Terry Mattingly

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What kind of believers want to sit in pews surrounded by their political allies?

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What kind of believers want to sit in pews surrounded by their political allies?

Just over half of churchgoing American Protestants went into the tense midterm elections believing that the people in the pews around them would vote the same way they did.

A Lifeway Research online survey in September found that 50% of those in its national panel agreed with the statement, "I prefer to attend a church where people share my political beliefs, while 55% agreed that "My political views match those of most people at my church." At the same time, 10% were not sure about the first question and 22% the second.

"What we are seeing is a pretty complex situation," said Scott McConnell, executive director at Lifeway Research. While churchgoers are divided on the need for political uniformity in their pews, there are enough believers who take that stance to prove that "this is not one or two people that pastors need to talk to and try to understand. This is a GROUP of people in most of our churches and that's something pastors have to deal with now."

This new survey began with questions used in 2017, he noted, and while the results are similar some new trends are clear. In the earlier survey, 51% of the respondents felt their church was politically homogenous, with only 11% "strongly" agreeing. Now, 21% strongly agree. Also, a rising number of believers assume they can predict the politics of others in their churches. In 2017, 30% were unsure if they shared the views of others in their congregations, but that number dropped to 22% this time.

In a survey result clashing with a popular stereotype, those with evangelical beliefs (44%) were less likely than non-evangelicals (54%) to say they wanted a church in which believers shared their political views. The survey defined "evangelical" in doctrinal terms, stressing beliefs such as, "The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe" and "Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their Savior receive God's free gift of eternal salvation." Other significant results included:


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Podcast: More ink about crazy churches sinking down (maybe) into partisan politics

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Podcast: More ink about crazy churches sinking down (maybe) into partisan politics

I’m hiding in a different set of mountains this week, but it’s my understanding that important political stuff has happened. Was that the midterm elections or something like that?

I also understand — based on reading stories on my smartphone — that those nasty evangelical churches had a bad week, in terms of getting “their candidates” elected. I know that because I wrote a post about that topic earlier this week, right before I fired up the electric car and rushed off to hide in the hills. That headline: “Crazy political stuff happening in churches right now, but which events get the elite ink?”

We revisited that topic in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), as a way of dipping a toe into the churning midterm waters. The key to the discussion was trying to discern whether political-beat reporters — religion-beat pros tend to do much better work — understand what religious leaders are allowed to do when talking about “political” topics and politicos who are running for office.

This happens on the Religious Right and (#triggerwarning) even more on the Religious Left (click here for more on that from Baptist progressive Ryan Burge). But most of the political-beat coverage is built on scary passages like this one from a piece at The Guardian that ran with the headline, “He was chosen’: the rightwing Christian roadshow spreading the gospel of Trump.” The coverage focus on the ReAwaken rallies that blend lots of Donald Trumpian talk with nondenominational evangelical-speak. That sounds like this:

Mark Trudo, who runs his own swimming pool construction company near St Louis, is more optimistic, saying: “Right now I’m hopeful, I think things are going to turn around, a great awakening is taking place.”

Like most of his ReAwaken peers, he sees the current politics in apocalyptic terms: “The country is being taken away from us from within. This is good versus evil.”

Actual evil? As in satanic evil?

“Is God real, is Satan real? Yes, I believe they are,” he says.

Is Biden satanic?


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Parental rights: What's up with the Christian school that baptized kids without permission?

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Parental rights: What's up with the Christian school that baptized kids without permission?

Readers who have been paying attention to the news know that parental rights is a hot-button topic these days in battles over education, especially with mandatory programs about sexual morality and marriage.

In some cases, public-school leaders have attempted to keep parents in the dark about what their children were reading and studying (and whether parents have supervision options in these matters). The brave new world in these disputes — see this case in Canada — is when school leaders attempt to hide student gender-change decisions from parents.

A reader recently sent me a story from The Hill that opened up a completely different kind of parental-rights case. Here is the headline: “More than 100 students baptized without parents’ permission at North Carolina school.”

