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Are demons going to start sending us links to that Washington Post exorcism essay?

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It's perfectly understandable why many journalists are fascinated with the subject of exorcisms, especially when the Roman Catholic Church gets involved. For starters, we are talking about battles on the front lines between the material and the supernatural, encounters that raise eternal questions about free will, the love of God and the existence of ultimate good and ultimate evil. And then, of course, there is Hollywood.

So you will not be surprised that your GetReligionistas have taken a look at quite a few mainstream news stories about this topic. Click here and do some surfing, if you wish.

But this post is not about a news piece. Yet, over the past week people have sent me the URL to this Washington Post essay more than any other. At this point, I have begun to wonder if the demons are sending it to me. Why, well you know what C.S. Lewis said about demons (speaking through the voice of Screwtape, his great demonic professor).

We are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and sceptics. At least, not yet. I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, belief in us, (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy. The “Life Force”, the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work -- the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits” -- then the end of the war will be in sight.

The headline on the Post piece, written by New York Medical College professor Richard Gallagher, was this: "As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession."

I should note that this is a sequel, of sorts, to his 2008 essay -- "Among the Many Counterfeits -- A Case of Demonic Possession" -- that ran in the journal The New Oxford Review, a very small-o orthodox Catholic publication (and one with a high digital wall around its content).

Here is the opening of the new Post piece:


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A question that would stun old-school left: Does religious liberty in U.S. go too far?

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A question that would stun old-school left: Does religious liberty in U.S. go too far?

NORMAN’S QUESTION:

Given that many religious groups have some very socially undesirable beliefs and, even more, practices, how much does religious liberty in America need to be restricted?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Here’s a sketch of a very complex constellation of issues. The question provides no examples of what’s offensive but The Guy guesses that Norman is a liberal critic of religion who especially decries “socially undesirable” religious stands on moral matters like homosexuality. Such hostility from liberals, in turn, provokes deeper worries among traditionalists about religious freedom that we’ve seen since perhaps the 19th Century (something candidate Donald Trump hopes to capitalize on).

Preliminary points: Most religions and most believers agree society’s common good overrules any claimed religious justifications for heinous crimes. That would include terrorism enacted in God’s name by today’s Muslim extremists or, in centuries past, human sacrifice rituals of non-biblical faiths. Some religious activism is generally regarded as positive for society (abolition of slavery, women’s vote, civil rights) and other campaigns as negative (alcohol prohibition).

Certain “new atheists” are so intent on restricting religion that they would forbid parents from teaching their children about faith (while avoiding whether freethinkers should likewise be barred from teaching children that viewpoint). Some democratic nations have sought to discipline preachers who advocate traditional moral beliefs.

In the U.S., the Constitution erects a barrier against such extreme anti-religion tactics. But local and state legislatures, and increasingly powerful administrative rulings, have sought religious limits in various ways. For instance, a pending California law would drop a religious exemption to facilitate gay and transgender students’ discrimination suits, potentially affecting 42 colleges.

U.S. Supreme Court rulings draw the ultimate legal lines and thus provide many of the examples below.


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Weekend think piece: Questions to ask, when reporting on the state of a candidate's soul

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Around and around and around we go, with the ongoing chatter about the state of Citizen Donald Trump's soul ("Crossroads" podcast here) and the whole "is he or is he not a you know what kind of Christian" talk.

However, I have good news for all who are frustrated by all of this, including the fact that the Trump drama has offered a chance for journalists to laugh at people who are eternally serious when it comes to discussions of heaven and hell, sin and salvation.

One of the America's most respected scholars on matters of religion and the press has weighed in with some thoughts on this situation. I've known Stewart Hoover ever since our paths crossed soon after his doctoral studies. To make a long story short, he was very kind, at one point, to call some attention to my own University of Illinois graduate project (the short version in The Quill is here) digging into why journalists struggle to cover religion news. Anyone who has taught a college class on this subject knows his work.

Thus, this weekend's religion-news think piece comes from Hoover and can be found at ReligionDispatches.org. The headline: "Hillary's faith, Trump's conversion: Two questions journalists need to ask."

Here is a key part of the overture. It's almost like he's saying that many mainstream journalists, you know, kind of don't "get" religion.

