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In story about Muslim women art exhibit, follow-up questions are not on the menu

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Ever taste only part of a good meal? An article on an art exhibit on Muslim women in the Tampa Bay Times feels like that.

The Times raises several tantalizing questions about Muslim women -- their garb, their self-image, their public image -- but doesn't follow up most of them. The result reads less like dinner and more like a canape. 

It's a timely and urgent topic because traditional Muslim women  face more profiling than so Muslim men. With headdresses variously covering their hair, or wrapping around their necks as well, women are instantly identifiable as non-Jews or non-Christians -- and non-secular people, for that matter. So "Loud Print," the show at the Carrollwood Cultural Center, has the potential to open some eyes.

The artist, Ameena Khan, seems acutely aware of the issues herself:

Khan uses her artwork to initiate conversations about Muslim women. Her paintings portray a diverse group of women wearing hijabs, a cloth wrapped around their heads. One of the most striking paintings shows a woman struggling to keep her head up because her yellow hijab is so big. It's meant to represent the struggles Muslim women face wearing a hijab in public.
Meant to keep Muslim women hidden, the hijab seems instead to draw unwanted attention and sometimes hateful comments, Khan said. 
"You have this burden that you're carrying around," she said. "That's all people see."

Sounds pretty evocative, but it stops short. If a woman's most prominent garb is a symbol of her religion, and if a hijab is meant to keep women hidden, how are people to see the individual underneath? How is she to express herself otherwise? The Times doesn't say.

It does explain the idea of starting a conversation about Muslim women -- partly. Interestingly, the artist did it via social media:


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In the worst of times, the faith that sustains Dallas Police Chief David Brown

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Dallas Police Chief David Brown is a man of faith.

Even if you've followed the major media profiles of Brown in the wake of Thursday night's sniper ambush that claimed the lives of five officers in Dallas, you might have missed that.

Holy ghost, anyone?

With a notable, praiseworthy exception — and we'll get to that in a moment — the stories on Brown that I've seen have overlooked or downplayed the religion angle.

That's the case even with stories that are, otherwise, extremely compelling, such as this Washington Post piece highlighted by former GetReligionista Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

Yes, a quote in the Post profile cites Brown's "professionalism and faith," but that's as far as it goes.

Other stories leave out "faith" entirely:


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A broken nation hears, according to elite press, vague sermons on unity and reconciliation

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As America wrestled with bitter realities in Dallas, Baton Rouge, La., and the St. Paul, Minn., area, editors of The Washington Post and The New York Times reached the same conclusion -- this was a good time to send reporters to church, as in black and white churches in these troubled communities.

I agree with that decision, in part because I reached the same conclusion during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when I was teaching at Denver Seminary. Let me pause, for a second, to explain what that was all about.

The seminary had created a unique seminar -- it was planned long before the riots. Half of the students were black and half were white and our goal was to combine a class on the Old Testament prophets and my mass-media-framed class, "The Contemporary World and the Christian Task."

When the riots broke out, I decided the syllabus outline needed an update. I told the white students to contact black churches and find out (a) what the pastors had preached about on Sunday (days after the riots) and (b) what biblical texts they used. I asked the black students to call white churches, talk to the ministers, and ask the same questions.

So what did our students learn? Before I tell you, let's find out what happened when -- under very similar circumstances -- reporters at these two elite newspapers took on, sort of, the same assignment. Let's start with the Times story, "On a Somber Sunday, ‘One Nation Under God Examines Its Soul.' "

First things first: Times reporters covered several services focusing on justice and racial reconciliation. However, it appears that none of the services included spoken prayers or references to scripture, even when white pastors preached on the sins of white racism and the deaths of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile on Minnesota. Here is a typical anecdote:


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A Buddhist parable that applies to the Presbyterian Church in America and race

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A Buddhist parable that applies to the Presbyterian Church in America and race

The Religion Guy urges religion writers to monitor parochial media, but beware the obvious pitfall: Such sources can offer limited perspectives.

Remember the ancient Buddhist parable about blind men and the elephant? One touches the beast’s tail and thinks it’s a rope, another touches the trunk and thinks it’s a tree, a third touches the belly and thinks it’s a wall.  Limited perception distorts the fuller reality, something journalists are duty bound to depict fairly.  

