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Muslims fleeing to Europe: Yes, press can find religion angles in this ongoing tragedy

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Earlier this week, I wrote a post -- "Refugees flee ISIS: Maybe there is a religion angle in this tragic story? Maybe?" -- in which I complained that quite a few journalists are having trouble spotting some big religion ghosts in the life-and-death story of thousands of refugees fleeing Islamic State persecution.

To demonstrate what I am talking about, I asked a rather basic journalistic question: Who are these refugees? Let's flash back:

They are the people who rejected the reign of ISIS. ... The answer is complex, but one fact is simple. It's impossible to talk about this refugee crisis without talking about the religion angle, because the refugees are either members of minority religions in the region, including thousands of displaced Christians, or centrist Muslims or members of Muslim-related sects that are anathema to ISIS leaders.

Sometimes, after making that kind of complaint, it is good to pause and find an example of a mainstream news report that GETS IT, that sees the ghost in this kind of story and tries to help readers understand what is happening. This brings me to a recent Associated Press "Big Story" feature about the phenomenon of Muslims converting to Christianity in Germany.

Refugees? To varying degrees, it appears.

Cynics are asking a blunt, and logical, question: If some members of oppressed minorities in the Middle East are converting to Islam to save, literally, their necks, might many Muslims in Europe be tempted to convert to Christianity in order to strengthen their cases for asylum? After all, can you imagine what would happen to Muslims who converted to Christianity if they are returned to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan or some other troubled land?

You can see that logic unfold in the anecdotal lede:

BERLIN (AP) -- Mohammed Ali Zonoobi bends his head as the priest pours holy water over his black hair. "Will you break away from Satan and his evil deeds?" pastor Gottfried Martens asks the Iranian refugee. "Will you break away from Islam?"


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Surprise? Non-alcohol-serving Muslim flight attendant gets respectful media treatment

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With all the coverage of the embattled Rowan County, Ky.  clerk recently released from jail after she refused to process same-sex marriages, it was inevitable that we would be hearing about protests from similar protagonists.

There are all sorts of people of faith caught in sticky employment situations where what they’re being asked to do is not precisely what they signed up for when they accepted the job.

As GetReligion has reported quite recently, reporters have had problems getting the facts right plus the degree of snark and outright hostility towards people such as Kim Davis has, at times, been so over the top. Our own Terry Mattingly passed along M.Z. "GetReligionista emeritus" Hemingway's bold use of term “slut-shaming” to describe it.

And so, what happens when someone from a different faith entirely makes a similar argument? Does that change the journalistic equation? Here’s what the Huffington Post said about a Muslim flight attendant suspended for not serving alcoholic beverages:


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Ben Carson takes on Trump's faith; CNN commits three sins against journalist's bible

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Before we get to the serious part of this post, this seems like the perfect time to ask: Have you read Eric Metaxas' humorous take on the #TrumpBible?

If not, be sure to enjoy it at The New Yorker.

Back in the less-funny world, The Donald's faith — or lack thereof, depending on whom you ask — is making headlines again this week.

Thank Republican challenger Dr. Ben Carson for that.

Here's the scoop from CNN:

Anaheim, California (CNN) In the end, it was the most mild-mannered of the presidential candidates who may have dealt the most searing blow so far to Donald Trump.
In a fascinating twist to the 2016 Republican presidential race, neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson essentially threw down the gauntlet Wednesday and asked evangelical Republicans to choose sides by questioning the authenticity of Trump's faith. Speaking to reporters before a large rally here in Anaheim, Carson was asked by a reporter how he was different from Trump.
His answer was short and direct.
"Probably the biggest thing -- I've realized where my success has come from and I don't in anyway deny my faith in God," Carson said.
He explained what he meant by quoting what he said was one of his favorite bible verses.
"By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life and that's a very big part of who I am. I don't get that impression with him," Carson said of Trump. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't get that."

For my tastes, that lede is too opinionated. An impartial journalist ought to report what the candidates said, put the statements into proper context and let the audience decide whether someone dealt a "searing blow." Right?

Meanwhile, did you spot the pesky, recurring journalism style issue in that opening section? One that we highlighted here at GetReligion just last week? 


