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Jim Bakker plus real estate plus the apocalypse plus zero new reporting equals WHAT?

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Jim Bakker likes to build things.

In the old days be built really big things and news consumers with a long attention span will remember how that turned out. Click here for a recent news update.

Today he's building smaller things -- like Ozark cabins for the post-apocalyptic age. Buyers will need lots of Bakker approved religious-home furnishings, of course.

As you would imagine, there are people who want to write about that. The question is whether, in a social-media and Internet journalism age, WRITING about this topic actually requires journalists at a major newspaper in the Midwest to do any new REPORTING, other than with an Internet search engine.

Here's the Kansas City Star headline: "Televangelist Jim Bakker calls his Missouri cabins the safest spot for the Apocalypse." Read this story and count the online and streaming info sources. I'll start you off with the overture:

Televangelist Jim Bakker suggests that if you want to survive the end of days, the best thing you could do is buy one of his cabins in Missouri's Ozark Mountains. And while you're at it, be sure to pick up six 28-ounce "Extreme Survival Warfare" water bottles for $150.

Bakker, 78, made comments promoting his Morningside church community alongside his co-host and wife, Lori, on an episode of "The Jim Bakker Show," which aired Tuesday. The show is filmed there, near Branson.

Then there's a short flashback to the PTL Club days in Charlotte, with no attribution necessary. That's followed by a temptress Jessica Hahn update, care of reporting by The Charlotte Observer a few months ago. Then a bit more history, with no attribution.

Then we're back to information gained by watching the new Bakker show from Branson.

But wait. Read this next part carefully.


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Pounding George Pell in the press: The cardinal takes a hit from the Gray Lady

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The “trial of the century” of Cardinal George Pell -- the Vatican’s “number 3” man and head of its finances - on sexual abuse charges has been passed by a Melbourne Magistrate to the Victoria County Court for adjudication. On April 30, Magistrate Belinda Wallington found there was sufficient evidence to justify a trial for the 76-year old former archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, who has been placed on leave by Pope Francis to respond to the charges.

The case has been closely followed by the Australian and Italian press for the past three years, while the US and British press has also covered the spectacle. The coverage has been all over the map. 

Some outlets, like The Australian, have done a thorough balanced job -- others like the New York Times have fallen short in their professional standards. Conservative Catholic blogs have long criticized the coverage of the Pell case as  against the cardinal -- and part of the larger battle of doctrine being waged between progressives and traditionalists within the church.

Not unexpectedly, the Italian press has viewed the Pell case on advocacy-journalism lines - the anti-clerical or liberal papers have already found him guilty, the Catholic papers see him as a martyr to police misconduct, media bias and anti-Catholic sentiment, while the center plays it down the middle with a ‘too soon to tell’ what to think about George Pell approach.

When the charges surfaced last year, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) observed:

The centrist Corriere Della Sera newspaper noted the cardinal was "the highest representative of the Catholic Church every involved in such a case". The liberal La Repubblica warned "the shadow of pedophilia and rape returns to obscure the church". It described the cardinal as the "controversial kangaroo" and branded Australia as "a paradise of the orcs", saying in the past seven per cent of priests had been accused of sexual assault.

Today’s headlines from Italy follow this pattern. The lede in La Repubblica’s story “Abusi sessuali e pedofilia, il cardinale Pell rinviato a giudizio in Australia” (Sexual abuse and paedophilia -- Cardinal Pell indicted in Australia) states: 


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This is ironic: Paige Patterson is front-page news in Houston, too, but not for controversial comments

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Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, is front-page news today in newspapers including the Washington Post and his local Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

If you've somehow missed the controversy surrounding Patterson, check out tmatt's recent commentary on "Southern Baptists, domestic violence and divorce: Will SBC '18 be a must-cover press event?" and "Southern Baptists and domestic violence: It's a tough issue to cover after Twitter explosion."

Actually, this post is only tangentially about Patterson and the domestic violence issue.

I mention that news only because I find it ironic that Patterson also is a key source in a front-page Houston Chronicle story today — but one with a completely different topic and tone.

The Chronicle story quotes Patterson related to a Texas prison seminary run by Southwestern Baptist. It's a program that the Houston newspaper has covered before. In fact, I wrote a GetReligion post about the feature that ran two years ago. The title of that post: "Jailhouse religion in Lone Star State's toughest lockup raises church-state question."

