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A month after massacre, heartache and hope: Why this local story on Sutherland Springs is a must read

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Hopeful. Sensitive. Nuanced.

What we have here is one more example — past ones here and here — of the importance of local newspapers in reporting local news, even if that news happens to make national headlines, too.

I'm talking about the San Antonio Express-News' exceptional story on how victims of the Sutherland Springs, Texas, church massacre are doing one month after the tragedy that claimed 26 lives.

The headline, "A month after church massacre, faith and healing in Sutherland Springs," accurately reflects both the content and the tone of the piece.

As a reader, I felt like the reporter took me inside the lives of the still-grieving families who lost loved ones at the First Baptist Church on Nov. 5 — but without intruding on them. 

The powerful opening paragraphs:

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS — Frank Pomeroy pauses outside his daughter’s room, unable to enter. He knows what’s inside: Annabelle’s bed, her One Direction poster and various items in shades of purple — her favorite color.
But Pomeroy and his wife, Sherri, can’t look in her room yet. It reminds them too much of the girl they lost.
“It seemed like it was just yesterday I had dropped her off at school. It seemed like I had just told her, ‘I’ll see you Monday,’” the First Baptist Church pastor says, his eyes watering behind his glasses.
Pomeroy wasn’t at the church here the morning of Nov. 5 when a gunman walked in and opened fire with a military-style rifle.
Devin Patrick Kelley killed 14-year-old Annabelle and 25 others, including an unborn child, before he was shot and then killed himself during a car chase. Twenty people in the packed sanctuary were wounded. Kelley’s motive remains unclear, though he had a history of violence.
Four weeks after the church massacre, time stretches and snaps for people in this town of 600 south of San Antonio, shifting from fast to slow to fast again. One moment, it’s as if their loved ones were just there with them. The next, there’s a gaping hole, a monumental loss.
“The days run together. It’s like being on an island where you lose track of days,” Pomeroy said Thursday at his church office.


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Alabama 101: New York Times (sort of) gets that Roy Moore is TOAST if facing pro-life centrist

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As people say down here in the Bible Belt: "Bless their hearts."

In this case, we are talking about folks on the national desk at The New York Times, who set out to explain why there is a chance that former Judge Roy Moore will still win a ticket to the U.S. Senate in Alabama, in his race with liberal Democrat Doug Jones. The headline: "Alabama’s Disdain for Democrats Looms Over Its Senate Race."

The bad news is that, if you just scan the headline, you'd think that the unfolding train wreck in Alabama is all about party politics and that's that. Any religion angles to this soap opera? What do you think?

The good news is that, about 800 or so words into this piece, the Times team starts digging into some complex and interesting information about why so many Alabama voters -- people who really, really don't want to vote for Moore -- may end up voting for him anyway or writing in a third option. Fact is, it's kind of like a bad flashback of the 2016 presidential race.

What's going on? Way, way into this report there is this:

John D. Saxon, an Alabama lawyer and a decades-long stalwart of Democratic politics, said he had recently been out Christmas shopping when a man he did not know approached him in a parking lot. The man had a message for Mr. Jones.
“You tell him if he’ll change his position on abortion, I can get him all the Republican votes he’s going to need,” the man said, according to Mr. Saxon.

A few lines later there is this second piece of the combination punch, care of Jared Arsement, who worked with pro-life Democrat John Bel Edwards, who was elected governor in deep-red Louisiana:

“If Roy Moore wins,” he said, “it will only be because of Doug Jones’s stance on abortion.”

Or, as I put things the other day on Twitter:


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Do Canadian journalists get the basic religious freedom issues in Trinity Western case?

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An evangelical Christian university in British Columbia that has been blocked from starting its own law school got its day in court late last week. What was supposed to be Canada’s first Christian law school has had a lot of delays in getting off the ground because of lawsuits.

Nine judges on Canada’s Supreme Court, meeting in Ottawa, deliberated whether a law school can be accredited because its students must affirm traditional Christian doctrines on sex outside of traditional marriage (thereby excluding sexually active gay students) although, if you read Trinity Western University's covenant carefully, it does not mandate that students be Christian.

The case is known as  Trinity Western University v. Law Society of Upper Canada and Trinity Western University v. The Law Society of British Columbia Society.