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Ashley Madison: CNN snips some grace out of story on seminary professor's fatal fall

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It may seem strange to start a GetReligion post with a verse from the Bible -- the Gospel According to St. Luke, in this case -- but it seems appropriate in light of a morality tale that continues to unfold in the mainstream press.

Thus, let's turn to the 12th chapter of Luke, verse 3 to be specific.

Let us attend, especially readers who are clergy or who hold positions of power and prestige in religious institutions, such as seminaries or ecclesiastical bureaucracies.

Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

This leads us, of course, to the infamous Ashley Madison website used by legions of people who were -- they thought -- anonymously seeking sexual affairs. They didn't expect hackers to shout their sins from the digital rooftops.

This is especially true for clergy, of course, a line of work that includes just as many stressed-out sinners as any other. Journalists, if you want to get the big picture on the impact of this scandal in pulpits, check out the recent Christianity Today essays by the online evangelical maven Ed Stetzer, who has been on fire writing about this tragic situation.

The scandal has claimed many victims, but the story GetReligion writers have been hearing about is a CNN report on the case of the Rev. John Gibson, a pastor and professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. In his case, this fall from grace left him shattered. The result was suicide. Gibson's wife, Christi, discovered his body.


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There's plenty of global religious freedom news beyond the Kim Davis case

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There's plenty of global religious freedom news beyond the Kim Davis case

If you read GetReligion even sporadically, you must know that mainstream news coverage of religious freedom issues receives a great deal of attention on this blog, for many reasons.

Perhaps the prime reason is that they play a leading role in the societal and political conflicts marking this era of rapid social change. That keeps them constantly in the news, and that can't be ignored when you're a blog devoted to media coverage of religion issues. Plus, issues of freedom of conscience are often linked -- globally -- to freedom of the press.

For Americans, the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who cites religious belief for refusing to issue marriage licenses -- containing the endorsement of her name and/or signature -- to same-sex couples, has been the latest U.S. religious freedom headline hog.

What is her church? Here's a link to an interesting Reuters piece about her Apostolic Christian faith, via Yahoo.

 What comes next? Will the Muslim flight attendant for an American airline who says she was suspended from her job for refusing to serve alcoholic drinks be the next religious freedom cause célèbre? It will be interesting to see what sort of religious community support she, a Muslim, receives.

Look, I'm fully aware that Americans are most interested in issues that impact them as Americans.

But the rest of the world has its own melange of religious freedom issues  -- some a matter of life and death, literally.


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Numbers game: Maybe public opinion surveys don't amount to a hill of ...

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What a difference a month makes. In early August, the Religion News Service ran a long list of reasons why opinion polls are often unreliable. This week, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette turned to several surveys on Catholic attitudes toward the faith -- and toward Pope Francis, scheduled to visit the United States in a couple of weeks.

The funny thing is, both articles drew on some of the same bean-counting organizations -- and in one case, the same expert.

Last one first. The Pittsburgh paper aims at showing the challenges awaiting Francis in his first visit to the United States.

"There may be more American Catholics than ever, but they’re doing fewer Catholic things," says savvy religion writer Peter Smith in summing up the paradox. To make his point, he gathers from at least three of the usual sources: Pew Research Center, the Public Religion Research Institute and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

The numbers tell him that "life-cycle events" are down: infant baptisms, first communions, church marriages and elementary school enrollment. Most Catholics affirm "basic beliefs" about Jesus and Mary, but they don’t pray the rosary, pray as families or do adoration of the Eucharist.

The Post-Gazette also cites a Pew survey that found "fewer than half of Catholics think it’s a sin to have gay sex, use artificial birth control, live with a partner outside of marriage or remarry after a divorce without an annulment. They’re evenly split on whether the church should recognize gay marriages."

But the numbers don’t overpower the human side of the piece.


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From Jennifer Berry Hawes, another powerful story with strong religion content on Emanuel AME

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If you love good journalism and great storytelling, you absolutely must read Jennifer Berry Hawes' latest front-page narrative on the Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston, S.C..

From the beginning, we have praised the Pulitzer Prize-winning Hawes' strong, sensitive coverage in The Post and Courier, Charleston's daily newspaper.

