God in the rubble: Looking for faith in the headlines after the Dallas-area tornadoes

"It's been a reminder that this world is not our home, and we should be focused on what's eternal."

That's what a Christian whose family lost its home in the recent Dallas-area tornadoes told me yesterday. 

Since the Dec. 26 storms, I've been following the in-depth coverage in The Dallas Morning News — and looking for the faith angle.

From the 1999 tornado outbreak in Oklahoma to the 2011 twister in Joplin, Mo., I've witnessed the destructive power of tornadoes. In 2013, I wrote about the "faith-based FEMA" that helped Moore, Okla., recover.

But for more than a week, I failed to see any substantive coverage in the Dallas newspaper of people of faith responding to the recent tornadoes. Could we blame that on the Morning News' lack of a full-time religion writer?

Finally, this past Monday, an above-the-fold, front-page feature focused on churches in hard-hit Rowlett, Texas:

ROWLETT — Brian Hiatt jumped in his Ford pickup. The storm was roiling toward his church, toward his friends.
The pastor, his wife and their 20-year-old son raced from their Mesquite home. That night, they found Cornerstone Assembly of God intact.
But nearby on Schrade Road, the twister showed no mercy. It left neighbors amid rubble and in the dark.
Cornerstone had generators. Hiatt grabbed a string of white Christmas lights and slung them under the awning of the front building.
“I plugged them in so we could at least give a beacon of light to let people know we were here,” he said.
Only a father and son sought refuge in the church gym. But in the days that followed, Cornerstone and other Rowlett sanctuaries transformed into busy relief centers. All week, volunteers delivered meals to tornado victims and dispensed tubs filled with groceries and cleaning supplies. First responders came, too, looking for a place to rest.
As they filled immediate physical needs, churches also worked on giving people spiritual direction. The rash of tornadoes Dec. 26 killed 11 people in Dallas and Collin counties and left many homeless. What to make of this tragedy?


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Concerning Megyn Kelly in Vanity Fair: Raising 'spiritual' question about her Fox News work

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GetReligion readers, I have a question for you. Which news network has consistently shown a greater commitment to original reporting on religion events and trends, Fox News or Al Jazeera?

When answering this question, it might help to visit the Al Jazeera landing page for "Religion, Spirituality & Ethics" and then do the same for the "religion" search category at Fox News. What you are looking for is actual hands-on reporting work done by the personnel in these newsrooms, as opposed to pieces built totally on wire-service reports.

I raise this question because, year after year, people ask me why Fox News -- in light of its massive audience share among culturally conservative news consumers -- doesn't do more reporting on religion topics (as opposed to the usual commentary pieces and talk-show work). This also comes up in my classroom work, as I have mentioned before:

One of the most interesting discussions that I have with journalism students every semester is the moment when I ask them to identify the specific cultural and political philosophy that drives the editorial policies of Fox News and other giants associated with the world of Rupert Murdoch.
They always say, "Conservative" or "right wing."
Then I ask them this question: "What kind of conservatism?"

The answer, of course, is a kind of secular Libertarian stance that isn't comfortable with a conservatism rooted in moral and cultural values.

This brings me to that new Vanity Fair piece on Fox superstar Megyn Kelly, which -- right at the very end -- contains a major, major fumble when it comes to digging into a crucial statement linked to religious faith and moral issues.

But first, who is Megyn Kelly?


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Hey Washington Post: Now it's time for Christmas rites in the Church of the Nativity

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Now it's time to say "Merry Christmas!" to worshipers gathered in Bethlehem's ancient Church of the Nativity.

That really isn't big news. So why mention it? Let's back up a week or so.

The bottom line: I didn't hear about an international incident (or an ecumenical breakthrough, depending on one's point of view) at the Church of the Nativity back on the 25th of December. Did you?

You may recall that this was when The Washington Post said that a Catholic bishop -- the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem -- was going to be celebrating Mass at the Orthodox altar in the ancient Orthodox basilica.

Honest. That's what the story said and I wrote GetReligion posts about this error here and here. That Post story is still online, without a correction. The key error of fact is contained in this passage:

There will be a Christmas Eve Mass at the Church of the Nativity, the 1,700-year-old basilica built above the grotto where tradition says Jesus was born and visited by Bethlehem shepherds.

That Christmas midnight Mass, as I stressed, was actually held in the newer, in a Holy Land frame of reference, Catholic sanctuary -- the Church of St. Catherine -- that is located next to the much older Church of the Nativity. That's the Orthodox sanctuary that contains a high altar built directly over the grotto containing the traditional site of the birth of Jesus.