A few months later, when the Dallas Morning News did a similar feature on state-sanctioned minister training inside the Lone Star State's toughest lockups, I repeated my original question:

My only criticism — and it's more a question than harsh criticism — is the same as I had concerning the earlier Chronicle story: What exactly is the relationship of the state and the seminary concerning this program? How does the state sanctioning pastor training inside a prison not violate the separation of church and state? What are the rules, and how is Texas making sure to follow them?

Not to sound like a broken record, but my question remains unanswered in this latest Houston Chronicle story, which fails to offer any skeptical analysis of a Christian seminary embraced and endorsed by public officials.


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Generic God brings 'miracle' boy to life, after medical authorities called him a goner

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Doctors were ready to pull the plug.

The 13-year-old Alabama boy's parents had already signed a set of organ-donation papers. They braced themselves for the worst.

Then something happened that the medical team could not explain, the kind of thing that parents -- yes -- pray for in these circumstances.

As it turned out, the medical experts didn't know everything. For some unknown reason, this boy's brain woke up. Here is the top of the USA Today report:

Jennifer Nicole Reindl has a simple explanation for her young son's recovery from the brink of death due to severe brain injuries.

"It's a miracle," Reindl tells USA TODAY, citing her belief that the hand of God is behind it all.

As you can see, this story is going to have a religion angle -- a strong one. The problem is that there is zero evidence in this story -- which combined aggregation with new reporting -- that reporters or editors asked a single question about the details of this family's faith.

This is, as your GetReligionistas call it, a "generic" God story. Let's continue reading:


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Beware: Middle East freelancing isn't just dangerous -- it may also leave you broke

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Beware: Middle East freelancing isn't just dangerous -- it may also leave you broke

Many GetReligion readers are undoubtedly familiar with the name Terry A. Anderson, the Associated Press Middle East correspondent taken hostage in Lebanon in 1985 by Hezbollah, and who remained a captive until 1991.

If not, click here for a refresher. Or here for a column by our own tmatt about Anderson’s Catholic faith -- written days after 9/11.

What you may not know is that Anderson has a daughter, Sulome Anderson, who personifies the chip-off-the-old-block cliche -- the block being journalism of the most difficult and dangerous sort. I’m referring to richly reported, long-form pieces about Middle East (some say militant, I say terrorist) groups who take delight in convulsing the always explosive region.

Still in her early 30s, Sulome’s an award-winning freelance veteran who’s been published by a bevy of top-quality outlets. Her grit is obvious, as are her courage and journalism chops. She’s also an acclaimed author; her book, “The Hostage’s Daughter,” was greeted with acclaim when it was released in 2016.

But despite her success -- brace yourself for the sad truth of her situation -- she found herself unable to make a decent living by pursuing her passion for Middle East reporting. Forced to find another way to pay the rent, she left the region no returned stateside.

The saddest aspect of this, journalistically speaking, is that she’s by no means unique.

Now to what others here at GetReligion refer to as their “guilt files” -- which for me means my online file where I stash links and notes on individual stories or broader issues that I hope to post on, someday.

In that file dwells this story from earlier this year. It’s a piece on the younger Anderson’s professional plight published by the Columbia Journalism Review.


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Nothing but net: Boston Globe nails story of faith and prayer guiding a Celtics rookie

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Here at GetReligion, we talk a lot about holy ghosts in sports stories.

These are just a handful of cases (here, here, here, here and here) where we have pointed out God-sized holes in mainstream press coverage of athletes.

But here's a nice change: a major newspaper feature about an NBA rookie that nails the crucial faith angle.

Boston Globe sports editor Matt Pepin tweeted that "No one brings you more insight about Celtics players than @AdamHimmelsbach." If this piece is any indication, I'd have to agree with him.

The headline gets right to the point:

Faith and prayers help guide Celtics’ Semi Ojeleye

And the opening narrative sets the scene:

As Gordon Hayward lay on the court Oct. 17, his left ankle snapped sideways, his season over essentially before it even began, Celtics assistant coach Micah Shrewsberry knew he had to do something about the rest of the team.

Head coach Brad Stevens was with Hayward, touching his shoulder and letting his former Butler University pupil know he was there. The other Celtics were scattered around the court, several with their hands on their heads, lost in a daze. It was just five minutes into a season that held such promise, and now it was already dissolving in front of them.

Shrewsberry called to rookie forward Semi Ojeleye, a second-round pick from Southern Methodist who didn’t expect to have much of a role on this night. Shrewsberry had gotten to know Ojeleye over the previous few months and knew how much he was guided by his faith. And in this crushing moment, that’s what the Celtics needed.

Ojeleye was initially startled, because he thought Shrewsberry was telling him that he would be going into the game. Instead, the request was about something more comfortable.

