Worship

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Who knew? Who cares? Well, there is no such thing as the 'Catholic Church of Illinois'

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Week after week, I get emails from ticked-off readers who have seen run-of-the-mill mistakes in stories about religion. A few times a year I write posts about these cries for help.

The typical writer tries to imagine, to cite one example, a newspaper publishing a story containing a reference to the St. Louis Cardinals playing in the American League, as opposed to being one of the most famous franchises in the National League. Or how about a story that said the Illinois State Capitol was located in Chicago, instead of Springfield.

Now, let’s say that there was a story containing an inaccurate statement about a major religious group and it was published by the “daily paper of a town that's just *slightly* Roman Catholic — St. Louis, Missouri,” noted reader Michael Mohr.

That story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch would have a headline stating: “Catholic Church of Illinois releases phased plan to reopen churches.” Then the overture, containing the same mistake, would look like this:

CHICAGO — The Catholic Church of Illinois … published a plan to begin reopening its churches later this month. The church reached an agreement with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, according to a letter from the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Catholic churches in Illinois have been closed since mid-March amid the coronavirus pandemic. …

The two-phased plan delegates many decisions for how to reopen to individual churches once they complete various training and certifications, and the Catholic Church will continue to work with the state government, according to the news release. After training during the week of May 18, all parishes across the state could open by May 23, but only to offer baptisms, weddings and funerals limited to 10 people.

What’s the problem?

Mohr (this guy sounds like a professional editor to me) put it this way:


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New York Times on young Republicans and African-American voters? Look for familiar ghosts

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What we have here are two New York Times political stories that really needed input from (a) the religion-news desk, (b) polling experts who “get religion” or (c) both.

Both of these important reports are, to use GetReligion-speak, haunted by “religion ghosts.” If you look at them through the lens of politics, alone, then you won’t “get” what is happening with millions of voters who don’t want to vote for Donald Trump in 2020, but believe that they will have no choice but to do just that.

The headline on one story states: “Trump Pushes Young Republicans Away. Abortion Pulls Them Back.”

Oh my. I wonder if religious convictions might have something to do with this? You think?

So let’s do some familiar searches in this text. How about “church”? Zip. Maybe “God”? Zero. Surely “religion” or “religious” will show up? Nyet. How about “Christian”? Nope.

That’s strange. Look at this summary material and I think you will sense the ghost that is present.

Like millennials, who are now in their mid-20s to 30s, members of Generation Z — born after 1996 — tend to lean left. But there are still plenty of young Republicans, and the generational divide that is so apparent between younger and older Democrats is no less present on the other side of the aisle. It’s just less visible.

In interviews with two dozen Republicans ages 18 to 23, almost all of them, while expressing fundamentally conservative views, identified at least one major issue on which they disagreed with the party line. But more often than not, they said one issue kept them committed to the party: abortion.

While polling shows an age gap in opinions on abortion, it is smaller than the gaps on some other issues, and researchers say that for people who oppose abortion, that opposition has become more central to their political choices.


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There's good news for COVID-era church leaders amid all that familiar bad news

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America’s pastors are continually fretting about the threats of death, disease and destroyed careers that face their parishioners. Also, alongside analysts of religious trends, they have good reason to worry that in the long term shrinking coronavirus-era donations may hinder or doom their ministries and charities.

Reporters also need to ponder the following. Most U.S. congregations are now restricted to providing worship services online. Will meeting God in your pajamas become a convenient habit that permanently undercuts in-person attendance after states soften their stay-at-home and “social distancing” rules? This NPR piece anticipates a permanent slide for in-person worship. (Online classwork could similarly imperil the future prospects of expensive on-campus college and seminary programs.)

The problem is that supportive, face-to-face fellowship is an important reason people are attracted to active participation in religious congregations. Of course, it’s also possible that the new online visibility will pay off by reaching new people. (The Guy’s own Protestant church currently has many more people joining live worship online than appear in person on normal Sundays.). And some brave optimists are talking up a religious revival once this is behind us.

