Women

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Black Panther actress links life, faith, depression, acting -- while reporters miss ties that bind

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Every now and then, a loyal GetReligion reader sends us a URL to a story and makes a remark like this: “Says it all. Run this.”

When this happens, you can almost always count on the URL being from some alternative source of news and commentary, the kind of advocacy driven site that we don’t pay much attention to — since GetReligion focuses on hard news. Of course, we do run “think pieces” on the weekend linked to religion-news trends that tend to come from all over the place.

In this case, the subject of the piece is a public figure — a popular actress — stating that she has noticed a trend in news coverage about her work, as her star ascends in the Marvel Universe and elsewhere.

The headline states the thesis: “ ‘Black Panther’ Star: Journalists Censor When ‘I Give God the Glory.’ “ And here is the overture of this piece at the CatholicVote website:

Letitia Wright captivated millions on the big screen as Shuri, the younger sister of T’Challa, or the Black Panther. But, as her career continues skyrocketing, she wants the world to know that her success is not her own; it’s God’s. 

If only the media would report on it.

The 26-year-old actress, born in Guyana and raised in London, recently took to Twitter to express frustration over some journalists cutting out her praise for God from interviews.

“It’s super cute when journalists/interviewers for magazines leave out the massive part where I give God the glory for the success/ achievements in my life,” Wright tweeted on October 28. And yet, she added, “I still love you and God will still be praised.”

Her fans agreed. 

“[F]avorite actress not just for talent but for the faith in God!!!” exclaimed one follower, while another added, “God sees you sis.” Black-ish actor Miles Brown also chimed in, responding with emojis of hands clapping in applause.

Now, I freely admit that people have been talking about this story, and this tweet, for some time now.

In part, that’s because of this interesting response from Sarah Pulliam Bailey of the Washington Post (a former member of the GetReligion team).


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Charisma magazine lands surprise scoop on comedian John Crist scandal (and prints it)

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The evangelical Protestant culture isn’t known for its humor, but there are the rare exceptions. I’ve been enjoying John Crist’s fun-pokes at Christian culture for some time.

Who can forget his “If Bible characters took Uber” video or his “17 Christian ways to say no” video? So it’s been downright depressing to learn that Crist too is being hit with sex abuse allegations like so many others in the religious media spotlight.

What’s kind of surprising about this story is that it was broken on Nov. 6 by a charismatic Christian publication — Charisma — that is definitely not known for breaking hard news and certainly not stories of the negative variety.

For instance, next to the Crist story are others with headlines like “Are you inviting demonic spirits into your home?” and “Prophetic Vision: I saw angelic armies being activated, released in worship.”

But this time, their investigation made real news, with publications such as People magazine and the Washington Post doing follow-ups. The Charisma story begins with a woman called “Kate” telling of her date with Crist.

I was blown away when John [Crist] agreed to do an interview with me for my senior project," she says. "... I was shaking and so nervous to be around someone I had idolized for months."

From a makeshift podcast studio constructed in her room at Bally's Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, Kate* was thrilled to be interviewing her professional hero, comedian John Crist. She and her boyfriend drove to Las Vegas in May 2017 just to record this interview—and everything was going great.

So she thought nothing of it when Crist asked her for her number before he left. Or when he later added her on Snapchat and immediately began messaging her. Or when he invited her out for the evening — just the two of them.

Crist goes on to buy this woman a bottle of raspberry vodka, which right here tells you a lot, right there.


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Is anyone really surprised that Paula White got this White House job?

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For all you reporters covering the Rev. Paula White’s ascension to a paying job at the White House (which just got announced), there’s a few facts you might want to know.

The most important one is that little is going to change in terms of White’s job duties. She’s unofficially been part of the White House staff for three years now. Maybe it’s about time she went official and got paid. It is also time for her to get more respect from the media as a government appointee than she now enjoys as a mere megachurch pastor.

In the story that ran Thursday in the New York Times (and repeated by other outlets), the lead sentence was the headline and the opening paragraph simply refers to her as “Ms. White.” Technically, she is Paula White-Cain, a name she’s been increasingly using since her 2014 marriage to songwriter Jonathan Cain.

Then again, she is ordained. Does the Times believe in the ordination of women on the left, but not the Pentecostal-charismatic right?

Ms. White, a controversial figure even among evangelical Christians, will be overseeing a White House division that conducts outreach to key parts of the president’s base.

Paula White, a televangelist based in Florida and personal pastor to President Trump whom he has known since 2002, has joined the Trump administration in an official capacity, according to a White House official.

