-plus believers took place. “I’ve trusted you and your sources for about five years now so I’m hoping you can help get to the bottom of this,” the reader said.

I told the reader that, to me, it appeared that this was a case in which — at this point — certainty was impossible. A careful reader would note that some journalists were saying that claims about the massacre could not be verified — either way. “Human rights activists on left and right are concerned about the report and believe the attack COULD have taken place. But there has been no verification that has been locked down certain,” I said.

If you want to see what we’re talking about, check out these early reports from Catholic News Agency (“Hundreds reportedly dead after massacre at Oriental Orthodox church in Ethiopia”) and The Church Times (“Massacre ‘of 750’ reported in Aksum church complex, Tigray, Ethiopia”).

This is, of course, an argument about the attribution of truth claims. When journalists cannot (for a variety of reasons) do on-site reporting to seek evidence, they frequently are forced to seek the best sources that are available to them (often via telephone or other forms of technology) and report what they can. Here is the crucial point: Journalists have to clearly identify the identity of the sources and let readers know what kind of access they would or would not have to the information.

This leads us to a recent Associated Press story with a headline stating, “ ‘Horrible’: Witnesses recall massacre in Ethiopian holy city.”

The key word is, of course, “witnesses.”


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Want to trigger Episcopalians? Ask an evangelical superstar to preach at National Cathedral

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Want to trigger Episcopalians? Ask an evangelical superstar to preach at National Cathedral

Halfway between Norway and the North Pole, scientists have buried a million seeds and crop samples under a mountain in the Svalbard archipelago -- in case an environmental doomsday comes to pass.

That strategy rings true during "this crazy, chaotic season" when so many are anxious about the coronavirus pandemic, global warming, lost jobs, surging debts and the bitter state of public life, said evangelical megachurch leader Max Lucado, in a recent sermon streamed online by the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

“Most of us can't hide out in a bunker, yet threats of calamity may make us try to do so," he said. "If the wrong person pushes the wrong red button -- it's enough to make a person purchase a plane ticket to Svalbard."

But there was a problem. While pre-service publicity stressed that Lucado's books have sold more than 120 million copies and Christianity Today has called him "America's pastor," this invitation alarmed legions of Episcopalians opposed to his history of orthodoxy on sex and marriage. His sermon about God offering comfort in the midst of chaos avoided hot-button topics, but his cathedral appearance triggered an online storm.

Before the event, the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith linked the Lucado invitation to the cathedral's history of hosting a variety of religious leaders. This has included evangelicals such the late Billy Graham, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and megachurch leader Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in Southern California.

"When we only engage with those with whom we agree on every issue, we find ourselves in a dangerous (and lonely) place," wrote the cathedral's dean. "That means this cathedral, and this pulpit, are big enough and strong enough to welcome pastors, rabbis, imams, clergy of every faith. … It does not mean we agree with everything they might believe, but it does mean that we exhibit and inhabit a sense of open handed welcome."

However, Hollerith issued a formal apology in response to the online backlash, noting: "In my straight privilege I failed to see and fully understand the pain he has caused. I failed to appreciate the depth of injury his words have had on many in the LGBTQ community. I failed to see the pain I was continuing. I was wrong."

While Lucado is known as an evangelical moderate, Episcopalians were outraged by a 2004 sermon, and online commentary, stating that he "categorically opposes" gay marriage, as well as his conviction that "homosexual activity" is sin.


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New podcast: There's more to Lent 2021 than virtual-ash selfies and giving up (fill in the blank)

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New podcast: There's more to Lent 2021 than virtual-ash selfies and giving up (fill in the blank)

It happened every year that I worked in a mainstream newsroom. Apparently, there was a law somewhere that official newsroom “advance calendars” should include a note about the beginning of Lent.

Thus, an editor would ask me a question that sounded something like this: “So where are we sending a photographer this year on Ash Wednesday?”

This was, you see, the official way to handle Lent and it would be followed, of course, by some kind of sunrise-and-lilies photo when Easter rolled around. There might be an Easter story of some kind, but that was always a problem since the goal was to have the story in print on that Sunday, which meant the story and photograph needed to be done early. It’s so hard to cover a holy day that hasn’t happened yet.

But Ash Wednesday photographs, backed with a sentence of two about Lent, seem to be a news-culture tradition. That reality was the hook — sort of — for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Thus, it was easy to anticipate this COVID-19 era variation on a familiar theme, care of Religion News Service: “Celebrating Ash Wednesday in a pandemic? There’s an app for that.”