I wrote about this case a few weeks ago and I thought Canadian media would be full of stories on the hearing -- but that’s not been the case. The Lawyer’s Daily, published by LexisNexis Canada, had the most complete account, which is what I start with here:

Day one of the much-anticipated Trinity Western University (TWU) hearing at the Supreme Court featured tough judicial questions for both sides, but most questions were directed to counsel for the evangelical Christian university which contends British Columbia and Ontario legal regulators shouldn’t have denied it accreditation for its proposed law school.
In the overflowing courtroom jammed with 69 counsel, and dozens of spectators watching on a big screen outside, nine judges probed TWU’s counsel Kevin Boonstra of Kuhn LLP and Robert Staley of Bennett Jones…

For those of you wanting to read this, there is a paywall, but you can get two weeks of it free, which means that all you need do is create a log-on to scan the piece.

Themes explored by the judges, who will also hear from 27 interveners on Dec. 1, included: How broad or narrow is the law societies’ statutory mandate to protect the public interest -- and did the regulators go beyond their jurisdiction by denying accreditation based on TWU’s controversial admissions policy requiring all would-be students, including those who are LGBTQ2, to sign a religious-based code of conduct restricting sexual intimacy to opposite-sex married couples. ...


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Visit from classic MZ: Concerning 2017's sort-of news about anti-Starbucks evangelicals

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It's that time of year, again. I know that I keep saying that, but there's no way around it.

It's time for the annual alleged cursing of the Starbucks Holiday cup design.

Once again, several major branches of elite media -- including the all-important New York Times -- are dancing with delight to know that some knuckle-dragging evangelicals are upset with some element of this iconic symbol in the lives of urban consumers of over-priced coffee.

This year, we are talking about a culture wars topic, as well as a new round in the Christmas Wars. Now, in the following Times passage, pay close attention to the sourcing on information about this alleged evangelical cyber-lynch mob. I will then turn things over to M.Z. "GetReligionista Emerita" Hemingway for her Federalist critique of this mess.

The latest controversy has focused ... on a pair of gender-neutral hands holding each other on the side of the cup itself.

Those linked hands came to wider public attention after BuzzFeed published an article about them on Wednesday. It suggested the cup was “totally gay.”
“While people who follow both Starbucks holiday cup news and L.G.B.T. issues celebrated the video, the ordinary Starbucks customer probably didn’t realize the cup might have a gay agenda,” BuzzFeed said.

Thus saith BuzzFeed. Then:

After that, it was off to the races.
Fox News picked up the story of what it called the “androgynous” cartoon hands, referring to Bible-quoting critics of Starbucks and criticizing BuzzFeed, which it said had “asserted the hypothesis is fact.”

Thus saith Fox News, one of our culture's most popular arenas for all things Christmas Wars.


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Vikings, Islam, fabrics and a dose of magical thinking in The New York Times

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Being the New York Times means never having to say you’re sorry.

The Grey Lady was, along with other media outlets, taken in by claims made by a Swedish university professor about Islam and Vikings. The story played into the post-Charlottesville progressive narrative denigrating the alt-Right. White supremacists had championed the Vikings as the progenitors of a superior Nordic race -- but new archaeological evidence showed some Vikings had converted to Islam and brought the faith to Scandinavia.

The problem with the story was that it was not true.

The New York Times, Guardian, Independent and other outlets uncritically ran with it, but the Independent, unlike the Times, followed with a second article walking back the story.

The first day stories followed the pattern set in the Independent’s “Researchers find name of Allah woven into ancient Viking burial fabrics.” It cited a study released by a Swedish professor that claimed in its lede: 

Allah's name has been found embroidered into ancient Viking burial clothes, a discovery researchers in Sweden have described as "staggering".

It doubles down on this “staggering” news to note:

The silk patterns were originally thought to be ordinary Viking Age decoration but, upon re-examination by archaeologist Annika Larsson of Uppsala University, it was revealed that they were a geometric Kufic script. They were found on woven bands as well as items of clothing, in two separate grave sites, suggesting that Viking funeral customs had been influenced by Islam.

In support of her claims, Larsson stated that the silks she examined contained “ancient Arabic script, Kufic characters, invoking both Allah and Ali.” There were, however, some questions still to be answered, she conceded.


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Game of fonts: Are questions about Meghan's faith linked to England's past or future?

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Game of fonts: Are questions about Meghan's faith linked to England's past or future?

Well, I guess this lofty news source makes things extra, extra official.

Concerning the faith angle in the upcoming royal wedding, Brides.com has proclaimed: "Meghan Markle Has to Be Baptized Before Marrying Prince Harry -- Here’s Why."

Wait a minute: "Has to be baptized"?

