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Atheist minister fights for credentials; are media fighting not to cover it?

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You can tell it's Canada when a minister comes out as atheist, and mainstream media simply nod and report it. In the United States, we'd be reading and hearing ferocious barrages of rhetoric.

Which is not to say that the Canadian coverage of issues surrounding the Rev. Gretta Vosper has been fair or complete.

The basic facts, according to media accounts: Vosper pastors a Toronto congregation in the United Church of Canada. She joined her current church in 1997, then began teaching atheist beliefs around 2001.  Her congregation backed her until 2008, when she stopped reciting the Lord's Prayer. Then 100 of the 150 members left.

This year, Vosper objected to a prayer written by the denomination's spiritual leader (the articles don’t name him/her) in regard to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. Vosper said the prayer should have added that "belief in God could trigger enthusiasm," according to the Canadian Press wire service.

That got the attention of the Rev. David Allen, head of the denomination's Toronto Conference, who asked headquarters about determining Vosper's "fitness to be a minister." Now, the matter appears headed to a church court this fall.

Much of the coverage cites Canadian Press, which has also produced the longest account and done the most multisourcing thus far. For one, its 600-word piece quotes Vosper extensively:


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Jewish & Christian? Weekend think piece I would have posted, except I was driving on mountain roads

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When I was growing up Southern Baptist in Texas, the "intermarriage" issue that everyone talked about was unions of Baptists and Catholics, especially Cajuns. Some people worried that folks involved in these marriages would lose touch with their faith -- period -- and that children would be raised either confused or apathetic.

It wasn't until I hit graduate school at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign that, while doing a readings class on trends in post-Holocaust Jewish life, I hit a large body of material about interfaith marriages between Christians and Jews and the their impact on Jewish demographics.

Then, in the early 1980s, I moved to Denver and ended up covering story after story linked to the famous Denver Jewish Population Study of 1981. Although this study touched on a wide variety of issues, the one that everyone ended up focusing on was the rising number of interfaith marriages and how many of the resulting children were being raised, in any meaningful sense of the word, as Jews.

It was the front edge of a national wave of debate on this topic that continues to this day. Hold that thought.

The moment that I remember the most vividly was a seminar in which a rabbi, putting a poignant spin on some of the data, pled with parents in interfaith marriages not to raise their children in both faiths at the same time. Pick one, he said, because the dual-faith approach actually teaches children that faith is confusing and irrelevant. A child in an interfaith home who is raised Christian has a better chance of choosing to practice the Jewish faith later in life than a child "raised in both," since most of these children end up with no meaningful faith at all.

Today, we would say that this rabbi was warning that most children "raised both" end up becoming "nones," joining the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated.

This brings me to an interesting think piece in The Forward that, literally, I saw on my smartphone yesterday during a break in my family's drive back to Oak Ridge from some downtime in the North Carolina mountains.


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Back to the Islamic Caitlyn Jenner and the man behind the Planned Parenthood videos

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Back to the Islamic Caitlyn Jenner and the man behind the Planned Parenthood videos

On this week's episode of "Crossroads, the GetReligion podcast, " host Todd Wilken and I discussed the Sacramento Bee's less than sparkling coverage of the man behind the Planned Parenthood videos (who grew up in their back yard, making this truly a local-angle story) and the Los Angeles Times's discovery of a Muslim woman who has become a man. Please click here to tune that in.

Not surprisingly, the key figure in the trans Muslim story lives in San Francisco, which is where I -- as I write this -- have been for the past few days attending a conference of journalism professors known as the Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). 

Today I moderated a panel of scholars who were discussing how journalists used to put scare quotes about "Islamophobia" and how increasingly they are not.

This is, of course, a sign that they believe such a phobia is real and not something dreamed up by Muslim apologists. It also implies that this is not a subject worth debating. That's how "scare quotes" work, after all. 

One Muslim professor listening in said that no matter what the story, Muslims -- like Mormons -- are always treated as the "other" -- part of a group that's not quite normal.

My problem with the Los Angeles Times story (which hasn't attracted any comments as of yet) wasn't about fear of Muslims, it more had to do with handling a transgender Muslim with such kid gloves that she/he was spared the normal tough questions a reporter should be asking.

Sound familiar?


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Win for M.Z. New York Times issues late, late correction on Planned Parenthood

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Win for M.Z. New York Times issues late, late correction on Planned Parenthood

So how many of you assumed we would never, ever see a New York Times correction on the Planned Parenthood video-story error that GetReligionista emeritus M.Z. Hemingway has been protesting for several weeks? 

