Worship

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Few gaps in fine New York Times look at hospice and common fears among African-Americans

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Let's face it. The religion-news beat is amazing. I have never understood how many journalists consider this a fringe topic that doesn't deserve mainstream coverage.

Decades ago, I interviewed scores of newspaper editors for my graduate project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and you want to know the two most common reasons they gave for avoiding religion? Religion was (a) boring and (b) too controversial. That's the problem, you see, the world is just full of boring, controversial religion stories.

I think any professional who works on this beat for multiple decades -- which describes all the current GetReligionistas -- lives in a state of amazement at how complex new stories, and new angles on old stories, just keep showing up.

That's how I felt reading a very interesting New York Times feature about the struggle to promote hospice in African-American churches. Once again, it is amazing what the Times can do when a religion topic doesn't touch on the Sexual Revolution and, thus, clash with the core doctrines of Kellerism. Here is the key summary material near the top of this fine story, which opens with tragic events in the lives of the Rev. Vernal Harris and his wife Narseary, who have lost two sons to sickle cell anemia:

Hospice use has been growing fast in the United States as more people choose to avoid futile, often painful medical treatments in favor of palliative care and dying at home surrounded by loved ones. But the Harrises, who are African-American, belong to a demographic group that has long resisted the concept and whose suspicions remain deep-seated.
It is an attitude borne out by recent federal statistics showing that nearly half of white Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in hospice before death, compared with only a third of black patients. The racial divide is even more pronounced when it comes to advance care directives -- legal documents meant to help families make life-or-death decisions that reflect a patient’s choices. Some 40 percent of whites aged 70 and over have such plans, compared with only 16 percent of blacks.


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Did you hear about ISIS razing an ancient monastery and desecrating saint's tomb?

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What is there to say about the never ending Islamic State horrors being reported out of Syria? Clearly the soldiers of ISIS are equal-opportunity oppressors, when it comes to the lives and cultures of religious minorities unfortunate enough to cross their path.

When it comes to crushing truly ancient, irreplaceable wonders linked to the lives and histories of apostates, the ISIS jihadists may view one ruin or sanctuary as the same as the next.

The same, however, cannot be said of how most American journalists view these horrors. Apparently, some travesties are more important than others. Things are quite different on the other side of the Atlantic, however.

Right now, for example, journalists on both sides of the pond are -- as they should -- devoting quite a bit of coverage to the destruction of a priceless ruin in Palmyra. These was the news insiders had been fearing for weeks, especially after the shocking and disgraceful beheading of antiquities expert Khalid al-Asaad.

This solid Washington Post report -- pointing to the BBC -- was typical:

The Islamic State has reportedly destroyed another significant landmark in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria.
The temple of Baal Shamin stood for nearly two millennia, honoring the Phoenician god of storms and rain, as the BBC reported. Destruction of the site would be directly in line with the Islamic State’s campaign not just against people of other faiths, but against their culture. 
“Oh Muslims, these artifacts that are behind me were idols and gods worshipped by people who lived centuries ago instead of Allah,” one militant said of antiquities in Mosul, Iraq, earlier this year. After the Islamic State captured Palmyra in May, Baal Shamin seems to have fallen to the group’s philosophy.

As I said, this is major news that deserved solid coverage. We've been dealing with the complexities of these topics for weeks, as in this Ira post.

However, did you hear about the destruction of the irreplaceable frescos and sanctuaries at the Mar Elian monastery?


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Commercialized cathedrals? Telegraph story has much to Compline about

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People are flocking again to England's grand old cathedrals, and the Telegraph says it knows why: The churches have adopted tactics from the world of retail.

Attendance is sliding at most U.K. parishes but rising at cathedrals, says the newspaper -- more than 10 million last year, up almost a quarter in a decade, says the Telegraph. The churches still boast their historic appeals, the article concedes, but they're also trying new things:

Cathedral clerics say people are often drawn by the traditional music, the contemplative atmosphere and the fact that large city-centre churches offer services at different times of the day and throughout the week.
But several cathedrals have benefited from moves to attract late-night shoppers by opening late themselves.

Like how? Prepare to be amazed, or not:

St Nicholas Cathedral in Newcastle upon Tyne, has introduced a “night church” idea, opening late on Fridays and inviting people to experience stillness and contemplation.
It also regularly attracts around 300 people for late night compline services.
Salisbury Cathedral has been offering late night classical concerts by candle-light during the summer and Liverpool Cathedral opens its tower late on Thursday evenings.