“Semi,” Shrewsberry said, “can you just bring everybody together, and can you help us pray for Gordon?”

This is not a long profile — it's a concise, 800-word feature for a daily paper. 


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How to cover Jordan Peterson, while avoiding truth-shaped holes in his 'secular' gospel

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At least once a week, I receive an email from a reader asking me -- as a columnist -- when I am going to write about Jordan Peterson.

You see, there are lots of folks who believe Peterson is, well, the next C.S. Lewis.

Then there are others who worry that Peterson's unique worldview -- secular philosophy, with no confessed ties to a religious tradition -- are exactly the kind of thing that Lewis warned about in our modern and now postmodern world. Lewis knew a lot about the lines between deism, theism and Christian faith.

Then there are those who, after careful parsing of several thousand Peterson remarks on YouTube about the Bible and truth, are convinced that there is a faith tradition in there somewhere, one that the bestselling author ("12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos") doesn't -- for some reason -- want to state openly.

However, if you study the Peterson phenomenon you are going to run into religion and, in particular, debates about whether truth is relative and evolving or transcendent and absolute. Yes, we are James Davison Hunter territory once again. What a surprise.

Anyway, the Washington Post recently published an oh-so-predictable feature about Peterson, with this headline: "Jordan Peterson is on a crusade to toughen up young men. It’s landed him on our cultural divide."

I have some good news and some bad news, for GetReligion readers who are interested in this topic.

The good news: There's a ton of material to read in this feature linked to the religion ghosts in his worldview and the issues that have made him so controversial.

The bad news: This long feature was not produced by the religion-desk team at the Post. It shows.


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Jehovah's Witnesses and sexual abuse: The Philadelphia Inquirer lays it out

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Late last month, a crime and justice reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer came out with the kind of religion-and-sex-abuse story that’s sadly become all too familiar these days. What’s unusual about this story is that it’s about Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The Witnesses are one of the toughest religious groups to cover. In the years I spent in religion reporting, I can only remember one time that the Witnesses cooperated with me as I reported a news story. That was when, as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, I went door-belling with the Witnesses sometime in the late ‘80s.

Now, they also tried to convert me, but that’s just a typical day in the life of a religion reporter, believe me.

I was amazed at how rude people were to the Witnesses. I connected with them during that time, but since then, I’ve never had any luck getting any response from the Witnesses for any other story. That is why I was impressed when an Inquirer reporter did this lengthy piece on sexual abuse in this very private, even secretive, religious group.

A second was all it took. A second was all he needed.

The little girl was 4, round-faced and freckled and dressed in her Sunday best. She was fidgeting next to her father inside the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall in Red Lion, York County -- a safe, familiar space for a family that spent nearly all of its free time preaching and praying.

Martin Haugh was momentarily preoccupied, doling out assignments to his fellow Witnesses for their door-to-door ministry work. When he looked down for his daughter, she was gone. Haugh plunged into the slow-motion panic of every parent's worst nightmare.


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Your weekend think piece: David French's painful letter to Trump's evangelical defenders

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Last summer, I did something that I had been thinking about ever since the first years of this 14-year-old blog.

I read went to this website's archives and looked around a bit, glancing at quite a few topics and then scanning posts inside some key ones. It's pretty easy to spot big, repeating topics, since the press has a pretty consistent worldview when it comes to deciding what is news and what is not. As the old saying goes: The news media don't really tell people what to think. However, they do a great job of telling news consumers what to think ABOUT.

After taking lots and lots of notes, I wrote out an outline for a journalism classroom lecture entitled, "The Seven Deadly Sins of Religion Reporting." This weekend's think piece is linked to Deadly Sin No. 2:

* Assume that religion equals politics -- period. After all, politics deal with things that are real, as opposed to mere beliefs. Thus, whenever people claim that their actions are based on centuries of doctrines and traditions, journalists should assume that those actions are actually rooted in political biases, party politics, economics, sociology, etc. Whatever you do, go out of your way to ignore doctrine.

Examples: Too many to number.

This brings us to this weekend's think piece, which is linked to one of those topics that you know will appear in elite media at least once a week -- Donald Trump's loyal defenders among white evangelicals. Here's a key post I wrote on this topic, just before the election: "Listen to the silence: It does appear that most evangelicals will reluctantly vote Trump."

Now, please check out this National Review piece by David French, a Harvard Law graduate who is a religious-liberty specialist. He is also one of the nation's most outspoken #NeverTrump religious conservatives.


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