GetReligion has been seconding her motion over and over, too. We are talking about the original David Daleiden video of the encounter with a Planned Parenthood leader named Dr. Deborah Nucatola.

Now, the Times has a reputation for having one of the best correction desks in all of journalism (GetReligion folks used to get actual calls from real, live human beings there all the time), so this correction is, on one level, not surprising. The error was clear, after all.

As M.Z. wrote, using the Times online correction form:

Phrase in Question: "Mr. Daleiden released what he called the full recording last week after Planned Parenthood complained of selective, misleading editing."

Your Concern (please limit to 300 words): –- This is completely in error. The full recording was released 21 seconds after the edited version, according to YouTube records, many hours before Planned Parenthood tried the public relations spin accepted by some reporters. ...

So now, late, late, late -- after most readers have surely moved on -- we can see that the following text has been added at the end of the online story.


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So, is this America's most unlikely interfaith dialogue?

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So, is this America's most unlikely interfaith dialogue?

With scant media attention, leading U.S. thinkers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. Mormon) and Evangelical Protestantism have been holding regular dialogue meetings the past 15 years. This is a good moment for religion writers to examine where things stand between these two dynamic faiths.

That’s because the talks are pausing temporarily as participants issue a new anthology: “Talking Doctrine: Mormons & Evangelicals in Conversation” (InterVarsity Press). The book’s editors, who’ve led the dialogue to date, are top sources for journalists: Robert Millet, former religious education dean at the LDS Brigham Young University, and Richard Mouw, retired president of Fuller Theological Seminary.

The two sides constitute the most unlikely dialogue partners imaginable, despite their concord on moral issues in the socio-political realm. They are past antagonists and current archrivals in evangelism. Participants were sometimes branded sell-outs, especially on the Evangelical side. Defending his participation,  Dennis Okholm of Azusa Pacific University says, “I have learned more about my own orthodox faith and how to articulate it with greater accuracy and sophistication -- and love.”

Adding to the unlikeliness, the two sides insist they teach the one true Christian faith but have remarkable differences. The LDS church, in fact, insists that all authentic Christianity vanished by the 2d Century and God needed to restore the authentic faith and church authority uniquely through American founder Joseph Smith Jr.

The book is disappointing in that participants offer no shared statement to define agreements and disagreements. The anthology might be more useful if it had printed verbatim some key doctrinal papers presented in the talks with responses from the other side.


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A tale of two stories: How the Mormons come off in AP and in The Daily Beast

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Mormon origins have long been a center of public curiosity.  So an LDS press conference this week, unveiling an early edition of the book -- with photos of the "seer stone" that the church says Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon -- drew a lot of coverage.

Unfortunately, with the opinion-laden text that infects mainstream media, attitude makes all the difference. Let's compare two: from the Associated Press and the Daily Beast.

The press conference was actually on the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon, an interesting artifact in itself. But the book's photos of the stone, a solid object dating to the birth of the faith, were a natural emphasis in the stories.

The AP account, run by Huffington Post and others, plays it fairly straight. Despite its taste for breathless, 40-word sentences, the wire service writes a good lede, with outline, a couple of details and a hint of context:

The Mormon church's push toward transparency about its roots and beliefs took another step forward Tuesday with the first published pictures of a small sacred stone it believes founder Joseph Smith used to help translate a story that became the basis of the religion.
The pictures of the smooth, brown, egg-sized rock are part of a new book that also contains photos of the first printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Officials with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unveiled the photos at a news conference in Salt Lake City.
The religion's drive in recent years to open its vaults and clarify sensitive beliefs is aimed at filling a void on the Internet for accurate information as curiosity and scrutiny increased as church membership tripled over the last three decades, Mormon scholars said.

The 800-word story adds background on the fate of the stone, indeed of the manuscript -- which is the property of the Community of Christ, which split off when the main group trekked to Salt Lake City in the mid-1800s. AP notes that leaders of both bodies were at the press conference, indicating that "the two faiths have moved on" -- though I wouldn't have used the term "past squabbles," as the article did.

AP quotes a satisfying four scholars for the story. One of them, Terry Givens of the University of Richmond, offers this observation:


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Backpacker heads out into the woods and gives Trail Life USA a fair shot

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There is the Boy Scouts of America story, which is complex and getting more so every minute -- especially among decision-makers for American Catholics and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Journalists are covering these stories, of course.

