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Members mourn Atlanta church, but why don't they talk?

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When a congregation has to leave its church building, it's like moving away from home. Members remember all the things that happened there. They think of fun and funny anecdotes, and the crises they weathered. They recall what the church meant to the community. All that is even more intense when the church is 152 years old, as is Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta. Which makes a New York Times story on its last service all the more puzzling.

The story has not a single quote from any longtime members, although it says that up to four generations of members were at the farewell service. It offers some appetizers on the church's influence, but doesn't serve the main course. And even after three readings, I didn't see a clear reason the building was to be demolished.

Not that the story lacks some telling details. The lede paints Atlanta as a city so proud of its racial harmony that it neglects its heritage:

So it was perhaps not surprising that Friendship Baptist, the city's oldest African-American Baptist church, founded by former slaves with help from whites and still thriving, found itself in the path of bulldozers that will raze the Georgia Dome as its replacement rises next door. The church is to be taken down, as early as Monday, 152 years after it was established.

Friendship, one of two churches whose multimillion dollar relocation/reconstruction tab will be covered by the city, is steeped in history. Two historically black colleges, Morehouse and Spelman, held classes in its basement, Morehouse moving into the church from Augusta in 1879 and Spelman starting there two years later. Trained musicians led the flock in song, with an emphasis on preserving old Negro spirituals. Nine other houses of prayer spun off Friendship, earning it the appellation "mother church."

Kneeling at its pews were up to four generations of families; one longtime worshiper died recently at age 108. Prominent judges, politicians, educators and entrepreneurs attended, filling the collection baskets to the brim. (The church's security guard said he saw a check for $50,000, someone's annual tithe.)

The article notes ironically that the church is being displaced by the Atlanta Falcons' new stadium, although the previous stadium was built only in 1992 and Friendship Baptist was born just after the Civil War. A sensitive passage has people weeping or "pumping a fist to the music" as the pipe organ plays -- an organ that was recently refurbished for $300,000.


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Portland, part II: Saving kids from 'fundamentalist sect'

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My colleague Bobby Ross Jr. picked the better article. As much fault as he found with a story in the Portland Oregonian about Child Evangelism Fellowship, the Associated Press version of the flap is even worse. CEF does a lot of summer Bible programs, rather like those conducted by the nation's thousands of churches. The difference is that the Fellowship does it outside church walls. That's what got a group in Portland upset -- and apparently the AP, as well.

As the AP sees it, CEF wants to "convert children as young as 5" in places like "apartment pools and public parks other gathering spots this summer." That's "got some residents upset," the story says:

They've banded together in recent weeks to warn parents about the Child Evangelism Fellowship's Good News Club, buying a full-page ad in the local alternative weekly to highlight the group's tactics.

"They pretend to be a mainstream Christian Bible study when in fact they're a very old school fundamentalist sect," said Kaye Schmitt, an organizer with Protect Portland Children, which takes issue with the group's message and the way it's delivering it.

Let's pause for a little dissection. Besides asking how many is "some" residents -- A hundred? Twenty? Five? -- why use a military term like "tactics," when something less pejorative like "methods" would suffice?


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Church of the New York Times keeps preaching its own brand of faith

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It's time for another "Kellerism" update, as The New York Times continues its efforts to highlight religious institutions with doctrines that are unacceptable to the newsroom's theologians and, perhaps, the U.S. Department of Justice. This time, the drama shifts out West, where another Christian college community is trying to find a way to live out its faith commitments.

NEWBERG, Ore. -- A growing number of openly transgender students have forced schools around the country to address questions so basic that they were rarely asked just a few years ago, much less answered: What defines a person's gender, and who gets to decide?

A small Christian college here, George Fox University, has become the latest front in this fight, refusing to recognize as male a student who was born anatomically female. The student calls himself a man, and as of April 11, when a state circuit court legally changed his sex, the State of Oregon agrees.

But George Fox University sees him as a woman, and it prohibits unwed students from living with anyone of the opposite sex.

Notice the question that was not asked, in an alleged news story that opens with an editorial assertion: If a private -- as opposed to state -- college is a doctrinally defined voluntary association, what happens when a student decides that he or she does not believe those doctrines? Think of it this way: If a student at a Muslim college decided to convert to Christianity, thus contradicting the covenant he voluntarily signed when he came to the campus, would the college be able to say that this student had to accept the school's doctrinal authority?


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Lovers and labels in coverage of same-sex marriage ruling (updated)

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Update: Yikes! One of the drawbacks of media-criticism-on-the-go is the possibility of writing a post that, in retrospect, makes you sound really stupid. Such is the case with this one, which prompted reader Sarah Morriss to comment:

You do know that “Virginia is for lovers” is the tourism and travel slogan used by the Commonwealth of VA, and thus the headline is likely a play on that, no?

Nope. I didn’t know that. But a quick Google search finds a Wikipedia entry describing the slogan as “one of the most iconic ad campaigns in the past 50 years.” Uh, somehow I missed it.


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Why do some Protestants teach 'young earth' chronology?

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Why do some Protestants teach 'young earth' chronology?

ANNE ASKS:

What is the explanation for today’s “young earth” movement among evangelicals?

THE RELIGION GUY ANSWERS:

This question highlights the split between many Christians in science and a wing within conservative Protestantism that believes Genesis chapter 1 requires a “young earth” chronology with earth and all living things originating some 10,000 years ago, not the billions of years in conventional science.

Confusingly, this is -- especially in news reporters -- called “creationism” though Christians who accept the long chronology also believe God created earth and life. Most “creationists” also say God literally formed the world in six 24-hour days, immediately fixed all species and humanity without evolution, and caused a flood that covered the globe.

