Does religious freedom extend to churches stopping women from breastfeeding during services?

The law was on the woman's side.

So reported the Washington Post in a recent Metro cover story on a Virginia mother who complained she was asked to find a private room while breastfeeding in church:

Annie Peguero was trying to soothe her agitated 19-month-old baby in church on Sunday when she did what she often does — she nursed her. But her efforts to calm her daughter caused a stir in the sanctuary of Summit Church in Springfield.
A woman promptly asked the Dumfries mother to decamp to a private room, she said. Peguero declined and was later told that the church does not allow breast-feeding without a cover because it could make men, teenagers or new churchgoers “uncomfortable,” she said. One woman told her the sermon was being live-streamed and that she would not want Peguero to be seen breast-feeding.
The mother of two left her seat in the back of the church and fled, embarrassed and in shock. The next day, she posted her own livestream video on Facebook — with her baby, Autumn, at her breast — telling viewers what happened and urging women to stand up for breast-feeding.
“I want you to know that breast-feeding is normal,” she said.
It is also a legally protected right in Virginia, where the legislature passed a 2015 law that says women have a right to breast-feed anywhere they have a legal right to be.

But does that law apply to churches? If so, should it? Does the government really have a right to regulate what happens in a religious assembly? 

From the Post:


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Charmaine Yoest is a complex personality. Why can't reporters figure that out?

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Is it just my imagination, or are President Donald Trump’s female picks creating a lot more news-media hysteria than his male nominees?

Whether it’s Paula White as one of his six clergy speakers at his inauguration or Betsy DeVos as education secretary or now Charmaine Yoest as assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, the screaming is over the top.

I’ve never met Charmaine Yoest, although I heard her speak at the 2009 meeting of the Religion Newswriters Association and was impressed at the time. And for the record, my sympathies are with anyone who must work in the Humphrey building, a nasty piece of Brutalist architecture completed in 1977 that serves as HHS headquarters down the street from the Capitol. The one time I was inside was not a pleasant experience.

Back to the react. I’ll use Politico’s opening salvo as an example:

President Donald Trump on Friday said he would name one of the most prominent anti-abortion activists in the country to a top communications post at HHS.
Charmaine Yoest, tapped to be assistant secretary of public affairs, is a senior fellow at American Values. She is the former president of Americans United for Life, which has been instrumental in advancing anti-abortion legislation at the state level to restrict access to the procedure.
Her appointment was quickly panned by Democratic lawmakers and prominent abortion rights organizations. The assistant secretary of public affairs shapes communications efforts for the entire agency.
“Ms. Yoest has a long record of seeking to undermine women’s access to health care and safe, legal abortion by distorting the facts, and her selection shows yet again that this administration is pandering to extreme conservatives and ignoring the millions of men and women nationwide who support women’s constitutionally protected health care rights and don’t want to go backward," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement.
AUL’s website -- which states that the group offers state lawmakers 32 different pieces of model legislation to restrict access to abortion -- characterizes Yoest as “public enemy #1” for abortion rights organizations.

Betcha can’t guess where Politico stands on this appointment (or on abortion issues) can you?

 


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After crucial ruling against an openly lesbian bishop, what now for United Methodists?

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After crucial ruling against an openly lesbian bishop, what now for United Methodists?

In recent years, the "Seven Sisters" of the old mainline Protestant world have not been making as much news as they have in the past, at least as evidenced in the annual "top stories" polls conducted by the Religion News Assocition.

However, it’s likely that 2017’s  religion story of the year will be the April 28 United Methodist Church (UMC) ruling that the western region improperly consecrated Karen Oliveto as a bishop and she should be removed. Reason: as an openly married lesbian, she violated church law and her ordination vows.

That Judicial Council edict produced typically sure-footed stories by The Religion Guy’s former AP colleague Rachel Zoll (The San Francisco Chronicle ran wire copy even though Oliveto led a big local church!) and Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times (a rare treat that this fine, neglected scribe gets 34 inches atop A18!). United Methodist News’s Linda Bloom was a must-read (maxim: always check such official outlets plus independent caucuses left and right.)  

Jennifer Brown’s Denver Post spot story and walkup report were appropriately comprehensive, since Bishop Oliveto supervises five states from an office in suburban Denver. “Whatever the ruling, the expectation is that the denomination may divide,” Brown reported, noting that Methodism’s last split, over slavery, took 95 years to heal.

The media mostly overlooked another important Judicial Council decision. Reviewing Illinois and New York disputes, it reaffirmed that ordained or appointed clergy must observe “fidelity in marriage” or “celibacy in singleness.”

The UMC has long upheld traditional belief on sex and marriage shared among the nation’s five biggest denominations (with more than 100 million members). Groups shifting in conscience to favor same-sex clergy and marriage, e.g. Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), exist only within the U.S. But at UMC policy-setting General Conferences the U.S. has only 58 percent of delegates, with 30 percent from Africa and 12 percent from elsewhere. In Protestantism worldwide, liberal change is largely limited to predominantly white “Mainline” churches in western Europe and North America.