The note that came with that URL pointed to an issue near the end of this news report:

Religion Ghosts? I think so. It would have been nice to know why the parents thought the 2nd baptism would undo the first — what sect of Christianity, how that would actually happen.

Let’s get into this. The key, in this story is that we are dealing with a private school, as opposed to a taxpayer-funded public school.

In other words, (a) parents have chosen to send their children to this school, but (b) it’s still crucial to ask if school leaders have kept in-print promises (if any were made) to parents about the nature of religious programs and even rites (sacraments for many, but not all Christians) that might take place in worship.

Thus, here is the overture, and the word “private” is used early on. (Note that I am using The Hill piece, rather than the local paper, for paywall reasons.)

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WGHP) — A North Carolina school apologized after baptizing more than 100 children without their parent’s permission, according to the Fayetteville Observer.


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Crazy political stuff happening in churches right now, but which events get the elite ink?

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Crazy political stuff happening in churches right now, but which events get the elite ink?

It’s that time, once again. It’s time for the mainstream press to be terrified of that fact that, for millions of Americans, the content of their religious beliefs frequently has implications for what happens inside voting booths on Election Day.

This happens all the time on both the Religious Left and the Religious Right, although it appears to be more common in sermons on the political left (click here for more on that from Baptist progressive Ryan Burge).

If you have any doubts about press concerns about this issue, see this recent collection of headlines from one of those daily Pew Research Center emails about religion in the news:

* Churches are breaking the law and endorsing in elections, experts say. The IRS looks the other way — ProPublica

* Virginia pastor investigated for campaigning during church services — The Associated Press

* The senator-pastor from Georgia mixes politics and preaching on the trail — The New York Times

* Black church tradition survives Georgia’s voting changes — The Associated Press

* ‘We need to make America godly again.’ The growing political influence of Latino evangelicals — CNN

* Battle for Catholic vote inflames Pa. governor’s race — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Remember that GetReligion mantra: Politics is the true faith of most elite-newsroom professionals, who — functionally — believe that politics is the only answer If you want to get something done in the real world. Politics is real. Religion? Not so much. Thus, it is logical that religious faith is important to the degree that it affects politics.

Is the blue-zip-code press more worried about political influence on the conservative side of this equation? Of course, especially this soon after an earthquake like the fall of Roe v. Wade. I would also admit that, at the moment, the stunning rise of nondenominational, independent evangelical and Pentecostal churches has made it even harder for reporters to cover what is and what is not happening in the institutions that define conservative Christianity..

This brings me to that ProPublica investigation that hit social-media the other day: “Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. The IRS Looks the Other Way.”


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Catholic LGBTQ voices rising in volume during Vatican's Synod on Synodality

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Catholic LGBTQ voices rising in volume during Vatican's Synod on Synodality

The "Chain of Discipleship" image showed five Catholics celebrating at a church, including a woman in priest's vestments and a person in a rainbow-letters "pride" shirt who is shouting, "We are the young people of the future and the future is now."

This art from the Philadelphia Catholic Higher Education Synod rocked Catholic social media -- especially when it appeared on the Synod of Bishops Facebook page, linked to the ongoing Synod on Synodality that began in 2021.

Catholics at the local, regional and national levels are sending the Vatican input about the church's future. A North Carolina parish submitted testimony from "Matthew (not his real name)," who had been recognized as his Catholic high school's most popular teacher. While "hiding his homosexuality," he married "his partner elsewhere."

"They decide to foster, love and adopt young children internationally," said this report. "Matthew's greatest sadness is that he has to hide his sexuality in order to keep his job in a church institution and that he does not feel welcome in the Catholic Church precisely because of his sexuality which he considers God-given, and this despite his attempt to love the poor and destitute through his pro-life decision to adopt."

