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Raise your hand, if you know the definition of 'blasphemy' in modern Pakistan

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One of the toughest issues in reporting about any complex subject -- take religion for example -- is knowing how much background material needs to be included in a story for readers to be able to grasp the basic issues surrounding a piece of news.

So before we get to the actual event covered in this international-desk piece from the New York Times -- "Boy’s Response to Blasphemy Charge Unnerves Many in Pakistan" -- let's jump ahead to the background material. I thought this section of the story was especially strong, since the reporter had very few paragraphs to spare in a relatively short story.

By the way, this passage ends with what I considered a major piece of tech news, one worthy of its own story.

Blasphemy is a toxic subject in Pakistan, where a confusing body of laws has enshrined it as a potentially capital offense but also makes it nearly impossible for the accused to defend themselves in court. Even publicly repeating details of the accusation is tantamount to blasphemy in its own right.
Such cases almost never make it to court, however. The merest accusation that blasphemy has occurred has the power to arouse lynching or mob violence.
The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by his own bodyguard in 2011, after Mr. Taseer criticized the country’s blasphemy laws and defended a Christian woman who had been falsely accused under them. The assassin is a national hero to many devout Pakistanis: His jail cell has become a pilgrimage site, and a mosque was renamed to honor him.

And that tech story?


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Fighting Boko Haram: 'Ghosts' haunt otherwise fine New York Times report

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Applause for the New York Times for keeping an eye on Nigeria, which has been struggling for years with Boko Haram terrorists. But the clapping is a bit muted because of the religious "ghosts" in the latest story.

As the most populous nation in Africa -- the Times puts it at 190 million -- Nigeria can be seen as a bellwether for the rest of the continent. And rather than a dry recital of official stats and statements, the 1,370-word Times story captures the dread under which many Nigerians live:

DAKAR, Senegal — A sense of fear nags at Hauwa Bulama every time she leaves home.
She worries that suicide bombers might be lurking at the vegetable stand where she shops for her six children. They could turn up at the hospital where she takes her relatives. Any woman in a hijab could have a suicide belt under her clothes, she fears. The frequent public announcements to avoid crowded areas in her northern Nigerian city only heighten her anxiety.
"You are always afraid," said Ms. Bulama, who lives in Maiduguri, a frequent target of the ruthless Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram. "When you take your child to be immunized, you don’t know who is seated next to you. You don’t know who is hiding what."
For Ms. Bulama and countless others in northern Nigeria and across the Lake Chad region, the victories scored by President Muhammadu Buhari’s multinational campaign against Boko Haram since taking office in May have mattered little to their daily lives.

The article acknowledges that the government of President Buhari has killed many Boko Haram fighters and shrunk their areas of control. An international fighting force, which includes Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon -- with armored vehicles from the United States -- has pushed back and scattered the terrorists. Buhari has even boasted that "technically we have won the war."

Yet the conflict has created more than 2.4 million refugees, the Times reports. The 200-plus schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 are still missing, a clear sign of poor intelligence gathering. And the suicide bombings have continued -- two more in the last two weeks.

The newspaper praises Buhari for replacing ineffective army commanders and moving headquarters into the battle zone of northeastern Nigeria. But rebuilding the military will take money, something in short supply in the wake of the slump in oil prices.


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Do we need more Muslim journalists? Religion News Service says 'yes'

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   One thing I learned over several decades of reporting was to share as little of my personal convictions or private life with folks in the newsroom. Sometimes it was used against you. I will always remember my editor at a Florida newspaper was convinced I was a crypto-conservative because a certain article gave five more lines to quotes by Republicans than to Democrats. I told her that those five lines were devoted to a quote from then-President Reagan and in my mind, anything said by a sitting president didn’t belong to either side of the aisle.

            That was the kind of bean counting that used to go on. We were even discouraged from posting bumperstickers on our cars that might hint at bias. If you were found to have any religious sympathies, watch out. I’ll never forget one hapless reporter friend whose degree from Regent University (founded by Pat Robertson) caused him to be shut out of religion reporting jobs at two major newspapers. He was more than qualified, but the taint of Christian fervor was too much for the editors.

            But these days, some outlets want their reporters to have a personal brand and a point of view. Still, I was surprised to see the following Religion News Service story on the dearth of Muslim reporters:


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New York Times goes looking for 'conservatives' in Big Apple, but ignores pews

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To no one's surprise, The New York Times decided to follow up on the Sen. Ted Cruz vs. Donald Trump row over "New York values" and the question of whether many "conservatives" come out of New York City.