Ms. White will work in the Office of Public Liaison, the official said, which is the division of the White House overseeing outreach to groups and coalitions organizing key parts of the president’s base. Her role will be to advise the administration’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Mr. Trump established last year by executive order and which aims to give religious groups more of a voice in government programs devoted to issues like defending religious liberty and fighting poverty.

This isn’t super-new, folks. In the lengthy profile I did on White for the Washington Post back in November 2017, it was clear even then that she was going to be given some sort of official role. She’s been commuting to the White House from her home in central Florida more than once a week at her own expense.

For those of you hoping to find out more about White’s role, here’s a few questions to ask.


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The single-most important word in WSJ's fascinating portrait of Southern Baptists' generational divide

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The Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey called it a “fascinating read.”

To which I say: Amen!

I’m talking about Wall Street Journal national religion writer Ian Lovett’s story this week on a generational divide shaking Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

The recent turmoil (recent as in the last year and a half) at that seminary is not breaking news, of course. But Lovett explores an angle that does seem fresh, especially for a major secular newspaper such as the Journal.

The lede sets the scene by outlining the news that has captured headlines and then putting it in a larger context:

FORT WORTH, Texas — After the Rev. Adam W. Greenway stepped to the lectern during his inauguration as the ninth president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he acknowledged the tumult that had engulfed the school in recent years.

The previous president was fired. Enrollment plummeted, and the training ground for many of the nation’s most famous pastors found itself at the center of a debate over the treatment of women in the church.

“I cannot change the past,” he said. “For any way in which we have fallen short, I am sorry.”

A generational gulf is threatening to split evangelical Christianity.

While older evangelicals have become a political force preaching traditional values, younger ones are deviating from their parents on issues like same-sex marriage, Israel, the role of women, and support for President Trump.

And then the Godbeat pro offers his nut graf:


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A day later: What's the latest Washington Post headline mourning Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

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It’s hard to know what to say about the Twitter explosion that greeted the Washington Post decision to edit the headline atop its bookish obituary for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State forces that ravaged large portions of Iraq and Syria.

By just about anyone’s definitions he was a terrorist, rapist and mass murderer. On the other hand, I must admit that I didn’t know much about his career as a “conservative academic,” to use one interesting label included in this long Post feature.

Yes, we will get to some of the searing mock headlines responding to this popular Twitter hashtag — #WaPoDeathNotices. But first, here is a basic story-about-the-story summary care of The Hill:

The Washington Post changed the headline on its obituary for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after initially calling him an “austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State.”

Wait. “Initially” calling him what? The very next sentence notes:

The Post changed its headline for the obituary at least twice Sunday, starting by describing al-Baghdadi as the “Islamic State’s terrorist-in-chief.” The newspaper then adjusted the headline to call al-Baghdadi the “austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State,” sparking some backlash on social media. 

The headline has now been updated to describe al-Baghdadi as the “extremist leader of Islamic State.”

Clearly, someone thought “terrorist-in-chief” was a bit over the top and said the headline should be softened to reflect the tone of the story itself — which is dominated by information about the academic and semi-political career of al-Baghdadi, rather than his blood-soaked actions as the ISIS semi-prophet.

You can see the roots of the second Post headline in the lede that remains intact:


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When it comes to John MacArthur, Beth Moore and Russell Moore, let's ask tougher questions.

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By now, many of you may have heard of the harsh comment that the Rev. John MacArthur, an extremely conservative evangelical pastor, made about Beth Moore, possibly the most famous woman in Southern Baptist life today.

MacArthur, who is very old school even among evangelicals, has led Grace Community Church north of Los Angeles for 50 years. To say he dislikes women preachers would be an understatement.

There are a lot of people out there protesting his unkind comments, including Relevant magazine, which produced an article listing several leaders across the theological spectrum critical of MacArthur.

MacArthur, by the way, has been even more scathing about charismatics over the years, so the Beth Moore crowd may be getting an idea of what the Pentecostal/charismatic crowd has been putting up with for a number of years.

First, according to Religion News Service, here’s what MacArthur said.

During the “Truth Matters Conference,” held Oct. 16-18 at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, where he is pastor, MacArthur and other panelists were asked to give their gut reactions to one- or two-word phrases.

Asked to respond to the phrase “Beth Moore,” the name of a well-known Southern Baptist Bible teacher, MacArthur replied, “Go home.”

Sounds of laughter and applause could be heard in response during a recording of the session, which was posted online.

MacArthur — a leading proponent of Reformed theology and of complementarianism, the idea that women and men have different roles to play in the church and in society — was apparently responding to a controversy this past summer when Moore noted on Twitter that she spoke at a megachurch on a Sunday morning.

Her tweet led to accusations that Moore was undermining Southern Baptist teaching, which bars women from holding the office of pastor in churches.