The local and national media have, of course, been asking religious leaders how actual donations and online attendance are running, and what they think the future holds.

Now those who haven’t yet developed such a story, or those who want to take a second look, have a news hook — and a bit of sunlight — in a Roper poll conducted in late April for the Pew Research Center, reported here and then analyzed here by political scientist Ryan Burge (a GetReligion contributor) for Religion News Service.

Reporters will observe that the poll reinforces a scenario that Religion Guy tends to accept.


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100 years of all kinds of Catholics -- good and bad -- going to confession in movies

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100 years of all kinds of Catholics -- good and bad -- going to confession in movies

Alfred Hitchcock knew a thing or two about complicated thrillers.

Having a murderer confess to a priest -- who couldn't betray this trust -- was already a familiar plot twist by 1953, when Hitchcock released "I Confess." Because of the seal of confession, this noble priest couldn't even clear his own name when police suspected that he was the killer.

Good prevails in the end. Shot by police, the killer makes an urgent final confession to the priest.

"It's natural for a Catholic filmmaker like Hitchcock to see the dramatic potential of confession, with its combination of mystery and holiness," said film critic Steven D. Greydanus, best known for his work for the National Catholic Register. "At the same time, Hitchcock thought 'I Confess' was a mistake, because he thought that his mostly Protestant audience in America just wouldn't get it."

The sacrament of confession is both sacred and secret -- facts known to Medieval playwrights as well as modern filmmakers. Thus, putting a confession rite on a movie screen is a "transgressive act" of the highest kind, said Greydanus, who serves as a permanent deacon in the Diocese of Newark, N.J. (Deacons do not hear confessions.)

"Voyeurism is an important theme in much of Hitchcock's work and he knew that using confession in this way was a kind of voyeurism. … He knew this was a kind of taboo."

Nevertheless, Hollywood scribes have frequently used confession and penance for everything from cheap laughs ("A League of Their Own"), to shattering guilt (Godfather III), to near-miraculous transformations ("The Mission"). In a recent 6,000-word essay -- "In Search of True Confession in the Movies" -- Greydanus covered a century of cinema, while admitting that he had to omit dozens of movies that included confession scenes.

The key is that filmmakers struggle to capture, in words and images, what is happening in a person's heart. The act of confession opens a window into the soul, since characters are forced to put their sins and struggles into words.

"Perhaps the very secrecy surrounding the sacrament of confession was part of what attracted filmmakers to depict it," wrote Greydanus. "Anyone can witness the Eucharistic liturgy, an ordination or a wedding. …

“But what transpires in confession can only be imagined -- which is the cinema's stock in trade. … Often enough, confession scenes have served in movies as a pretext to allow a character to articulate their spiritual or temporal struggles, whether or not any kind of sin is involved."


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Jess Fields meets Ryan Burge: As you would image, they're talking 'nones,' 'evangelicals,' etc.

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So here is the question: Is podcaster Jess Fields just going to work his way through the entire GetReligion team, sooner or later?

I think it would be logical to do that, since Fields is especially interested in topics linked to religion, current events and the impact of journalism on all of that. You can see that with a quick glance at his homepage at Apple Podcasts.

The other day, I spent an hour or so online with him and that podcast link was included in the GetReligion post that I wrote about Fields and his work: “Jess Fields got tired of short, shallow news interviews: So he started doing loooong podcasts.”

You may recall that Fields is a small businessman in Houston who also has worked quite a bit in nonpartisan think tanks linked to state and local governments. He is an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and that has affected a few of his podcasts.

So now he has had a lengthy chat (very long, even by Fields standards) with social scientist, and progressive Baptist minister, Ryan Burge.

Why not? Burge is all over the place right now — writing and chatting about the tsunami of charts, survey samples and commentary that he keeps releasing, day after day, on Twitter. He also showed up the other day in an NBC special:


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Thinking about Little Richard: Mark Kellner with a Seventh-day Adventist look at rock pioneer

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As folks in his native South would say, Little Richard was a piece of work.