But before we get to that story -- "Young Republicans in New York" -- let me make a few comments that are central to my take on this Times feature.

When if comes to "values" issues, not all Republicans are "conservatives." At the same time, not all values "conservatives" are Republicans. There are still a few cultural conservatives in the Democratic Party and many of them are people of color.

Meanwhile, not all religious believers are Republicans or "values" conservatives. It is quite easy, these days, to find young evangelicals who are not "values" conservatives, or at least not on every issue. It is very hard to fit pro-Catechism Catholics into either major political party these days.

To name one specific policy complication linked to this Times story: There are many conservative religious believers who support same-sex marriage, or same-sex civil unions, but also support efforts to protect the First Amendment and the free exercise of religious beliefs in settings outside the doors of religious sanctuaries.

So with all of that in mind, does it surprise you to know that the one and only place the Times team when to find New York City "conservatives" on "values" issues was a political gathering? This is especially tragic in light of the fact that New York City is, these days, a vibrant city in terms of religious congregations appealing to young believers.

But first, here is the overture:


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That same old question for 2016: What is an 'evangelical,' anyway?

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That same old question for 2016: What is an 'evangelical,' anyway?

The Carson- Cruz- Rubio-Trump piety sweepstakes aimed at the vital “evangelical vote” in Iowa has produced recent news that would have been unthinkable a generation ago:

* Businessman Donald Trump brags that “Franklin Graham said incredible things about me” (the evangelist isn’t endorsing anyone), then targets Senator Ted Cruz: “In all fairness, to the best of my knowledge not too many evangelicals come out of Cuba, OK?” Unclear what that means, but it followed Trump’s previous slap at surgeon Carson’s Adventist church after Carson questioned Trump’s faith.

* Preacher’s kid Cruz tells a church rally, “Keep this revival growing. Awaken the body of Christ that we might rise up to pull this country from the abyss,” and quotes the favored Bible verse of evangelical activists, 2 Chronicles 7:14 (“If my people ...”).

* Not to be outdone, Senator Marco Rubio states in an online ad, “Our goal is eternity, the ability to live alongside our Creator and for all time, to accept the free gift of salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ. ... The purpose of our life is to cooperate with God’s plan...“ The Catholic candidate also appoints 15 evangelical, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Orthodox Jewish notables (e.g. law Professor Michael McConnell, Pastor Rick Warren) as advisors on future religious liberty issues.

* An e-mail blast from Eric Teetsel, late of the Manhattan Declaration now running Rubio’s “faith outreach,” quotes Southern Baptist social-issues spokesman Russell Moore on evangelical constituencies: “Ted Cruz is leading the Jerry Falwell wing, Marco Rubio is leading the Billy Graham wing and Trump is leading the Jimmy Swaggart wing” (the latter a scandal-scarred  televangelist).

Political nose-counters note that in 2012, 57 percent of Iowa voters identified as evangelicals (vs. 22 percent in New Hampshire, the second lowest percentage among states behind only Senator Sanders’ Vermont). Iowa polls show Cruz moving well ahead of Carson and Trump in evangelical support, while CNN says nationwide Trump leads Cruz by 45 to 28 percent among white evangelicals. And the Wall Street Journal reports the Cruz camp thinks there are  90 million U.S. evangelicals (!) of whom 54 million didn’t vote in 2012(!!).

Obviously, both politics and religion reporters need to pursue that ever-challenging question, What is an “evangelical”?


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Think piece meets podcast: Spot the dividing lines between evangelical voters in 2016

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As a rule, here is what happens every week when "Crossroads" host Todd Wilken and I do a radio broadcast or taping session that turns into a podcast. First we pick a GetReligion post, or perhaps my Universal syndicate column for that week, in which we think there are angles to update or explore. Then he asks me a bunch of questions and then we chat.

However, I tried to turn the tables on Wilken in this week's podcast (click here to tune that in), in which we dug deeper into the material I explored in the post that ran with this headline: "Seriously? New York Times story on GOP schism is silent on 'pew gap' issues." He asked me a question and then I turned around and asked the audience -- that would be you guys -- a series of questions.

What were they? Well, many political journalists are starting to realize that Donald Trump is not the official candidate of American evangelicalism. Thus, I asked these three questions:

 * Who are Donald Trump's evangelicals?

* Who are Sen. Ted Cruz's evangelicals?

* Who are Sen. Marco Rubio's evangelicals?

Thinking back over our conversation, I now realize that I could have asked some pushy follow-up questions.