As I noted in my second post: "Catholic prelates lead Catholic rites at Catholic altars." In practice, that looks like this:


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Some empathy, please, as New York Times Jerusalem chief bids adieu

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Some empathy, please, as New York Times Jerusalem chief bids adieu

About a month ago I wrote a post on the buzz developing around the changing of the guard at the Jerusalem bureau of The New York Times. I noted then that Times coverage of the seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about as closely watched -- and unsparingly critiqued -- as is any  produced by American journalism.

For the bureau chief, the job is a near guaranteed ulcer-producer. Still, the position is coveted by the Times' most ambitious, most skilled and toughest reporters. In the context of that super-competitive newsroom, that's saying something.

My early December post was pegged to the departure of Jodi Rudoren, who is leaving Jerusalem after four years. No replacement has been officially named as of this writing, but check out my earlier post if you're interest in the scuttlebutt about who that may be.

My return to the subject is prompted by a exit interview Rudoren gave to The Jerusalem Post, Israel's leading right-of-center and oldest English-language newspaper. Click here to read the entire exit interview published in the newspaper's weekend magazine.

It's well-worth your time as a primer on what it takes to cover a highly complex, super-important international conflict while under a microscope.

How does one prepares for such an assignment? How do you deal, just about daily, with angry, highly partisan readers who feel their side has been wronged? How do time and space constraints work against properly contextualizing daily events when one has decades of bloody conflict from which to draw?


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Bacon at a mosque: media don't get to the meat of a Florida vandalism case

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Which is worse -- a machete or slabs of bacon? No, that's not one of those riddles you'd hear in, say, philosophy class or late at night in a bar. It's a question posed in stories about vandalism of a Florida mosque.

Someone took a machete to the Masjid al-Mumin building in Titusville, near the Kennedy Space Center. The vandal used the weapon to hack at lights, windows and security cameras, then scattered raw bacon around the front door. Some cameras still worked, though: Police arrested one Michael Wolfe from surveillance images.

It's just one of a rash of vandalism against mosques around the U.S. since recent jihadi attacks like the massacres in Paris and San Bernardino. The interesting thing about the Florida incident is what the stories chose to lead with -- and whether they grasped the effect of the crime.

Among the more sensationalistic was the Religion News Service, which ran a USA Today story and headlined it "Man accused of swinging machete through Florida mosque." The original headline was a milder "Man accused of vandalizing mosque, leaving bacon." But both versions don't neglect the blade, saying Wolfe "is accused of slashing his way through the mosque, shattering lights, windows and cameras with a machete."

An official from the Council on American-Islamic Relations ties the two offenses together:

"People are afraid to take their children back to the mosque ... a machete was used," said Rasha Mubarak, the advocacy group's Orlando regional coordinator.  "They know we don't consume pork. This is something that those who are Islamaphobic tend to bring up or use."

A gold star to the story for adding this background: "Eating pork — including bacon and ham — is prohibited in the Quran. The Bible's Old Testament books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy also forbid it." Pretty impressive for a secular newspaper.

The article borrows heavily, of course, from coverage in Florida Today, its affiliate in east-Central Florida. That newspaper quotes Muhammad Musri, who oversees 10 mosques in the area and, it says, has often done interfaith work:


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An accused priest, a long-suffering victim: The hero in this sad tale is ... a journalist

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We've said it before: Negative posts about media coverage of religion are so much easier to write than positive ones.

When critiquing a less-than-perfect story, there are flaws to point out. Unanswered questions to raise. Bias to criticize.

But when a story hits all the right notes — compelling subject matter, fair treatment of all sides, no sign of where the reporter stands — it's tempting to say, simply, "Hey, read this!" and move along.

That's the case with Godbeat pro Manya Brachear Pashman's in-depth report on whether a Chicago priest should return to ministry after revelations of teen misconduct:

Should a priest's sexual misconduct as a youth bar him from ministry? That's the question facing Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich.
For decades, the Rev. Bruce Wellems, a Roman Catholic priest with the Claretian Missionaries, has served as a father figure for young men in Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood.
But when revelations of his sexual misconduct as a teenager resurfaced in 2014 shortly after his religious order transferred him to California, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez removed him from ministry immediately. He returned to his former neighborhood to resume work as a youth advocate and community organizer.
Now Cupich must decide whether the popular priest can wear a collar, celebrate Mass and officially return to active ministry. Wellems, 58, admits to the abuse, though his recollection of the details and how long it lasted differs from the victim's.
"These allegations had nothing to do with who I was as a person," Wellems said in an interview with the Tribune. "In my adult life I've done nothing against children. There's nothing that's ever come up."
The contrast between the actions in Los Angeles and Chicago highlights a gray area in the church's policies on clerical sexual abuse of children and a stark difference in how two archdioceses have handled the issue. Rules adopted by America's Catholic bishops in 2002 apply to priests and deacons who commit even a single incident of abuse, but they give dioceses considerable discretion on how to apply the church's zero-tolerance policy.