Case studies of this kind recently led Belgian bishops to approve a document -- "On Pastoral Closeness to Homosexual People" (.pdf here) -- containing a rite for priests blessing same-sex couples. The bishops appointed a gay layman as inter-diocesan coordinator for LGBTQ care in a land in which 3.6% of baptized Catholics attend Mass on an average Sunday.

Meanwhile, it's important that a Vatican working document includes the term LGBTQ and even LGBTQIA in discussions of topics once considered forbidden, said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a Catholic gay-rights network pushed aside during the Pope St. John Paul II era.


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Podcast: Big Sexual Revolution victory in New York! Where's the elite news coverage?

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Podcast: Big Sexual Revolution victory in New York! Where's the elite news coverage?

I think I heard this D.C. Beltway question for the first time during the George W. Bush years, when I moved back to greater Baltimore and began teaching full-time at the Washington Journalism Center. It was a time of high expectations for cultural conservatives. As is usually the case, they faced disappointment when wins by the cultural left continued, even though W. Bush was “in power.”

The question: What happens to culturally conservative Republicans when they get elected to, oh, the U.S. Senate and then immediately start losing their nerve?

I heard an interesting answer during an off-the-record chat session with some Senate staffers. It helps to remember that this was back in the day when many people still had radios in their cars that had button systems that allowed them a limited number of pre-set stations they could quickly punch while driving.

The answer: There are two kinds of Republicans inside the Beltway — those who have NPR as the first button on their car radios and those who do not.

Unpacking that answer was crucial to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on media coverage, or the lack thereof, about a recent court ruling in an important LGBTQ rights case in New York.

Ah, but was this a case that LGBTQ-rights activists and Sexual Revolution evangelists wanted to see publicized? That’s one of the questions that host Todd Wilken and I discussed.

We will work our way back to the NPR symbolism angle. But first, here is some key material from the top of a New York Post report that ran with this headline: “NYC judge rules polyamorous unions entitled to same legal protections as 2-person relationships.” This is long, but important. First, there is this:

In the case of West 49th St., LLC v. O’Neill, New York Civil Court Judge Karen May Bacdayan reportedly concluded that polyamorous relationships are entitled to the same sort of legal protection given to two-person relationships.


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Baptist life in Texas: Where did all of those Southwestern Baptist Seminary students go?

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Baptist life in Texas: Where did all of those Southwestern Baptist Seminary students go?

I have no idea who said the following quote. But, somewhere in my young Texas Baptist life, I heard someone say: “Texas is the wallet on which the Southern Baptist Convention sits.”

OK, I cleaned up the grammar on that. It was probably: “Texas is the wallet Southern Baptists sit on.”

But the big idea was that there were so many Baptists in the Lone Star state — and so many different KINDS of Southern Baptists — that nothing could happen in the national SBC without taking into account the financial and statistical clout of Texas. Baptist diversity? Once upon a time, more than a few Texas Baptist preachers were basically Universalists with better preaching skills.

Thus, it’s important that, for the past quarter century or so, there have been TWO competing Southern Baptist conventions in the state — the conservative Southern Baptists of Texas and the old-guard Baptist General Convention of Texas. My father worked for the BGCT when I was in elementary school.

I can remember the old days when the state’s ink-on-paper Baptist Standard newspaper had legions of out-of-state subscribers, because many pastors wanted to scan the announcement pages to see when there were open jobs in Texas pulpits. Most of those readers were, logically enough, graduates of the then-massive Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

This brings me to a much-discussed headline in the Nashville Tennessean: “Why a prominent Southern Baptist seminary is on the verge of 'crisis' after leadership upheaval.” This is a calm, factual story that, well, shows admirable restraint when it comes to some hot-button issues causing SBC tensions. These two names are missing, for example — Donald Trump and retired Judge Paul Pressler. But there is also a rather important hole linked to the Texas Baptist clout I mentioned earlier. Hold that thought.

First, here is the overture:

A prominent Southern Baptist seminary is taking corrective action as it reels from a cascade of financial mismanagement and reputational hits spanning several presidential administrations.