Then there is another story that could be covered, one that focuses on the people in religious flocks that are not interested in compromising on centuries of basic doctrines about marriage and family. There have been a few stories about these folks, but, so far, they have been rather thin and packed with stereotypes.

The former Boy Scout in me is interested in knowing what happens to the folks who have left. I'm interested -- as an Eastern Orthodox layman -- in some of these other options because I know that many members of Orthodox parishes are starting to look for ways out of the Boy Scouts. But do they want to join some kind of hyper-Evangelical Protestant alternative?

I'm happy to report that a freelancer linked to Backpacker Magazine -- a bible, of sorts, for people who wear out more than their share of hiking boots and rain slickers -- has turned out a serious story about Trail Life USA, one of the largest of the faith-friendly alternative camping-and-outdoors operations.

The key: This story focuses more on what boys are doing in these troops out in the woods, as opposed to what their lawyers are saying in courtrooms. There are sections of this piece that will make the palms of Unitarian Universalists or urbane Episcopalians sweat.

I also appreciated that reporter Patrick Doyle, who works out of Pittsburgh, didn't focus on a Trail Life unit in, let's say an evangelical megachurch in Bible Belt, Mississippi. He focused on a troop in a northern setting, based in a mainline Protestant flock. Here is the overture, focusing on the roots of this troop:

Boy Scout Troop 452 has been meeting at Concord United Methodist Church in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, as long as there’s been a troop, nearly 70 years.
But this isn’t the usual weekly gathering of the boys and their scoutmaster, Richard Greathouse. This meeting is just for their parents.


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Abortion in China? Bad karma, some Buddhists say

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The ongoing drama of the Planned Parenthood videos has attracted the attention of an international audience, not the least of which are pro-lifers in the world’s most abortive country. That would be China, whose 13 million abortions a year is more than 10 times the amount of similar pregnancy terminations in the United States. Foreign Policy just posted this piece on how China’s Christians and Buddhists are trying to get those numbers down.

On July 14, a U.S. anti-abortion group released an undercover video of an employee of abortion provider Planned Parenthood casually discussing, over wine and salad, the harvesting and donation of fetal tissue for medical research...The news quickly reached China, and within days the video had been posted to Chinese video streaming site iQiyi, where it received more than 170,000 views.

China has the highest number of abortions in the world, with an estimated 13 million performed annually. Many in China view abortion as a purely personal decision, a necessary if sad option for people in difficult situations. Unlike in the United States, where abortion clinics face tight restrictions in some areas, similar facilities in China are readily available and widely publicized.


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Mennonite husband and wife say they have no hatred toward gays; media say they're 'anti-gay'

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According to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Richard and Betty Odgaard are a small-town Mennonite couple whose faith is central to their lives.

That's why, Becket says, the Odgaards kept religious elements intact when they transformed a century-old Iowa church into an art gallery, bistro and flower/gift shop where they hosted weddings.

But the couple got in trouble when they refused to participate in a same-sex wedding.

Becket says:

Through the years, the Odgaards have gladly hired gay employees and served gay customers at the Gallery’s shops and bistro but they cannot personally participate in a wedding ceremony that violates their own religious beliefs.
Although there were numerous nearby venues that actively advertise to host same-sex weddings, when the Odgaards declined to host the wedding, the couple immediately filed a complaint with the State, triggering an intense media campaign against the Odgaards. They were subjected to hate mail, boycotts, personal attacks, and even death threats. Officials in the Civil Rights Commission showed open disdain for the Odgaards’ religious rights, and even denied them access to state court to defend their religious liberty claims. Shockingly, the State refused to dismiss its case against the Odgaards even after the two men — contrary to their prior sworn statements — admitted they had been married months before asking the Odgaards to host their ceremony.
Facing growing pressure from the State and potentially years of legal proceedings, with the risk of being forced to pay the couple’s legal fees, the Odgaards chose to remain true to their faith. They settled the charges brought against them, paying thousands of dollars to the couple, and agreed to stop hosting all weddings. Without this vital income, the Odgaards were forced to close the Gallery.

Fast-forward to this week: The Odgaards are making headlines for launching a billboard campaign promoting marriage as a God-ordained union between one man and one woman.

Or, to borrow the terminology used by news organizations such as the Des Moines Register,  Religion News Service and the New York Daily News, they are erecting "anti-gay marriage" billboards:


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