So with the Presbyterian Church in America, well worth coverage as one of this generation’s most successful and innovative denominations, with influential conservatives among its members. Major secular media give the PCA little  notice and ignored its newsworthy General Assembly in June.

Christianity Today headlined a piece on the assembly “PCA Goes Back to Where it Started: Women’s Ordination.” True, one reason the PCA broke from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS) in 1973 was opposition to women in  church offices. The 2016 assembly ordered a study of whether women can be ordained as deacons (though not lay elders), and encouraged females’ full participation “in appropriate ministries.”

The assembly also approved overwhelmingly a declaration that the PCA “does recognize, confess, condemn and repent of corporate and historical sins, including those committed during the Civil Rights era.” Denounced as past PCA sins were claims “that the Bible sanctions racial segregation and discourages interracial marriage” and members’ “participation in and defense of white supremacist organizations.”

CT reported on this second action, which Religion News Service covered with both a spot item and a Tobin Grant analysis headlined “What Catalyst Started the Presbyterian Church in America? Racism.” Grant thinks “the PCA exists only because of its founders’ defense of slavery, segregation and white supremacy.” That’s truthy, but overly simplified.


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Talking Pat Summitt: Down South, it matters whether you're Baptist or Methodist

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Talking Pat Summitt: Down South, it matters whether you're Baptist or Methodist

If you grew up in the Bible Belt, then there's a good chance that you know the punch line to this old joke.

Question: How do you tell the difference between a Baptist and a Methodist in a Southern town?

Answer: The Methodist will say "Hi" to you at the liquor store, while the Baptist will stay silent.

That joke links up pretty well with another old Southern saying. In the typical Southern town or small city, church ties were supposedly linked to education. If you graduated from high school, you were a Baptist. If you had a college degree, you were a Methodist. If you had a law degree (or a sheepskin from a medical school) you were an Episcopalian.

Why bring all this up in a post linking to our new "Crossroads" podcast about University of Tennessee legend Pat Summitt, the trailblazing czarina who built the Lady Vols hoops empire? Click here to tune that in.

The link is actually pretty complex.

When I wrote my first post about the coverage of Summitt's death, at age 64 -- "The press missed this detail? Pat Summitt took a very timely walk into the waters of baptism" -- I noted that the mainstream press had missed an important passage in the official obituary posted at the Pat Summitt Foundation website, focusing on her faith and her relationship with her son Tyler (an only child, after six miscarriages).


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'The end is coming': Is there a religion angle in Dallas suspect's cryptic words?

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"The end is coming."

Dallas Police Chief David Brown attributed those cryptic words to a slain suspect in Thursday night's killings of five police officers.

Is there any kind of religious connotation to those words? It's too early to know. But it certainly seems like a valid question.

ABC News reports:

One of the suspects in the ambush-style shootings in Dallas that left five police officers dead overnight served in the U.S. Army Reserve. The suspect told a hostage negotiator that he was upset about the recent police shootings of two black men and that he wanted to kill white people, especially police officers, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference this morning.
The suspect, who was killed by police when they detonated a bomb delivered by robot, was identified today as 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Johnson served as an Army reservist until April 2015. He was trained and served in the Army Reserve as a carpentry and masonry specialist, defense officials said.
The suspect "wanted to kill officers" and "expressed anger for Black Lives Matter," Brown said.
"None of that makes sense," Brown said.


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Ark Encounter: RNS creationist park coverage is way ahead of the Times

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"The Ark Encounter: Where All the Yahoos in Kentucky Love It and All the Smart People Elsewhere Are Against It."

No, no, that isn’t really the title of the new creationist theme park. It's the reaction of a fellow GetReligionista after reading yesterday's article by the Religion News Service.

I can see where my colleague gets that from the way RNS covered the opening of the park, where Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis, has built a full-size replica of the biblical barge. But despite a few flaws, I still like the story -- especially compared with some of the competition.