There are filters that blur “imperfections” in photos and filters that turn lawyers into cats on Zoom.

Now there are filters to help Christians safely display the very visible Ash Wednesday mark on social media.

Many Catholic and other liturgical churches observe Ash Wednesday by smudging ashes on congregants’ foreheads as a sign of repentance and a reminder of one’s mortality. That practice presents a problem during a season when health experts fighting COVID-19 have advised people to avoid touching their faces or coming in close proximity to others. …

In a year when so much of life has been lived virtually, Catholic prayer and meditation app Hallow has also taken the tradition online with an “AshTag” photo filter on both Facebook and Instagram.

That’s a valid story, even if it does fit a now familiar pandemic pattern — lots of coverage of virtual faith in these troubled times, as opposed to a few stories about the creative efforts of analog people to observe their traditions within the parameters of social-distancing guidelines.


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Ryan Burge day: Political tensions rise as secularism grows (yet faith numbers stay strong)

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Ryan Burge day: Political tensions rise as secularism grows (yet faith numbers stay strong)

Anyone who has followed GetReligion for nearly two decades knows that we have — over, and over, and over — stressed that the safe middle ground in American life seems to be vanishing.

This is true in religion and it is certainly true in politics.

Now, journalists and news consumers can prepare to dig into two books related to these trends — both linked to the work of names that will be familiar to GetReligion readers.

The first, by GetReligion contributor Ryan Burge, is entitled, “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going.” It will hit the market March 9th. We will come back to Burge in a moment, with links to some of his omnipresent charts and commentary.

The second book is entitled, “Secular Surge: A New Fault Line in American Politics,” and it was written by David Campbell, Geoffrey C. Layman and (here’s the familiar name to most GetReligion readers) John C. Green.

Yes, that John C. Green, the man from the 2007 seminar at the Washington Journalism Center who told a circle of journalists from around the world about emerging research about “religiously unaffiliated” Americans and how this would impact politics and, in particular, the shape of the Democratic Party. The line-graph he sketched on our write-on-wall that day was a foretaste of the stunning 2012 Pew study on the rapid rise of the “nones.”

The key was that the “nones” were the natural political partners of secular voters and believers in the shrinking world of the Religious Left. At some point, however, he said there would be tensions with moderate and even conservative Democrats in the Black church and in Hispanic pews, both Catholic, evangelical and Pentecostal. As I wrote in an On Religion column:

The unaffiliated overwhelmingly reject ancient doctrines on sexuality with 73 percent backing same-sex marriage and 72 percent saying abortion should be legal in all, or most, cases. Thus, the “Nones” skew heavily Democratic as voters — with 75 percent supporting Barack Obama in 2008. The unaffiliated are now a stronger presence in the Democratic Party than African-American Protestants, white mainline Protestants or white Catholics.

“It may very well be that in the future the unaffiliated vote will be as important to the Democrats as the traditionally religious are to the Republican Party,” said Green, addressing the religion reporters. “If these trends continue, we are likely to see even sharper divisions between the political parties.”


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Chick Corea's life and music: If Scientology 'informed' his art, why not offer a few examples?

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Chick Corea's life and music: If Scientology 'informed' his art, why not offer a few examples?

When it comes to modern forms of jazz, I was never a fan of the late Chick Corea’s work in the fusion megaband Return to Forever. I was a Weather Report guy.

However, I was totally into Corea’s classic duets with Gary Burton on vibes (see the epic 1979 live version of “Crystal Silence” at the top of this post) and his lovely “Children’s Songs” collection, for solo piano.

I can also remember debates long ago among my friends — secular and religious — about the impact that Corea’s embrace of the Church of Scientology would have on his life and music. After all, he was an instrumental musician. Were the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard supposed to have soaked into his unique chord voicings and the sparkling rhythms of his compositions?

This leads me to the solid New York Times obituary for Corea, who died recently after a short battle with a rare form of cancer. The double-decker headline on this feature covered a lot of ground:

Chick Corea, Jazz Keyboardist and Innovator, Dies at 79

When jazz and rock fused in the 1970s, he was at the forefront of the movement. But he never abandoned his love of the acoustic piano.