Once again, the veteran Godbeat pro — now a projects writer — produces a powerful story mixing raw, chilling details with expert attention to revealing religion details.

The focus of this narrative: Felicia Sanders and Polly Sheppard, who survived the massacre, along with Sanders' 11-year-old granddaughter.

The grab-your-attention-in-a-hurry lede:

The blood splattered on her legs — that of her son, an elderly aunt, her pastors, nine people she loved — had dried. She still wore the same clothes, a black skirt and a black-and-white blouse, crusty now.
An endless night before, Felicia Sanders had left her blood-soaked shoes with the dead in the fellowship hall of her beloved lifelong church, Emanuel AME.
Barefoot as the sun rose, she trudged up the steps to her home, the one where 26-year-old Tywanza Sanders’ bedroom waited silently, his recent college acceptance letter tacked onto a bulletin board beside his poetry. It was after 6 a.m., and she hadn’t slept. She hadn’t eaten, not since going to Emanuel AME’s elevator committee meeting the evening before, then its quarterly conference and then its weekly Wednesday Bible study. There, 12 people met in God’s midst. Nine of them died, 77 bullets in their midst.
Felicia had answered questions all night from myriad authorities determined to find the killer. Now her phone rang. Her doorbell rang. Reporters, friends, family, strangers, an endless blare through the jangle of her muddled thoughts. Finally, in a delirious rage, she called an old friend, attorney Andy Savage.
“Andy, it’s too much!” she cried into the phone.
“I’ll be there.


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At this point, why would journalists ignore faith issues in Colbert's life? (updated)

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As far as I am concerned, there was journalism about comedian Stephen Colbert before the GQ cover story by Joel Lovell -- "The Late, Great Stephen Colbert" -- and then there is journalism on this subject after that piece.

It's not that this was some kind of stunning investigation into Colbert's career, his finances, his alleged politics, etc., etc. It's not even that this story covered totally new material about Colbert's faith and family history.

Trust me. I've had a research folder open on Colbert and Catholicism since 2005 or thereabouts and I've read most of the crucial speeches and interviews in which he talks about his beliefs. I have a pretty big collection of iTunes selections and Comedy Central URLs that feature revealing quips and comments. I've written some columns on this guy and led seminar sessions focusing on the debates about his work.

What made this interview special was the depth of the comments and the way in which they linked the wounds in Colbert's past to the strengths of his comic sensibility today. It was really quite stunning, even for people (I've heard from some) who didn't take Colbert all that seriously in the past. 

After that interview, why would journalists for a major news organization -- The New York Times leaps to mind  -- fail to explore the God questions (and answers) that haunt this guy? In a major magazine feature before his arrival last night on CBS, this is what the Times team offered while trying to talk about the "humanity" that Colbert has hidden in the past:


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Are polls about people and pews appealing or appalling? Warnings for journalists

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Are polls about people and pews appealing or appalling? Warnings for journalists

A memorable though possibly apocryphal religious quip dates from the days when Norman Vincent Peale was a famed author and preacher. Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson supposedly said “I find the Apostle Paul appealing and the Apostle Peale appalling.”

What he found appalling was either Peale’s criticism of Stevenson’s divorce (in 1952), or of candidate Kennedy’s Catholicism (in 1960), or both.

So are polls appealing or appalling?

Eminent sociologist Robert Wuthnow of Princeton University lays out warnings that journalists should heed in “Inventing American Religion: Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation’s Faith,” due for October 1 release from Oxford University Press and previewed  in the current First Things magazine.

Polls were never mathematically precise to begin with and are becoming ever more unreliable, even as they take up infinite airtime and column inches during the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign. Wuthnow reports this billion-dollar industry with some 1,200 companies conducted more than 37,000 polls during the 2012 U.S. campaign. Election predictions have sometimes proven  well off the mark, as recently with Britain, Israel, and America’s 2014 midterms. Public surveys involve not just politics but closely watched trends on key matters like consumer confidence and unemployment rates.

A poll’s fine print lists a “margin of error,” often ignored in the media, that can skew results. However, Wuthnow says today’s critically important crisis in  reliability is that huge numbers don’t answer the phone, causing terribly low “response rates.”


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