In the 19th Century, geologists shifted to the vast timeline that was later confirmed by measuring radioactive decay in earth’s minerals. Long chronology was essential for Darwin’s theory that gradual evolution produced all biological species.

Whatever they thought of Darwinism, leading evangelicals and fundamentalists originally saw no biblical problem with the new geology.


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The Atlantic: What happened to all those Catholic liturgical rites?

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Long-time GetReligion readers, do you remember that typology that a wise, older priest -- a veteran of life inside the DC Beltway -- gave me a few years ago that proposed that there are essentially four kinds of American Catholic voters?

It went something like this (amended a bit):

* Ex-Catholics. Solid for the Democrats. GOP has no chance (unless these ex-Catholics have converted, as many have, to conservative Protestant flocks)

* Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be an undecided voter -- check out that classic Atlantic Monthly tribes of American religion piece -- depending on what is happening with the economy, foreign policy, etc. Leans to Democrats.

* Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the Catholic voter that is really up for grabs, the true swing voter that the candidates are after.

* The “sweats the details” Catholic who goes to confession. Is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican on matters of faith and practice. This is where the GOP has made its big gains in recent decades, but this is a very small slice of the American Catholic pie.

Now, I know that this will be hard, but try to strip the political content out of that typology (note, if you will, that I did not click the "politics" box in the categories list). Focus on the issues of religious discipline and practice of the ancient sacraments of an ancient church.

Think about the sacrament of marriage.


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Migrant children crossing the border -- the obvious religion angle

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Amid the ongoing headlines - mostly political - over the thousands of migrant children crossing illegally into the United States, I've been pleased to come across some excellent reports on the religion angle.

New York Times national religion reporter Michael Paulson produced a thorough overview of U.S. religious leaders embracing the cause of immigrant children:

After protesters shouting "Go home" turned back busloads of immigrant mothers and children in Murrieta, Calif., a furious Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, sat down at his notepad and drafted a blog post detailing his shame at the episode, writing, "It was un-American; it was unbiblical; it was inhumane."

When the governor of Iowa, Terry E. Branstad, said he did not want the migrants in his state, declaring, "We can't accept every child in the world who has problems," clergy members in Des Moines held a prayer vigil at a United Methodist Church to demonstrate their desire to make room for the refugees.

The United States' response to the arrival of tens of thousands of migrant children, many of them fleeing violence and exploitation in Central America, has been symbolized by an angry pushback from citizens and local officials who have channeled their outrage over illegal immigration into opposition to proposed shelter sites. But around the nation, an array of religious leaders are trying to mobilize support for the children, saying the nation can and should welcome them.

"We're talking about whether we're going to stand at the border and tell children who are fleeing a burning building to go back inside," said Rabbi Asher Knight of Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, who said leaders of more than 100 faith organizations in his city had met last week to discuss how to help. He said that in his own congregation, some were comparing the flow of immigrant children to the Kindertransport, a rescue mission in the late 1930s that sent Jewish children from Nazi Germany to Britain for safekeeping.

From there, Paulson notes the broad spectrum of religious leaders — from left to right — speaking out:


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Mariam goes free, at last, while some questions linger

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Other than editors trying to figure out the correct spelling of her name, there were very few journalistic questions this past week when the long-suffering Mariam Ibraheem Ishag was finally spirited out of Sudan to freedom.

Several people sent me notes to coverage of this event, with one stating the obvious in a note that said: "Okay, so nothing to do with press a critique -- I've just got to share with you the news! Hallelujah!!!!"

However, I did notice two rather interesting wrinkles in some of the coverage. The first was rather subtle and the second was -- well -- just a puzzling hole in many stories.

First, there was the issue of how to describe her "crime." Here is the top of the solid report in The New York Times.

ROME -- Mariam Ibraheem Ishag, a Christian woman whose death sentence in Sudan for refusing to renounce her faith set off an international protest, arrived in Rome ... to a hero’s welcome and a private audience with Pope Francis.

The pope spent a half-hour speaking with Ms. Ishag; her husband, Daniel Wani, who is an American citizen; and their two young children, Maya, born in prison just days after Ms. Ishag’s conviction two months ago for apostasy, and Martin, a toddler. Apostasy carries a death sentence in Sudan, where President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has imposed Islamic law.

Here's the question: Is it accurate to bluntly state that apostasy carries a death penalty under "Islamic law" or is the matter more complex than that?

However, I did notice two rather interesting wrinkles in some of the coverage. The first was rather subtle and the second was — well — just a puzzling hole in many stories.

First, there was the issue of how to describe her “crime.” Here is the top of the solid report in The New York Times.


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Those pesky religious details in Palestinian-Israel conflict

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I'm no expert on the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

In fact, I'm typing this post with trepidation — hoping not to say something entirely stupid (yes, that's a weekend softball for all my snarky friends).

But seriously, I offer the above caveat before critiquing a front-page story in today's Houston Chronicle on dueling rallies by thousands of demonstrators:

Westheimer was the dividing line Friday as the Palestinian-Israel conflict played out in feuding but peaceful demonstrations on a busy Houston intersection near the Galleria usually populated with shoppers.

In the pro-Palestine rally, about 2,000 people seen lining both sides of Post Oak had the largest and loudest presence with chant leaders on bullhorns proclaiming: "Free, free Palestine, occupation is a crime."

Hundreds of demonstrators on the other side, closer to the Galleria, waved blue and white Israeli flags and were flanked by a large banner that declared: "We fight Islamic terror."

The Chronicle story is about 700 words — not a lot of space but typical of a daily newspaper report.

But the reporter manages to pack a lot of information into the concise account, quoting an equal number of demonstrators on both sides and including some specific religious details:


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