Another temptation with a story like this is to copy and paste every word. But at 2,800 words, that would make for a long post. And I'd get myself into copyright trouble.

So I'll try to explain what I like about this story. It's not the subject matter per se. Sexual abuse doesn't make for cheerful reading. 


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Los Angeles Times: Christians finding totally cool new ways to learn Hollywood stuff!

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Let's say you wanted to write a newspaper piece about a big, complex topic, maybe something like Christians trying to find doorways into work in Hollywood. There are two responsible ways to do this kind of news story.

You could take a comprehensive approach and attempt to update the status of the full story, backing up several decades and demonstrating that this is not a new story. You would contact the key players, old and new, and go for a real update on the big picture.

Second, you could do a modest piece that looks at a new institution that is getting into this field, a new school or a new professional program that claims to have a fresh approach. Then you briefly -- three to four paragraphs or so -- mention that there are a host of other people who have been doing this work for (that word again) decades. Perhaps you ask the veterans to critique the current state of this work and evaluate this newcomer in their home turf.

But here is what you do not do, especially if you are writing the The Los Angeles Times, for heaven's sake, which is supposed to "get" Hollywood. You do not write a shallow, barely researched piece about a newcomer on the block and then proceed to ignore all of the professionals who have been working in this field (one more time) for decades.

Alas, this third option is precisely what the Times offered the other day, under this snippy headline: "Selling Stardom: A Christian path to Hollywood."

The story focuses on a program called "Actors, Models & Talent for Christ," which grew out of a talent-search company in Atlanta. Readers are told that it jumped into this new line of work when "owner Carey Lewis became a religious Christian." Here is what passes for the thesis and summary material in this story:


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Talking Turkey: What’s the 'most important' Godbeat gathering in summer of 2016?

Talking Turkey: What’s the 'most important' Godbeat gathering in summer of 2016?

As journalists plot their new year plans, note that The Economist’s “The World in 2016” year-end special leads off the international section with “the most important gathering during the summer of 2016.”

That isn’t the Rio Olympics in August but the Great and Holy Council of 336 Eastern Orthodox bishops at Istanbul in late June.

Not to dis all those talented, sweat-drenched pole vaulters and sprinters, but the British newsmagazine’s claim is solid, considering that the Orthodox number as many as 300 million (by the more extravagant claims) and that this could be their most decisive event since the last authoritative council in A.D. 787. At minimum, it should or could turn out to be Orthodoxy’s equivalent of the Catholic Church’s celebrated Second Vatican Council in 1962-65.

If, that is, the council accomplishes anything important. And if it actually occurs at all. Can you say "byzantine"? (As in the fifth and sixth definitions found here.)

As the newsweekly observes, last-minute church feuds, or tensions in the host country of Turkey, could postpone the event, which has been discussed for more than half a century yet somehow could never take place. Might the meeting be moved elsewhere?

The scheduling of the gathering is a diplomatic triumph for the presiding host, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, 75, who since 1991 has been the “first among equals” who head Orthodoxy’s 14 self-governing branches. The key challenge has always been gaining full cooperation from the mighty church of Russia, currently led by Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill.


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McClatchy story on DC Bible museum gets some very creative editing by the Seattle Times

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It started on a Saturday afternoon when I was gazing at a print version of the Sunday Seattle Times. It was actually the “bulldog” edition, so-called because it comes out the day before. Before in the days before the Internet, this was the term used to describe the earliest edition of the Sunday paper that was sent to remote locations statewide so that theoretically, at least, everyone in the circulation area had some version of that big edition to look at.

I noticed this headline: “D.C.’s Bible museum will celebrate Christian Scripture.”

Now, last time I looked, the much maligned museum was planning to cover the Old Testament, aka the Hebrew Bible, as well as the New Testament. My colleagues Jim Davis and Bobby Ross covered the Washington Post’s article on this. So what’s this “Christian Scriptures” bit? Why not “Jewish Scriptures”?

What I turned up was one of the weirder instances I’ve run across of creative editing by wire desks. First, there was the original story filed Dec. 24 by a writer for McClatchy News Service:

WASHINGTON -- The National Mall may be the nation’s front lawn, but even at holiday time the museums that line it are only lightly decorated with Christmas trees and lights and not with any religious displays.
But a new privately-owned museum is going up just a few blocks away –- the Museum of the Bible –- that only wants to celebrate Scripture. The $400 million project two blocks south of the National Air and Space Museum doesn’t have to worry about laws or rulings that keep religion and state separate.
The museum is the brainchild of Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby, the privately-owned Oklahoma City crafts chain that follows its owners’ evangelical beliefs, including closing its 600 stores on Sundays.

Now, that’s not what was in the Seattle Times.


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