The RNS piece is a luxuriant 1,500 words, enough to cover several facets.  And it gives us an expansive, non-cynical description:

The park’s centerpiece features three decks of exhibits explaining Answers in Genesis’ views of the biblical flood account and life-size figures depicting what life on the ark might have been like for Noah and his family — an extravaganza Ham described as "beyond Hollywood."
The park also features a two-story restaurant, aerial zipline cables and the Ararat Ridge Zoo with goats, ponies, emus and more animals. The next phase of park construction likely will include a walled city "that takes you back to Noah’s day" with shops, restaurants and street performers that visitors will walk through as they approach the ark, said Michael Zovath, chief action officer for Answers in Genesis and project director for the Ark Encounter.
But the Ark Encounter is "not just for entertainment," said Ham, president and CEO of Answers in Genesis.
It’s to "proclaim God’s word and the gospel," he said. It’s meant to show — in keeping with Answers in Genesis’ ministry, focused on issues such as creation, evolution, science and the age of the Earth — that the biblical flood account is historic and the Bible is true in regard to history and science.

But the RNS piece goes beyond p.r. It recounts the "rough waters" -- criticism by "freethinkers," legal tussles over tax breaks, disagreement from Christians who don’t read the Bible as literally as Ham & Company.


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Ciara and Russell Wilson wedding: What's God got to do, got to do with it?

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I will be the first to admit that I know absolutely noting -- nichevo, zip, nada, zero, niente -- about how serious journalists are supposed to cover celebrity weddings.

The dress is supposed to be important, right? I understand that. But might the actual content of the wedding have something to do with the, well, wedding?

I ask this because the glamorous power duo of Ciara and Russell Wilson have finally tied the knot and the chatty folks at USA Today are so, so excited. Is this a news story?

Ciara and Russell Wilson are married!
The R&B star wed the NFL quarterback in England on Wednesday and confirmed the news on social media, sharing a photo of their happy day with the caption, "We are the Wilsons!"
The nuptials took place at Peckforton Castle in front of roughly 100 of their closest friends and family members, according to TMZ. The bride wore a custom lace gown by Roberto Cavalli and carried a bouquet of snow white blooms. On Tuesday, Ciara, 30, and Wilson, 27, were captured by paparazzi dressed up for their rehearsal dinner at Liverpool's Titanic Hotel.

Now, this "story" had to deal with the big news hook in this relationship (other than possible recent rap-related death threats and stuff) over the past year or two. You remember that, of course. In an earlier post I talked called it "Tim Tebow syndrome" and added

Good grief. Have we really reached the point where journalists are shocked, shocked that traditional Christian believers strive to follow 2,000 years of doctrine asking them to hold off on sex until after they have taken their wedding vows?


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Mainstream news media and those missing Muslim voices denouncing terrorism

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Mainstream news media and those missing Muslim voices denouncing terrorism

How often have you heard talk radio and TV personalities lament that Muslims don’t denounce terrorism?

The general public also worries about that, and a major reason is that the mainstream media regularly ignore such denunciations when they occur.

Consider the June 12 Orlando attack. North American Muslims scrambled and got out a response of condolence and outrage the very next day, with more than 450 endorsers. The Guy found coverage only from a veteran Godbeat specialist, CNN religion editor Daniel Burke.  

This significant statement, “On the Carnage in Orlando,” hedged matters by noting the assumption of radical Muslim inspiration was based on news reports. But if that’s the case, the signers declared, that “would be a reprehensible distortion of Islam” that made this great world faith one of the victims of the attack.

“Any such acts of violence violate every one of our Prophet’s teachings,” they asserted. “Such an act of hate-fueled violence has no place in any faith.” Also, the “foulness” of the attack was worsened by occurring during Ramadan, Islam’s month of charity and spiritual purification.

There was also a plea to non-Muslims not to “place collective guilt on an entire community for the sins of individuals,” which would be “an egregious offense against the culture and laws of America.”

Did you hear about this? Did you see press coverage?

Organized Islam lacks the money, staffing and savvy to mount much-needed public relations campaigns. So assignment editors should keep this document on file because it names 450 moderates who can be phoned for comment after the next atrocity. The list features leaders from most major national Muslim organizations and local groups across North America.


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