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Los Angeles Times crowns Justice Roy Moore as American ayatollah

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I wasn’t planning on writing about Alabama Supreme Court’s chief justice so soon after my Jan. 7 post, but the Los Angeles Times posted a news piece that was so awful, it deserves an Oscar nomination for "Most Biased Piece of U.S. Journalism in 2016 Thus Far." I am referring to Thursday’s article that came with the headline: “Gay marriage order puts spotlight again on the ‘Ayatollah of Alabama.' ” And yes, the article that followed was as bad as the headline.

Please keep in mind as you read this that Get Religion has a name -- “Kellerism” -- for this type of piece. That’s the practice, described here by tmatt and pioneered by the New York Times, of assuming that one side of the debate is dead wrong and, thus, doesn’t deserve fair representation.

Here we go:

When Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore issued his latest controversial order on gay marriage, urging probate judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, many considered it a brazen, last-ditch act of defiance against the U.S. Supreme Court.
The long-contentious chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court didn’t see it that way at all. Merely a humdrum matter of procedure, he explained. “At this point, I am not defying the United States Supreme Court,” the staunch 68-year-old Baptist and Republican said.
When it comes to Moore -- dubbed the “Ayatollah of Alabama” by a civil rights group and chided by the daughter of the late George Wallace as being more dangerous than the combative former governor -- little is ever just humdrum procedure.

An anonymous “ayatollah” label, huh?


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Religion in schools: Tampa Bay Times talks to everyone except church people

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One of the good and bad parts of a job like GetReligion is writing about recurring issues.  It's good because you develop some experience in your work. It's bad because you keep writing about similar problems.

Here we go this week with the Tampa Bay Times, which wrote about religious groups, and talked to others about the groups, yet didn’t talk to the groups themselves. As I've said before, this is like talking about someone while they're standing right there.

The Times has been monitoring the school superintendent's friendly treatment of a couple of Christian organizations. Here's how the paper dealt with it on Tuesday:

TAMPA --Hillsborough County school superintendent Jeff Eakins reaffirmed his support Tuesday for a Christian organization that aims to expand its presence in the public schools.
Addressing First Priority Tampa Bay --which has grown to serve dozens of local schools in the past six years, with the goal of helping students share the message of Christ --Eakins said the group's school-based clubs are integral to the culture he is trying to shape in the district.
"We're trying to build great character and great integrity, and ultimately capture the hearts of our kids," he told an audience of about 100 people at the South Tampa Fellowship at Ballast Point.
His message comes as the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are questioning the district's involvement with another Christian ministry.

No kiddin' on that last sentence. By the end of its 900 words, the story has cited not only the ACLU but the Atheists of Florida, the Jewish Community Relations Council and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. They complain not only about First Priority but the local Idlewild Baptist Church, for its "training and motivational sessions for school administrators." They also criticize the church for giving away T-shirts with its name and logo. (The next day's story adds that Idlewild also passes out coupons, redeemable for a coffee at the church.)

The critics say Eakins' endorsement creates "social pressure" for teachers to support the efforts. The Times also brings up the First Amendment, "which is widely interpreted as a prohibition against government --including public schools --favoring one religion.


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Journalists must look to the left, as Anglican Communion goes into 'stoppage time'

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Over time, mainstream journalists around the world have gradually come to realize that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not the "Anglican pope." In most news coverage these days, he is referred to as the "symbolic" leader of the global Anglican Communion or as the "first among equals" when the Anglican archbishops are doing business.

Let's focus on that second image for a moment, as I point out one or two elements of the flood of news coverage of the "special," as opposed to normal, gathering of the Anglican primates in Canterbury the last few days.

If Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is the first among equals, then it is important for journalists to realize that the other archbishops really do see themselves as, well, equal among the equals. Thus, when you are working through the tsunami of global coverage of the vote by the Anglican primates to "suspend" the U.S. Episcopal Church from many official roles in the Anglican Communion (don't forget Father George "GetReligionista emeritus" Conger at Anglican Ink), it helps to focus on the previous actions taken by the primates on issues linked to the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex unions.

Yes, we are back to that complicated Anglican timeline thing. There is no way to avoid it.

When you look at the current events in the context of an accurate timeline, it's clear that (a) the Episcopal Church has merely been placed in "time out," (b) that the global primates really do think this dispute is about the Bible and marriage, (c) that the state of sacramental Communion among Anglican leaders remains as broken as ever and (d) that all Canterbury has really achieved, with this meeting, is send the contest into extra innings (or perhaps "stoppage time" is a better term among global Anglicans).

So where to start?


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