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God, guns and Russia: Washington Post fails to note crucial detail about summit on persecuted Christians

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The lead story in today's Washington Post focuses on guns, religion and "how American conservatives grew closer to Putin's Russia."

If that storyline sounds familiar, it's because Time had a "quite similar" piece back in March, as the magazine's Godbeat pro, Elizabeth Dias, pointed out on Twitter.

The Rev. Franklin Graham, the prominent evangelical pastor, figures heavily in the Post's story, but a GetReligion reader who emailed me voiced concern about Graham's portrayal:

It seems to me that Franklin Graham’s actions have been — at best — incompletely reported here, if not considerably distorted. Note that the sections on Graham fail to note the reason why the persecution conference was moved from Moscow to Washington. Why? Perhaps because that reason undermines the narrative of the article.

After reading the Post's coverage and reviewing the relevant background not included in the story, I must say I share the reader's concern. More on that in a moment.

But first, what narrative does the Post push? The lede sets the scene:

Growing up in the 1980s, Brian Brown was taught to think of the communist Soviet Union as a dark and evil place.
But Brown, a leading opponent of same-sex marriage, said that in the past few years he has started meeting Russians at conferences on family issues and finding many kindred spirits.
Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, has visited Moscow four times in four years, including a 2013 trip during which he testified before the Duma as Russia adopted a series of anti-gay laws.
“What I realized was that there was a great change happening in the former Soviet Union,” he said. “There was a real push to re-instill Christian values in the public square.”
A significant shift has been underway in recent years across the Republican right.
On issues including gun rights, terrorism and same-sex marriage, many leading advocates on the right who grew frustrated with their country’s leftward tilt under President Barack Obama have forged ties with well-connected Russians and come to see that country’s authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, as a potential ally.


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Correction please: The New York Times struggles with a fine detail in United Methodist law

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For decades, United Methodists managed to live together in semi-peace by using a simple plan -- they lived in different places. This allowed them to ordain pastors and elect bishops who took radically different approaches to doctrine and church law.

This was explained, back in the mid-1980s, in a prophetic study called "The Seven Churches of Methodism." The bottom line: It was hard to find the ties that could bind the declining flocks in the "Yankee Church," "Industrial Northeast Church," "Western Church" and "Midwest Church" with those in the "Church South" and the "Southwest Church."

The cutting-edge on the progressive future was found in Denver, in the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference and the Iliff School of Theology. If would-be United Methodist pastors disagreed with the church they could go West, and many did. In the late-1980s, a gay youth minister at Iliff told me (I was at The Rocky Mountain News) that she estimated 40 percent of the student body, perhaps even 50 percent, was gay.

This reality first hit the headlines in 1980 when Denver Bishop Melvin Wheatley, Jr., announced that he was openly rejecting church teachings that homosexual acts were “incompatible with Christian teaching.” Soon, he appointed an openly gay pastor to a Denver church. When challenged, Wheatley declared: “Homosexuality is a mysterious gift of God’s grace. I clearly do not believe homosexuality is a sin.”

All of this is highly relevant to understanding the tensions laid out in that New York Times piece that ran with this headline: "Methodist High Court Rejects First Openly Gay Bishop’s Consecration."

But before we get there, we need to look at one other detail in the early Denver cases that remains important for reporters who want to do accurate coverage of the UMC debates in the here and now.

That Denver pastor survived in ministry, in part, because the church law opposed the appointment of “self-avowed, practicing” homosexuals. Thus, when appearing before church officials, he simply declined to answer questions about his sexual history or practice. He was, therefore, not “self-avowed” -- at least not during official church meetings. Sympathetic leaders in the West declared that he was not in violation of the larger church’s doctrinal standards. It didn't matter what the man said in newspaper interviews.


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Weekend thinking about old-line Protestant demographics, doctrine and future Easters

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If you follow religion news closely (which would make you the kind of person who frequents this website), then you know that there are two major, overarching trends taking place in modern America that are affecting all kinds of religious organizations.

This is certainly true in Christianity and also in Judaism. The same trends may be affecting Muslims and members of other major world religions, but I am not sure -- in part because I have not seen enough research in those communities.

The first major trend -- which has generated massive amounts of coverage -- is the rapidly rising tide of Americans identifying themselves as "religiously unaffiliated," meaning that they claim no ties to any particular religious tradition. Yes, these are the "Nones." This does not mean that they are pure secularists, although many are (while some are "spiritual but not religious"). The stats for atheists and agnostics are on the rise, as well.

The second trend, in tension with the first, is that the large slice of the American population that practices traditional forms of religious faith does not appear to be declining, or not at a rapid rate. True, some of these believers have been switching from one sanctuary to another.

It is also significant, in terms of demographics, that people in more doctrinally conservative forms of faith tend to (a) have more children and (b) take part in efforts to win converts to their faith. See, for example, the numbers for Pentecostal Christians and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Compare the birth rates for Orthodox and Reform Jews.