One way or another, Richard Wayne Penniman always stressed that he was a work in progress and that, one way or another, God was the author of this story.

This was a man who was driven to shout and scream about all kinds of things. The same rock ‘n’ roll genius who exploded out of radios in the ‘50s, singing songs with lyrics that had to be cleaned up the masses, also went to seminary and devoted decades of his life to preaching, evangelism and Gospel music. He openly struggled with issues of sexual identity, yet never shied away from talking about sin as well as sensuality.

When the news broke about his death, at age 87, I wondered if mainstream obituaries would dig into all of that. I’m pleased that they did. Here’s a key chunk of the obit at The New York Times (the Gray Lady also ran a tribute essay discussing Little Richards’ contributions to popular culture, which discussed his faith):

Little Richard, delving deeply into the wellsprings of gospel music and the blues, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for his very life, raised the energy level several notches and created something not quite like any music that had been heard before — something new, thrilling and more than a little dangerous. …

Art Rupe of Specialty Records, the label for which he recorded his biggest hits, called Little Richard “dynamic, completely uninhibited, unpredictable, wild.”

And all the people said, “Amen.”

Little Richard burned red hot through the mid-1950s and the retreated from mainstream music. The Times obit clearly describes why:

He became a traveling evangelist. He entered Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Ala., a Seventh-day Adventist school, to study for the ministry. He cut his hair, got married and began recording gospel music. For the rest of his life, he would be torn between the gravity of the pulpit and the pull of the stage.

“Although I sing rock ’n’ roll, God still loves me,” he said in 2009. “I’m a rock ’n’ roll singer, but I’m still a Christian.”

With all of that in mind, please note the following Adventist Review tribute by former GetReligionista Mark Kellner — a veteran mainstream journalist who has also served as a Seventh-day Adventist press aide. Here are two samples of that:


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What was that all about? New York hipsters, Hasidic Jews and slanted social-distancing rules

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For a week or more, I gathered information about one of the most painful puzzles in the coronavirus crisis in New York City — the clashes between the city government and Hasidic Jewish leaders and their followers.

Did these ultra-Orthodox Jews break the “shelter in place” rules? Of course they did.

Had they made attempts to work with city officials in advance, but then emotions linked to the funeral of a rabbi got out of control? Yes, that appeared to be the case.

Was that infamous tweet from Mayor Bill de Blasio — aimed at the whole “Jewish community” — utterly bizarre? Yes it was.

So what was the real issue here? Hold that thought. First, here is a large chunk of an essential New York Times story — “2,500 Mourners Jam a Hasidic Funeral, Creating a Flash Point for de Blasio“ — as background information for those who didn’t follow this drama.

Soon after a revered Hasidic rabbi died of the coronavirus in Brooklyn … his fellow congregants informed the Police Department of an unexpected decision: Despite the coronavirus restrictions now in place, they would hold a public funeral.

The local police precinct did not stand in their way, a testament to the Hasidic community’s influence in the Williamsburg neighborhood. By 3:30 p.m., police officers began erecting barricades, expecting a small number of mourners to show up. Loudspeakers were put up to help mourners hear while keeping their distance.

But by 7:30 p.m., an estimated 2,500 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men had arrived to mourn Rabbi Chaim Mertz, packing together shoulder-to-shoulder on the street and on the steps of brownstones, clearly violating social distancing guidelines and turning the funeral into one of the most fraught events of the virus crisis for Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Police began to disperse the mourners, some of whom were not wearing masks. Word of the gathering soon reached City Hall, where the mayor decided to go to Brooklyn to oversee the dispersal himself.


The backlash against de Blasio was incredible. Yes, the word “Anti-Semitism” was used.

I kept reading the coverage, wondering: Was this just a New York City story or was there content here that is related to how journalists are covering COVID-19 stories elsewhere in America?


