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See that thinning flock of pew sitters with gray hair? That's a big religion-beat trend

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If you are interested in the future of American religion, then you have to be willing to talk about these kinds of topics — birth rates, conversions and, increasingly, the average age of people in the pews.

In other words, it’s time, once again, to discuss that old saying: “Demographics are destiny.”

GetReligion readers: How often have you seen posts that discuss questions of this kind? The reason we keep bringing this up is that reporters have to be willing to ask questions about issues rooted in demographics — that is, if they want to anticipate future news trends.

That’s true in politics, for sure. You know Republicans are worried about younger voters right now. You also know that savvy Democrats are starting to pay attention to the rising number of Latinos who are worshiping in evangelical and Pentecostal pews.

All of this is, of course, leading up to this week’s thought-provoking graphic offering from political scientist Ryan Burge, who is also an ordained Baptist progressive. Journalists who cover religion need to follow this guy on Twitter and bookmark this website: Religion in Public.

Here’s the Big Idea for this week:

“The average Muslim in America is nearly 22 years younger than the average Mainline Protestant.”


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Friday Five: Mexico massacre, German Catholics, Christian contraception, John Crist, wild shot

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Welcome to another edition of the Friday Five.

Usually, I offer a bit of extra information or at least a little wit before getting to the point.

But this week I’ll confess that I’ve got nothing, so let’s dive right in:

1. Religion story of the week: The Los Angeles Times’ Jaweed Kaleem was among those who reported on the massacre of a large Mormon clan in Mexico.

Also on the story: New York Times religion writer Elizabeth Dias, who contributed to coverage here and here.

Elsewhere, The Associated Press noted that the slayings highlighted confusion over Mormon groups. The Washington Post explained “How Mexico’s cartel wars shattered American Mormons’ wary peace,” and the Wall Street Journal reported on Mormon families gathering to mourn those killed.

Here’s one more: A stunning New York Times feature on the details of the attack itself and on-the-scene reporting about the families wrestling with grief and the details of how to respond. The reporting is deep and detailed — except that there’s no real sense of why these believers are in Mexico and what separates them from mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints life.

That seems like a rather important subject, in this case.

2. Most popular GetReligion post: Editor Terry Mattingly has our No. 1 commentary of the week, headlined “Washington Post: Catholics should follow Germany's gospel when seeking future growth.”

No, tmatt was not a fan of the Post’s very one-sided story:


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Charisma magazine lands surprise scoop on comedian John Crist scandal (and prints it)

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The evangelical Protestant culture isn’t known for its humor, but there are the rare exceptions. I’ve been enjoying John Crist’s fun-pokes at Christian culture for some time.

Who can forget his “If Bible characters took Uber” video or his “17 Christian ways to say no” video? So it’s been downright depressing to learn that Crist too is being hit with sex abuse allegations like so many others in the religious media spotlight.

What’s kind of surprising about this story is that it was broken on Nov. 6 by a charismatic Christian publication — Charisma — that is definitely not known for breaking hard news and certainly not stories of the negative variety.

For instance, next to the Crist story are others with headlines like “Are you inviting demonic spirits into your home?” and “Prophetic Vision: I saw angelic armies being activated, released in worship.”

But this time, their investigation made real news, with publications such as People magazine and the Washington Post doing follow-ups. The Charisma story begins with a woman called “Kate” telling of her date with Crist.

I was blown away when John [Crist] agreed to do an interview with me for my senior project," she says. "... I was shaking and so nervous to be around someone I had idolized for months."

From a makeshift podcast studio constructed in her room at Bally's Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, Kate* was thrilled to be interviewing her professional hero, comedian John Crist. She and her boyfriend drove to Las Vegas in May 2017 just to record this interview—and everything was going great.

So she thought nothing of it when Crist asked her for her number before he left. Or when he later added her on Snapchat and immediately began messaging her. Or when he invited her out for the evening — just the two of them.

Crist goes on to buy this woman a bottle of raspberry vodka, which right here tells you a lot, right there.


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Los Angeles Times writes nice story about jail chaplains, with a few eyebrow-raising word choices

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There’s a lot to like about a recent Los Angeles Times feature on jail chaplains.

But there also are strong hints of holy ghosts as well as a few eyebrow-raising word choices. I’ll explain what I mean in a moment.

Let’s start, though, with the positive: This is an in-depth piece that offers a helpful primer on the state of jail chaplaincy in Los Angeles and even quotes experts such as Luke Goodrich of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

The specific Times angle is that some religious groups have enough chaplains — all volunteers — while others, including Jewish and Muslim groups, have a shortage.

The narrative-style lede sets the scene:

There are days when Rabbi Avivah Erlick sits in her car outside Men’s Central Jail, too afraid to go in. She’s counseled hundreds of inmates, but sometimes she arrives downtown only to drive back home, not ready to face the sudden lockdowns, the stale air and the stories about violence and loneliness.

When she does go in, Erlick feels overwhelmingly behind. She used to be a part-time jail chaplain supported by a grant from the Jewish Federation, but it wasn’t renewed. Now she volunteers whenever she can. She spends hours updating her list of inmates to visit, which includes dozens more than she has time to see.

The work is too important to stay away.

“I listen — I’m the only person who does,” she said. “I went into chaplaincy because I feel so drawn to help people in crisis.”