Yes, it's time for more British Royals talk, a subject that -- in certain corners of global media -- is even more important than politics. We're talking about the highest possible level of celebrity status and, in the world of click-bait, there is no higher value (check out the three Google News screens of Meghan Markle coverage at Brides.com). That sound you hear is editors and TV producers muttering: "If only Prince Harry had picked a Kardashian."

But the question of Markle's faith is, as I discussed earlier this week ("Royal wedding quiz: Must a 'Protestant' be baptized in order to become an Anglican?"), actually rather interesting.

The bottom line" Since when does some one "have" to be baptized in order to become a member of the Church of England? That would either mean, while consistently being called a "Protestant," she (a) was never baptized in the first place or (b) there was, doctrinally speaking, something flawed about her baptism. If we're talking about the later, that has some interesting implications in terms of ecumenical life.

So this baptism controversy was the issue that host Todd Wilken and I waded into (see what I did there) during this week's "Crossroads" podcast (click here to listen to that).

No, we didn't talk about Brides.com, but the content there would not have addressed any of the questions that we raised. For example:

This bride needs to be baptized! Before marrying Prince Harry, Meghan Markle actually needs to be baptized in the Church of England, which her soon-to-be grandmother-in-law, the queen of England, heads.

Well, that's a complicated question, mixing church and state.


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It's the Friday Five: Our favorite religion story, our most popular post and more

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Today's post is brought to you -- as they say on "Sesame Street" -- by the number five.

The GetReligion gang is trying out a new kind of post -- the "Friday Five."

At the end of each week, we'll share a few links and quick details in this listicle format. Along the way, we hope to provide a mix of important and insightful information and even a smidgen of humor. 

Here goes:

1. Religion story of the week: We mean for this to be a positive mention. Some weeks, this will be the best religion journalism that we spot. Other weeks, it'll simply be our favorite read of the week.

This week, who can ignore a Godbeat feature that makes reference to "concealed carry hymnals." Katherine Burgess of the Wichita Eagle wrote this story on a man who saved his church with a "hymnal and a body slam." 


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What drives hard choices made by ex-Muslims? BBC coverage stays on the surface

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Years ago, I did a lengthy news piece on Muslims who leave Islam for other religions. Most of the ones I met turned to Christianity but there was a respectable amount who believed in nothing at all.

Most of these sources were afraid for their lives, so I had to stage cloak-and-dagger encounters in places where no one would spot us talking.

Shariah law decrees that leaving Islam is a punishment worth of death and that it’s incumbent on the observant Muslims to carry this out. There are, of course, different forms and interpretations of Shariah law, but the pattern is harsh punishments and death threats for ex-Muslims.

So it’s amazing that BBC found enough people to go on the record about their lives as ex-Muslims in the United States. Granted, the venue was a tour of several college campuses, but it is tough under any circumstances to get anyone in this movement to let their names be used on the record. BBC reported:

Muslims who leave the faith often face abuse and violence - but a grassroots group that's touring American colleges is trying to help.
Ten years ago, Muhammad Syed became an ex-Muslim. Born in the US, he grew up in Pakistan believing "100 per cent" in Islam. 
"You don't encounter doubt," he says. "Everyone around you believes it."
And then, in 2007, he realised something. He didn't believe at all.

The piece details more of Muhammad’s spiritual journey and then:

Muhammad calls his family "relatively liberal". "Mom in particular was very open-minded," he says. So he decided to tell them he was an ex-Muslim. Not immediately, but "within a few weeks, certainly a month or two".
And what did they say? "They were obviously traumatised and shocked," he says.


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In this congressional race, the question apparently is: Which candidate loves Jesus more?

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When I got home from work the other day, I found a political flyer on my door.

The full-color leaflet concerned a legislative race in the Oklahoma House district where I live. I don't have the shiny paper handy, but what I remember is: The candidate touts herself as a pastor's daughter and a devoted Christian. Apparently, that kind of thing matters where I live. (Smile.)

Unrelated side note: The woman running for the seat wrote a personal note to our family and said she was sorry she missed us. That'll probably stick with me longer than the mailer itself.

But anyway ...

I bring up the above little anecdote because of an interesting story (to say the least) in the Charlotte Observer this week. 

When I first printed out the piece to read, this was the headline:

Rep. Robert Pittenger airs new ad featuring Jesus Christ

But now there's a new headline, and yes, I'd say this one better nails my question about this U.S. House race:

How did Jesus Christ become an issue in this NC primary?

The lede provides the basic facts:


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