Not convinced? How about Truro Cathedral? Last Christmas the church "offered its own late night shopping, setting up charity stalls and opening its own Christmas shop and restaurant late, while inviting community music groups to play to lure shoppers in." As if churches have never done anything like that. Try googling "church bazaar" and "church night concert" and you'll find out differently.


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Your weekend think piece: A different take on America's shortage of minority journalists

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For several decades, one of the primary goals of those who run American newsrooms has been (and justifiably so, from my point of view) increasing the number of mainstream journalists who are African-American, Latino, Asian, Native Americans and part of other minority groups, defined by race.

At the same time, there have been less publicized debates -- mostly behind the scenes -- about the need to bring more intellectual and cultural diversity into our newsrooms. As one journalist friend of mine once put it, what's the use of bringing in more African-Americans, Latinos, etc., if they all basically went to the same schools as everyone else and have the same set of beliefs between their ears?

You can see these two issues collide in William McGowan's the much-debated 2003 book, "Coloring the News: How Political Correctness Has Corrupted American Journalism." He argues that years of diversity training in American newsrooms has actually made them more elitist and narrow, purging many professionals who come from blue-collar and non-urban backgrounds.

Before you write that theory off as conservative whining, what was that statement near the end of the famous New York Times self-study entitled "Preserving Our Readers' Trust (.pdf)"?

Our paper’s commitment to a diversity of gender, race and ethnicity is nonnegotiable. We should pursue the same diversity in other dimensions of life, and for the same reason -- to ensure that a broad range of viewpoints is at the table when we decide what to write about and how to present it.
The executive editor should assign this goal to everyone who has a hand in recruiting.
We should take pains to create a climate in which staff members feel free to propose or criticize coverage from vantage points that lie outside the perceived newsroom consensus (liberal/conservative, religious/secular, urban/suburban/rural, elitist/white collar/blue collar). 

And also: 


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This piece on Episcopal Bishop William Love of Albany contains a big, big, big hole

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Want to see some completely unbalanced reporting in what was, I assume, supposed to be a hard-news story in a mainstream newspaper? Friends and neighbors, this Times Union story -- "Episcopal bishop's opposition to same-sex marriage creates rift" -- about Bishop William Love of the Diocese of Albany may take the cake.

Right up front, let me note that (a) this was an important story that should have been covered and (b) liberal Episcopalians in this diocese had every right to be outraged by their bishop's rejection of his denomination's somewhat limited embrace of same-sex marriage rites. Their voices deserved to be heard.

Wait, "somewhat limited" embrace? 

Ah, there is the rub. This story completely misses a key element of what the Episcopal General Convention did and did not do on this hot-button issue, a fact that made the final action taken quite unpopular with some -- repeat SOME -- liberal Episcopalians.

The bottom line: There is no way to understand the story in Albany without crucial facts that were omitted from this Times Union report. 

So what's the story? Here is the overture:

Episcopal Bishop William Love's opposition to same-sex marriage in defiance of the recent 78th general convention of the Episcopal Church that affirmed marriage equality has roiled the Albany diocese and caused parishioners to quit the Cathedral of All Saints in protest.
In a July 18 pastoral letter in response to last month's convention and June's historic Supreme Court ruling guaranteeing nationwide rights for same-sex marriage, Love cited a Book of Common Prayer definition of marriage as a "solemn and public covenant between a man and a woman."
Love was among just seven out of more than 100 bishops across the United States who flouted the convention's stance and publicly opposed same-sex marriage.


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Famous church choirmaster and organist dies and, oh yeah, faith helped shape his work

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Let me confess, straight off, that this post is personal for me. I have, you see, been a church musician longer than I have been a journalist -- dating back to singing soprano in a classical boys choir. In college I was blessed to sing under the great Anglican choirmaster Robert H. Young (yes, at Baylor University) in his classical touring choir and I missed only two rehearsals in six years of undergraduate and graduate work. There is no way to express what sacred choral music means to me.

Thus, I know first hand the tensions that exist between the standards of classical performance and the singing done by normal church sanctuary choirs. I have known my share of elite choir snobs. At one point I was an elite choir snob.

So I read with great interest the New York Times piece on the recent death of the great organist and choirmaster John Scott, an Anglican who most recently was director of music at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

The article -- as it should -- emphasized his achievements as a performing artist on both sides of the Atlantic. He had just returned from recitals in Europe and was poised to begin the second leg of that tour. His second wife is expecting their first child in a few weeks. There is much to report about his life and career:

Mr. Scott played at the Boston Early Music Festival in June. His last American appearance was a Bach recital at St. Thomas on June 20.