What is shrinking is the "mushy middle" of the spectrum, the lukewarm believers and those in faiths that make weaker demands on their time and convictions. Yes, this same theme showed up in that recent flurry of online discussions about the future of the religious left.

This brings us to a trend that researchers have been discussing for nearly 50 years -- the statistical decline of the "seven sisters" denominations in old-line Protestantism. And that, in turn, brings us to this weekend's think piece on a topic close to the religion beat -- an "Acts of Faith" essay in The Washington Post by Ed Stetzer, the executive director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. 

The headline is a grabber: "If it doesn’t stem its decline, mainline Protestantism has just 23 Easters left."


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Pity Uncle Sam, who struggles with an unanswerable question: What is a 'religion'?

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Pity Uncle Sam, who struggles with an unanswerable question: What is a 'religion'?

Pity poor Uncle Sam.

The need to provide chaplains and otherwise serve  military personnel requires the government to define the indefinable -- What is a “religion”? –- and to deal with  the increasing variety of American faiths. An April 21 Kimberly Winston report for Religion News Service revealed that a Department of Defense memo to manpower directors (.pdf here), issued back on March 27, doubles recognized religious preferences, to 221.

Religion-beat writers might well pursue Winston’s scoop with local angles or see how it’s playing among military-watchers and leaders in conventional religions.

Atheists and humanists campaigned for the military’s broadened list so that chaplains will help soldiers of those persuasions to get resources and contact like-minded groups and individuals, and so that followers of new and small faiths or non-faith can be granted leave for their festival observances, travel to group   events, and such.

Among the religions that made the revised list (which, alas, is not alphabetized by DOD!): Asatru, Deism, Druid, Eckankar, Gard Wi, Magick, Sacred Well, Spiral Tree, Troth and generic “Heathen,” “New Age” and “Shaman.” But not Scientology, which long fought the IRS for recognition as a religion to gain tax exemption.

Soldiers can now be listed as “no preference, “no religion,” “none provided” or “unknown,” but no longer will be given the choice of designation as “Protestant, no denominational preference” or “Protestant, other churches.” How come?

DOD or its Armed Forces Chaplains Board flubbed the effort a bit.


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The Eucharist -- Made In France

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Easter is one of the silly seasons for the media. The holiday sees a spike in publication of religion-themed stories in the secular press -- often with uneven results.

Some outlets opine on topics for which they are manifestly unqualified to offer an opinion.  Donald Trump's “Two” Corinthians controversy and the New York Times' inability to explain Easter are two recent examples noted by GetReligion.

The season also sees the production of prestige stories seeking to sum up the meaning of life in 2000 words or less. Time magazine has a long tradition, which began long before its “Is God Dead” 1966 cover story, of investing in these middlebrow faith stories.

A third seasonal trope is the religion item tied to events in the secular world. These present the opportunity for the writer to demonstrate his cleverness. One that caught my eye over Easter reported on calls for protecting French domestic industry from unfair competition.

The story in the French opinion magazine, Boulevard Voltaire, entitled “Les monastères français en péril: la Pologne et les USA « cassent » le marché des hosties” tied President Trump’s sabre-rattling over allegations that Canada is dumping lumber and dairy products in the United States with news that French nuns were protesting the importation of cheap Eucharistic hosts from the USA and Poland, undercutting domestic industry.

Let me set the scene. The European press loves Donald Trump, but not in the way it loved Barack Obama.


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Crossroads podcast: A Muslim at an Episcopal altar? Face it, that's a complicated story

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Sometimes the issue flares up in a major religious denomination. Take, for example, the 2007 case of an Episcopal priest who declared, "I am both Muslim and Christian." She was eventually defrocked. Coverage of that story led to some interesting discussions here at GetReligion.

Quite some time ago, there was the case of a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor who was disciplined for taking part in a post-Sept. 11 service that involved praying with Oprah Winfrey, as well as leaders from a wide spectrum of religious traditions, including Islam and Hinduism. 

Or maybe we're talking about a professor at a major evangelical Protestant school -- like Wheaton College -- who not only wore a hijab in support of oppressed Muslims, but took to social media to declare that she believes that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. She quoted the pope, when making that point.

These kinds of news reports loomed in the background during this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to tune that in), which focused on a recent Holy Week Mass in the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, during which the clergy renewed their ordination vows.

The bottom line: Stories about interfaith work and worship almost always raise complicated theological issues and, nine times out of 10, there are more than two camps of believers involved in the debates. Hold that thought.

Key details about the new Holy Week story: A Muslim interfaith leader preached during the rite, in the normal point in the liturgy dedicated to the sermon. A passage from the Quran was read, before the Gospel. The preacher stood with the bishop and others at the altar during the consecration prayers and she received the consecrated bread during Holy Communion.

All of this was discussed in my Universal syndicate "On Religion" column this week. Here is a sample of that column, which included material from contacts with Bishop Robert C. Wright, as well as the preacher, Soumaya Khalifah.


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