Somewhere in each reporter’s notebook is a tab marked “religion.” The problem is that, unlike most of the other topics they’ll be reporting on, their understanding of religion is a mixture of broad bromides about the nature of religion in American life, mixed perhaps with entirely subjective notions of religion born of their own personal experience with it.

Among journalistic “broad truths:” religion used to be important to Americans, but isn’t anymore, except in rural areas and the Midwest and for those pesky evangelicals and mass-attending Catholics and of course the great and noble tradition of African-American Protestantism. What do you do about a candidate’s religion? She or he must have one, of course, but it doesn’t matter what it is -- except when it does.


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On California college bill controversy, media drift toward one-sided reporting

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Nice to see that we GetReligionistas aren’t the only ones who notice. When the Religion News Service churned out a story on bigoted, LGBT-hating Christian colleges -- seemingly an emerging mainstream media theme days -- a Faithful Reader alerted us along with a complaint:

RNS can’t be bothered, it seems, to actually interview an opponent of this bill, choosing instead to quote from an article on a conservative website and a statement of a state representative.

But RNS isn't alone: Other responsible media, such as the Catholic-oriented Crux, are doing much the same from the religious side.

First, the RNS article. In writing up a bill crawling through the California legislature that would yank federal aid from schools seen as discriminating against gays, RNS reaches out for a single direct quote -- from a gay activist.  The opposition? A conservative blogger and a Republican state senator -- their remarks lifted from written statements.

RNS says the state bill would apply Title IX -- a federal regulation forbidding sexual discrimination in schools -- to religious as well as secular schools. If it becomes law, the California stricture may well have national impact, the article explains:

While the law is seen by some as an attempt to get California religious schools to comply with the state laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, it could have national implications. Human Rights Watch, which calls the Title IX religious exemption "a license to discriminate," reports there are 56 schools nationwide that have requested such exemptions, including Wheaton College, Liberty University and George Fox University.
Forty-two California colleges qualify for Title IX religious exemptions, according to the National Center for Law & Policy, a California-based Christian legal defense group. At least seven have applied, including Biola University, Simpson University and William Jessup University.

Well, gee, who could object to that? Only religious groups that have believed for centuries that homosexuality is sinful, as well as the schools they’ve founded. Our regular readers likely see parallels with the recent bad p.r. against Gordon College, an evangelical school near Boston.


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After a home run, a baseball player looks to the sky — might something religious be occurring?

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For most of my life, I've loved baseball and newspapers.

I trace the roots of both those passions to the mid-1970s, when I was about 10 or 11 years old. At that time, my dad preached for a small Church of Christ in Elkin, N.C., a small town about 45 miles west of Winston-Salem.

The Cincinnati Reds — the Big Red Machine — were my team, and pre-gambling-scandal Pete Rose was my favorite player. One time, I wrote Rose a fan letter; I was overjoyed when I received an autographed picture from him in the mail. (That was several years before my family moved to the Lone Star State, where I the Texas Rangers became my team.)

In those days, a boy wanting to keep up with his favorite team couldn't buy an MLB.com package or Google for the score online. A few major-league games a week were televised — Saturday afternoon on NBC and Monday night on ABC, if I recall correctly — but the Reds were featured only a handful of times a year. 

So anytime I got my allowance, I'd buy a few packs of baseball cards and the latest edition of the Winston-Salem Journal. I'd memorize the previous season's stats from the back of the baseball cards and check the Journal's sports section to see how the Reds were doing in the standings. Often, the score from the previous night's game wouldn't make the next day's paper. It would be marked "late game," much to the chagrin of a boy who had just spent a precious quarter (I think that's what the daily edition cost back then) on the paper.

After looking for the baseball scores first, I'd go ahead and read the entire Journal — and thus began my lifelong love of headlines and news on the printed page.

Why do I mention all of the above? Credit (or blame) my friend Lisa Brewer, who lives in Wilkesboro, N.C. 


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Apocalypse when? The Deseret News muddles details on some complicated theology

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When The Atlantic came out with "What ISIS Really Wants," its classic piece on Islamic apocalyptic thought, in March 2015, it got a lot of press because of its clear-eyed insistence that the role of Islamic doctrine and history could not be ignored, when describing the radical faith preached by ISIS.

Remember, it's only been two years since ISIS declared a revived Islamic caliphate on June 29, 2014.