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Exit the National Cathedral dean, after only three years (but lots of edgy headlines)

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As a rule, it's almost impossible to understand news in the Episcopal Church, and the global Anglican Communion in general, without understanding that these events are affected by trends and decisions at the local, regional, national and global levels.

So a tiny diocese in New England elects a noncelibate gay male as a bishop and there are revolts in the massive, growing churches of Africa and Asia, creating problems for the leaders of the giant but fading Church of England, which tries to figure out how to cope as the U.S. Episcopal Church goes rogue, while American leaders struggle with waves of local lawsuits, linked to all of this doctrinal warfare, from coast to coast.

This makes for complex news stories that are hard to cover in, oh, 600 words or so.

In that context, recent events at the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington -- better known as Washington National Cathedral -- are relatively simple and localized. While the cathedral looms large over the nation's capital, it has relatively little power at the national level and is almost irrelevant at the global level (unless it creates controversy that draws attention, perhaps by holding Islamic prayer services).

Thus, the decision by the cathedral's dean -- the Very Rev. Gary Hall -- to step down after only three years is, first and foremost, a local Episcopal story. As noted in an unusually long news story in The Washington Post, the fact that the cathedral is increasingly become a local institution is part of the problem.


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Post offers faith-free report on alleged rape at famous pre-Ivy boarding school

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Obviously, pre-Ivy League prep schools such as St. Paul's in Concord, N.H., have their share of traditions. One of the buzz-worthy and truly distressing Washington Post stories of the week so far focused on the tradition of the "senior salute" at this elite campus, in which senior men compete to see who can sleep with as many younger girls as possible.

How elite? The Post report notes that a year on the 2,000-acre campus costs $55,000-plus and other media outlets put the figure at more than $60,000. Alumni include legions of executives, Pulitzer winners, three major candidates for the presidency, ambassadors, various members of Congress, Secretary of State John Kerry and legions of clergy, including a former Episcopal Church presiding bishop. Oh, and Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.

The chapel is really beautiful, too, which is fitting for a school with a strong religious history. Hold that thought. 

So what happened when senior Owen Laurie met with that 15-year-old girl in an attempt to add her name to his online "score" spreadsheet? Laurie insists that he did not sleep with her. Drawing on information from The Concord Monitor, the Associated Press, The Boston Globe and other sources, the Post noted:

According to the affidavit obtained by the Monitor, Labrie sent the freshman girl a “senior salute” e-mail asking her to “hook up” with him four days before graduation. She initially declined, but then agreed on the understanding that “hook up” referred to kissing. Two days later, on May 30, 2014, Labrie allegedly took the girl to the top of the school’s math and science building.
They kissed, then Labrie allegedly began to pull off her underwear. She resisted several times and twice told him “no,” according to the affidavit.

Laurie denies having sex, but the sexual-assault nurse at the local hospital claims otherwise. The media description of the critical encounter also includes a strange and fascinating statement:


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Some crucial faith facts, in New York Times report on the young ISIS honeymooners

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When telling stories involving people motivated by faith, it is crucial for readers to be able to hear the voices of these individuals describing their beliefs and motivations. But what happens when it is either impossible to interview the key people, perhaps for legal reasons, or they have no intention of answering questions from journalists or anyone else?

This is where the Internet and, especially, forums linked to social media have become so important in this day and age. You can see how this works in a recent New York Times story, which centers on the latest shocking tale of young people from the American heartland who have been arrested while trying to flee the evils of America to join the Islamic state.

The story, this time, unfolds in Starkville, Miss., a university town in which the locals, as the Times team states in classic elite mode, "tend to be proud of Starkville’s relative tolerance." The key players are Muhammad Dakhlalla, a young man from an outgoing, community oriented Muslim family known as "a walking advertisement for Islam as a religion of tolerance and peace." His fiancé, 19-year-old Jaelyn Young, is an honor student, a cheerleader and a  recent convert to Islam. The two tried to marry as Muslims, but her father refused to grant his permission. Their plan was to say they were flying to Turkey on their honeymoon.

Obviously, legal authorities have been following their activities via email and social media. That leads to this brief, but revealing, exchange:

Ms. Young, who three years ago was broadcasting silly jokes on Twitter and singing the praises of the R&B singer Miguel, had more recently professed a desire to join the Islamic State, according to an F.B.I. agent’s affidavit in support of a criminal complaint. On July 17, the day after a young Muslim man in Chattanooga, Tenn., fatally shot five United States servicemen, Ms. Young rejoiced, the affidavit alleges, in an online message to an F.B.I. agent posing as a supporter of the Islamic State.
“Alhamdulillah,” she wrote, using the Arabic word of praise to God, “the numbers of supporters are growing.”


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