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Talk about burying the lede! Knox officials wanted to 'open up,' while banning Holy Communion?

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If you have been following the ecclesiastical shelter-in-place wars, then you know that the most interesting stories — in terms of journalism and debates in the public square — as moved on to debates about safe worship that includes social-distancing principles.

Evangelicals and other low-church Protestants have a distinct advantage here, with their emphasis on preaching and small-ensemble praise music. It’s harder to distribute Holy Communion from a distance, even if worshipers in liturgical churches are six feet or more apart while sitting in their pews.

Some state and local officials seem to be struggling with these coronavirus issues. This is also true of for journalists, who really need to be listening to shepherds in Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran churches. It may even be possible to interview them.

In a recent “On Religion” column, I noted these interesting remarks by a high-profile archbishop:

New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in an online essay, stressed that whenever Catholic priests approach their altars the saints and "all God's people" are spiritually present. He also praised clergy who have found ways to carry on with their work – while following social-distancing guidelines.

"Our parish priests have risen to the occasion, with innovative ways to distribute Holy Communion, expose the Blessed Sacrament for adoration, hear confessions and anoint and visit the sick," noted Dolan. "They assemble at graveside to bury our dead. Our courageous chaplains in hospitals and nursing homes are on the front lines."

I bring this up because of a recent story in my local paper, The Knoxville News Sentinel, that ran with this headline: “Are church services allowed Sunday in Knoxville? Yes, but it's not encouraged.” It described a rather typical conflict between a rather lenient state governor and strict local officials — strict to the point of potential First Amendment clashes.

The problem? Some of the most shocking details were buried — quite literally — at the end of this story. Hold that thought. First, here is the overture:

There is nothing stopping worshipers from congregating for services, but no official is recommending churches, synagogues and mosques throw open their doors right away.


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Lots of edgy thinking about 'Weird Christianity' -- in The New York Times, no less

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I was going to let the “Weird Christianity” opus in The New York Times sail past, in part because I wondered if it was a bit too “inside baseball” for this audience.

Well, it is a major weekend piece in America’s most powerful newspaper and people keep asking me if I have seen it. I have also been asked — since it’s about people choosing ancient liturgies and non-binary politics — if this article is, in effect, about people like me.

Not really. This Times essay — by Tara Isabella Burton of The American Interest — is about a recent trend among young Americans. I am, well, old and I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy 20-plus years ago. I did drop my registration in the Democratic Party in 2016. Here is the double-decker headline on this essay:

Christianity Gets Weird

Modern life is ugly, brutal and barren. Maybe you should try a Latin Mass.

I think it’s important to note that this “Weird Christianity” term is not new and there’s more to it than a taste for smells and bells (as Burton makes clear). There’s no question that issues of culture and aesthetics play a role in this trend, but the key is doctrine. And this trend is pre-modern, not postmodern.

To see that in practice, check out this 2015 Christianity Today piece by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, now of the Washington Post (and also a former GetReligion contributor). In this case, the term is being used in a Southern Baptist and evangelical context, as in, “Russell Moore Wants to Keep Christianity Weird: The public-policy leader for the largest US Protestant denomination isn’t worried over Christians’ loss of power. He says it might just be the best thing to happen to them.”

But back to Burton and the Times. Here is a crucial chunk (long, but essential) of her first-person piece:

… I’m not alone. One friend has been dialing into Latin Masses at churches across the United States: a Washington Mass at 11 a.m.; a Chicago one at noon.

The coronavirus has led many people to seek solace from and engage more seriously with religion. But these particular expressions of faith, with their anachronistic language and sense of historical pageantry, are part of a wider trend, one that predates the pandemic, and yet which this crisis makes all the clearer.

More and more young Christians, disillusioned by the political binaries, economic uncertainties and spiritual emptiness that have come to define modern America, are finding solace in a decidedly anti-modern vision of faith.


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