One voice that has been absent on this latest flare-up has been the Rev. Russell Moore (no relation to Beth) who is the head of Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. The last interview with him that I saw occurred in August when Newsweek’s Nina Burleigh called him the “rebel evangelical.”

It was a very weak, even clueless, interview. The questions were vapid and Moore, who is no fool, slid past them with little difficulty. Most of the questions were about racism and sex abuse within the SBC, but they weren’t tough questions by any chance.

Meanwhile, is Russell Moore really a “rebel evangelical?” For that matter, so is Beth Moore? Are we talking about doctrine here or politics?


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Holy baptism as photo op: Do journalists know anything about Kim Kardashian's faith?

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I don’t follow the Kardashians at all –- but you’d have to be on Mars not to notice all the photos out there about Kim Kardashian’s trip to Armenia for the baptism of her three youngest children. I wasn’t aware she was particularly devout.

But she has named her kids Saint, Chicago and Psalm. All were baptized at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Vagharshapat. There are Armenian churches in this country (such as this one in Evanston, Ill.), so I’m not sure why she felt the need to fly back to the old country, other than to bring attention to the Armenian genocide (by the Turks) a century ago.

This being the Kardashians, much of it was on camera and the mother’s Instagram post of being “baptized along with my babies” the event got 5 million likes. Even though she’d previously had an older daughter, North West, previously baptized in Jerusalem, was Kardashian herself ever baptized? And by whom? No one seems to know.

Here’s what CBN said:

Socialite and business mogul Kim Kardashian West visited her family's homeland of Armenia to get baptized with her children at what scholars say is one of the oldest churches in the world.

"So blessed to have been baptized along with my babies at Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia's main cathedral which is sometimes referred to as the Vatican of the Armenian Apostolic Church. This church was built in 303 AD," West wrote in an Instagram post.

West is pictured lighting candles in the cathedral, an orthodox tradition that symbolizes Jesus being the light of the world.

I’m curious if the Kardashians had to jump through hoops to get their kids baptized like most people have to do. This article notes that most believers have to apply months ahead of time, have their baptisms approved by a religious council and other requirements.


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Everybody sing: Why can't a Southern Baptist be more like a Methodist? Or a Lutheran? Or ...

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Everybody sing: Why can't a Southern Baptist be more like a Methodist? Or a Lutheran? Or ...

Long ago, a leader in the “moderate” wing of the Southern Baptists used an interesting image as he described how the national convention carried out it’s work.

The Southern Baptist Convention, he told me, really wasn’t a “denomination” in the same sense as United Methodists, Episcopalians and Lutherans are part of national denominations. Southern Baptists — including those on the doctrinal left on a few issues — really do believe in the autonomy of the local church.

Then there are the ties that bind at the regional level, in Southern Baptist “associations.” Then there are the state conventions (in a few cases, there are more than one — as is the case in Texas Baptist life— because of doctrinal differences). Then, finally, there is the national Southern Baptist Convention that meets once a year to do its business, including selecting boards for the giant agencies and programs built on donations to the Cooperative Program.

Note that word “cooperative.” Hear the Baptist, congregational, “free church” sound of that?

In the end, this Baptist moderate said, the whole SBC idea is like a hummingbird. On paper, it should not be able to fly — but it does.

This is the subject at the heart of this week’s Crossroads podcast (click here to tune that in) about sexual abuse in America’s largest non-Catholic flock. Why can’t the SBC just create a national institution of some kind to ordain clergy, or approve and register ordinations done by churches, and then force local churches to hire and fire clergy and staff with the mandatory guidance of this national agency?

This new institution would then be responsible for tracking and shutting down clergy accused of sexual abuse. Somehow. It would warn churches about predators , if there is legal reason to do so. Somehow.


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Friday Five: Dodger blues, religious freedom threat, Bathsheba raped?, judge's faith, Chick-fil-A hero

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This week in news from the baseball gods: They sure don’t seem to like the Los Angeles Dodgers (or the Atlanta Braves).

In the National League Championship Series, I’ll be rooting for the Washington Nationals to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals (I’m a Texas Rangers fan, after all, still dealing with whiplash from what the Cardinals did in the 2011 World Series).

On the American League side, I must decide whether to support the Houston Astros (the Rangers’ division rival) or the New York Yankees (the Evil Empire). Hey, is it possible to root against both?

Meanwhile, let’s dive into the Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: Did you catch that headline, via the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas? “During LGBTQ rights town hall, top Democrats call for limits on religious freedom.”

It’s a must read.

Already, this story — including Beto O’Rourke pledging to strip the tax-exempt status from churches that refuse to change their doctrines to accept same-sex marriage — is causing an uproar in conservative media. And it’s drawn attention elsewhere in the mainstream press, too.


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