Maybe that's the reason why the Deseret News is writing about the end of the world in a recent story that links the two religions that have detailed Last Day narratives: Christianity and Islam.

The likeness ends there. Versions of the end of time are radically different among the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But you might not know that from the following article: 

The world didn't end during the early years of the Christian community, despite the apostle Paul's imminent predictions.
It didn't end in 1914, although WWI gave people quite a scare. It also didn't end on May 21, 2011, to the chagrin of popular evangelist and radio broadcaster Harold Camping, who predicted the date of the apocalypse several times during his career.
Apocalyptic teachings, including the idea that God intends for the world as we know it to cease to exist, have been part of both Christianity and Islam since their beginnings. In the U.S., around 1 in 5 adults say the apocalypse will happen in their lifetime, a figure that's stayed relatively constant over the past century.


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'Scare quotes' are back in the PR-esque coverage of Mississippi religious liberty bill

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The "scare quotes" are back.

Once again we face a familiar journalistic question: Is it possible to do news coverage of religious liberty debates linked to gay-rights issues in a way that accurately represents views on both sides and even -- imagine this -- quotes informed, qualified experts on both sides?

Also, flashing back to my Kentucky post from the other day, is the goal of these legal debates to promote the rights of gay couples who seek marriage licenses (and other services) or to punish traditional Christians, Jews, Muslims and others who believe that it would violate their consciences to be involved in same-sex union events?

With that in mind, let's walk carefully through the top of this recent USA Today network story about recent events in Mississippi.

JACKSON, Miss. -- U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves issued ... a permanent injunction barring Mississippi from denying same-sex marriage licenses, meaning no circuit clerk or staff member clerk can deny a gay couple a marriage license even if the state's "religious freedom" bill is in effect.

OK, so right now the state of Mississippi is preventing gay couples from obtaining marriage licenses. Did I read that correctly?

But the second half of the sentence addresses something completely different -- which is a bill to protect the First Amendment rights of individual clerks and staff members. Note the statement that "NO circuit clerk" can deny a license.


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It's the (oh, no, not again) art of Trump's deal with many old-guard evangelicals

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It's the (oh, no, not again) art of Trump's deal with many old-guard evangelicals

From the You Can’t Make This Up Department: During Donald Trump’s summit with nearly 1,000 evangelicals (GetReligion podcast here), Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. proudly tweeted out a photo of himself and wife Becki greeting the man who would be president.

Seen on the wall behind them was a framed Playboy magazine photo of Trump alongside a nubile Playmate.

Online liberal satirist Sarah Wood noted the Playmate is currently in prison for drug smuggling, and wondered why Falwell was “honored” to associate with “a thrice-married man who has more than insinuated that he wants to date his daughter, is currently racist, made money off screwing people over, and has posed for Playboy. Praise Jesus!”

Less derisively, Professor Tobin Grant, a Religion News Service columnist, quoted Trump’s new friends who not long ago warned he “can’t be trusted,” needs to “repent,” is “embarrassing,” a “scam,” and a“misogynist and philanderer” laden with “untruthfulness.” 

A second Grant piece listed words Trump never uttered during the 90-minute encounter: that would be Jesus, Christ, Bible, prayer, faith. “God” was mentioned once, however.


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The Supreme Court and pharmacists: CNN shines while Washington state newspapers punt

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Although I just moved to Washington state a year ago, I was unaware it is the only state in the country that mandates pharmacists to supply medicines they are opposed to on religious grounds. All other states have some sort of right of refusal for pharmacists.

Then along came Stormans Inc. v. Wiesman, a case involving an Olympia, Wash.-based pharmacy that objected to a state law mandating it sell certain forms of emergency contraception. The Tacoma News Tribune describes the background here.

Here is what CNN wrote about the latest Supreme Court action on this case:

Washington (CNN) -- Over the dissent of three conservative justices who expressed concern for the future of religious liberty claims, the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a case brought by the owner of a pharmacy and two pharmacists who objected to delivering emergency contraceptives such as Plan B.
The plaintiffs in the case, the Stormans family, sought to challenge Washington State regulation mandating that a pharmacy may not "refuse to deliver a drug or device to a patient because its owner objects to delivery on religious, moral or other personal grounds."
The Stormans are devout Christians and own a pharmacy in Olympia, Washington.
A federal appeals court held that the Washington regulations did not violate the First Amendment.


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