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Is Hollywood afraid to be 'woke'? That's a question with moral and religious implications

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Is Hollywood afraid to be 'woke'? That's a question with moral and religious implications

It’s one of the most famous quotes ever about the realities of working in Hollywood. That quote: “If you want to send a message, try Western Union.”

Of course, the Tinseltown giant who said that was Frank “It’s a Wonderful Life” Capra, a hero of ordinary people in the heartland. So what would he know about working with the woke powers that be on the left coast, these days?

I bring this up because of a fascinating New York Times lament that ran the other day with this headline: “After #MeToo Reckoning, a Fear Hollywood Is Regressing.” Apparently, progressives in Hollywood are very, very upset with the American people — think heartland folks, again — about some nasty recent returns in ratings and at the box office. Some “message” flicks are bombing.

Here’s the thesis statement: “The takeaway, at least to some agents and studio executives: We tried — these ‘woke’ projects don’t work.”

What does religion have to do with this? Very little, according to the Times (but we will get to that).

It’s clear that, to the team that produced this Times sermon, Middle America simply does not share the concerns of woke artists about systematic racism, sexual abuse and the whole diversity project in general.

Now, you can forget that “Black Panther” juggernaut in multiplexes nationwide, including red zip codes. Stunning, well-crafted Black superhero tales don’t count. Americans just aren’t lining up to watch the morality tales that Hollywood wants them to embrace. But what’s interesting — at least to me — is the degree to which the movies and big-ticket streamed TV series at the heart of this debate often contain content about religious and moral issues that, yes, are LINKED to diversity issues.

In other words, is this a new news story or the latest chapter in an old story about Hollywood’s struggles to understand the more religious and culturally conservative half of the American marketplace?

Let’s start where the Times has chosen to start — with Hollywood’s efforts to clean up its act in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, etc. Here’s the thesis about the #MeToo aftermath:

The movement led to increased diversity and representation in the entertainment industry, but now there is worry that executives have turned their attention elsewhere.

What happened?


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Life in a disenchanted world: Once upon a time, Christians used to write fairy stories

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Life in a disenchanted world: Once upon a time, Christians used to write fairy stories

Demons appear on movie screens all the time, but poet Richard Rohlin is convinced he has actually seen them at work when counseling young people whose search for meaning has driven them deep into experiments with sex, drugs and the occult.

"The stories that I can't tell would curl your toenails," he said, speaking at the Eighth Day Institute in Wichita, Kansas. "If you think that these spiritual realities are not still with us, you are deluding yourself. ... The magic is coming back into the world. Something is happening and it is not an unqualified good."

The young people he works with in Dallas are not interested in sermons and detailed descriptions of why their lives are broken. But they are open to fantasies, myths and tales -- ancient and modern -- about unseen, spiritual realities that interact with their lives.

Millions of Americans know where to find stories about angels, demons, warriors, seers, giants, demigods and heroic kings and queens. They head straight to movie theaters and cable television, where they find entire universes of content offering visions of fantastic worlds. The last place they would seek inspiration of this kind is in churches.

The irony is that some of these works draw inspiration from the fantasy classics celebrated in the ecumenical Eighth Day Institute's annual fall celebration of The Inklings, a mid-20th Century circle of Christian writers in Oxford, England, that included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and others.

This year's lectures focused on Scottish writer George MacDonald, often called the "grandfather of the Inklings," who is best known for "Phantastes," "The Golden Key," "Lilith" and many other works. The festival included Celtic and folk musicians, along with workshops on topics such as "The Art of Making Mead" and "Publishing for the Moral Imagination."

The goal of MacDonald and The Inklings, noted Rohlin, was to reclaim an older vision of life in which physical realities corresponded to spiritual realities and nothing was considered purely material. The real divide was between "the seen and the unseen," not between the "spiritual and the material."

This worldview has been lost, even among many religious believers.

"Demons didn't stop existing, angels didn't stop existing, the saints didn't stop existing because the Industrial Revolution came," he said.


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