I’ve been thinking about this piece for a week now, wondering if it was worthy of a short post. I finally decided that it was. After all, the obit’s brief treatment of the religion angle demonstrated a classic puzzle that GetReligion has discussed many times in the past, linked to coverage of athletes, actors, writers, etc. Here is that section of the Times piece:

In the early 1970s, Mr. Corea converted to Scientology, and the religion’s teachings informed much of his music from then on, including his work with Return to Forever.

Armando Anthony Corea was born on June 12, 1941, in Chelsea, Mass., near Boston. His father, also named Armando Corea, was a trumpeter and bandleader in Boston, and his mother, Anna (Zaccone) Corea, was a homemaker. He began studying piano when he was 4.

And that was that.


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Ravi Zacharias scandal shows why independent ministries are so difficult to investigate

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Ravi Zacharias scandal shows why independent ministries are so difficult to investigate

If you have followed the Ravi Zacharias story in recent years, you know that it’s a tragedy on multiple levels and a reminder of why repentance is a crucial element of orthodox Christianity.

I followed this story at a distance, because — unlike many religion-beat pros — I had next to zero contact with Zacharias. I interviewed him only once, by telephone, several decades ago. I thought that he was clever, especially when addressing Hollywood’s trendy take on Eastern religions (“Only in America would anyone argue that reincarnation is Good News).”

The stunning, sordid details of his abuse of women make it clear that he suffered from some kind of sexual addiction. And while his mind was razor-sharp when dissecting many questions about moral theology and ethics, he also used his intellectual gifts to justify his own behavior — to the point of saying that God was blessing his actions.

What can we learn from the news coverage of this scandal?

First of all, it’s a good example of what happens when editors allow religion-beat professionals to cover important stories on their beat. Second, the reporting — in Christianity Today and also in the mainstream press — is devastating because it is based on mountains of documentation and on-the-record sources, as well as the testimonies of victims who deserve privacy.

However, there is a third point that must be emphasized, echoing a point frequently made at GetReligion for nearly two decades. I repeat this as a way of stressing one of the biggest challenges facing journalists — even veteran religion-beat pros — covering stories of this kind.

The fall of Zacharias is a perfect example of why it is so difficult to cover independent, non-denominational parachurch ministries (and independent congregations, as well). Nine times out of 10, radically independent religious organizations are only as honest as their charismatic, gifted, rainmaker founders allow them to be. This is true whether we are talking yoga or the prosperity anti-gospel. It was true long ago when I worked with skilled investigative reporters trying to probe the hidden scandals of PTL’s Jim Bakker. Alas, this remains true today.

Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

Readers who want to know the horrifying details of this case can start with Christianity Today or with The New York Times. Here is the summary material from CT:


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In the age of COVID-19, it's impossible for clergy to avoid wrestling with the internet

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In the age of COVID-19, it's impossible for clergy to avoid wrestling with the internet

Even before the coronavirus crisis, this question haunted pastors: What in God's name are we supposed to do with the internet?

American clergy aren't the only ones wrestling with this puzzle. Consider this advice -- from Moscow -- about online personality cults.

"A priest, sometimes very young, begins to think that he is an experienced pastor -- so many subscribers! -- able to answer the many questions that come to him in virtual reality," noted Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, at a recent diocesan conference. "Such clerics often lose the ability to accept any criticism, and not only on the internet, or respond to objections with endless arguments."

Pastors eventually have to ask, he added, if their online work is leading people through parish doors and into face-to-face faith communities.

"That is the question of the hour, for sure," said Savannah Kimberlin, director of published research for the Barna Group. Recent surveys have convinced Barna researchers that "the future church will be a blend of digital and in-person work. But it's up to us to decide what that will look like. …

"But isn't that true of our society as a whole? There are digital solutions for so many issues in our lives, right now. … But we can also see people yearning for more than that -- for experiences of contact with others in a community."

In a recent survey, 81% of churchgoing adults affirmed that "experiencing God alongside others" was very important to them, she said. At the same time, a majority of those surveyed said they hoped their congregations would continue some forms of online ministry in the future.

Similar paradoxes emerge when researchers studied evangelistic efforts to reach people who are "unchurched" or completely disconnected from religious institutions.

Half of all unchurched adults (52%), along with 73% of non-Christians, said they are not interested in invitations to church activities. However, a new Barna survey -- cooperating with Alpha USA, a nondenominational outreach group -- found that 41% of non-Christians said they were open to "spiritual conversations about Christianity" if the setting felt friendly.

Online forums and streamed events -- experienced at home, with viewers in control -- may offer some newcomers the flexibility and "safety" that they want.


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