Then comes this generalization:

The chaplains in the Los Angeles County jails, some of whom were once behind bars themselves, are united by a simple mission: remind inmates of their humanity. It’s a job they often do in one-on-one visits. They’ll tell jokes, share a prayer, teach a religious text, or simply listen.

I’m torn on that description of the simple mission: “remind inmates of their humanity.” I suspect a number of the chaplains — particularly the evangelical Christian ones — would be more specific and say their goal is to save the inmates’ souls.


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Oriole Chris Davis makes $3 million gift to help at-risk children, for some vague reason

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Consider this a rare GetReligion hot-stove season baseball report. The shocker is that it is not written by our resident baseball fanatic, Bobby Ross, Jr. I guess that’s because this story concerns a member of the Baltimore Orioles, a team currently in a radical-rebuild mode (that could use a miracle or two).

This is another Baltimore Sun story about the troubled slugger Chris Davis, whose struggles at the plate have made many national headlines. It doesn’t help that Davis is (a) aging, (b) holding a first-base slot that blocks younger players and (c) a few years into a massive seven-year, $161 million contract.

I have written about Davis before. At some point in time, some powerful judge in media land appears to have made a ruling that it is out of bounds to include references to his evangelical faith in stories about his life, values, family and career.

Davis recently made big news with his pen and a checkbook and, I would argue, journalists needed to ask some faith questions in this case. But first, let’s look at a hint of faith language in a different Sun story that ran the other day: “I have hope now’: Orioles’ Chris Davis carrying confidence early in offseason.” The key is that Davis is feeling better — physically and mentally — and already getting ready for 2020.

Jill Davis noted that her husband normally takes October off, but she said Davis has been ramping up his activities to the point it won’t be long before he spends his days working out, running and hitting, all while balancing the scheduling quirks their three daughters bring. The Davises have a family trip planned for early December, plus a mission trip in January.

OK, I’ll ask. What kind of “mission trip”? A generic one?

This leads me to some big news in Baltimore, $3 million worth of news that’s totally consistent with the life that the Davis family lives: “Orioles’ Chris Davis and his wife, Jill, make record donation to University of Maryland Children’s Hospital.” Here is the overture:

Chris and Jill Davis made their way from room to room at the University of Maryland Medical Center’s pediatric intensive care unit. A visit in July inspired how the Orioles’ first baseman and his wife spent their Monday morning. This trip in the afternoon was made by choice.

They stopped by rooms of little girls who, like their three daughters, love princesses. They met two boys who, like their two youngest children, were twins. They brightened the days of families who had children, like their own once had, facing congenital heart defects.


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December Vatican I anniversary could prod press to ask: Is Christian reunification dead?

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On Dec. 8, 1869, the feast of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in the Catholic calendar, the resoundingly conservative Pope Pius IX opened the First Vatican Council. The following July 18, Pius and the gathering of global bishops climaxed a long-running church struggle and issued a constitution that defines papal authority in the strongest terms.

The upcoming 150th anniversary is a good moment for writers to tap ecumenists, historians, and theologians and ask them point blank: Is it a pipe dream to suppose the world’s Christians will someday, somehow reunite within a single fellowship?

The Second Vatican Council raised hopes with Unitatis Redintegrtio, its 1964 decree on ecumenism. The result is respectful talks and far friendlier relationships among separated churches, but perhaps that’s the best one can hope for. If so, Vatican I is the chief reason. Will your sources will think that’s an overstatement?

Those who’ve heard something about Vatican I will know it proclaimed that the pope is infallible. However, a pope exercises divinely given infallibility only when he defines “a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church” and “speaks ex cathedra.” That Latin phrase, literally “from the chair,” refers to formal exercise of his office’s authority. More broadly, Vatican II declared that Catholics must show “submission of will and of mind” to any authentic teachings by a pope.

In the usual understanding, infallibility applies only when a pope specifies this. This action has been very, very rare, with only one case since Vatican I. See this summary from the U.S. Catholic website:

There is no set list of ex cathedra teachings, but that’s because there are only two, and both are about Mary: her Immaculate Conception (declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854 and grandfathered in after the First Vatican Council’s declaration of papal infallibility in 1870) and her bodily Assumption into heaven (declared by Pope Pius XII in 1950).

But neither of these was earth-shattering to Roman Catholics, because these beliefs had been nurtured through devotion, prayer, and local teaching for centuries before becoming official papal teaching.

Importantly, Vatican I stated that such papal teachings are, and “not by the consent of the church, irreformable,” and pronounced an “anathema” against anyone who dissents.


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Jesus, sin, the cross: AP skips past an interesting quote by former Iranian revolutionary

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Every now and then, you hit a direct quote in a news story that makes you pause, scratch your head and say, “What?”

That’s what happened recently to a GetReligion reader who while looking at an Associated Press report about an interesting plot twist in the life of man who participated in one of the most important news events of the late 1970s.

Here is the headline that appeared atop the Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, Ind.) version of this AP story: “Iranian student now regrets seizing embassy.”

Let’s look at the overture, reading down to the key quote:

TEHRAN, Iran — His revolutionary fervor diminished by the years that have also turned his dark brown hair white, one of the Iranian student leaders of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover says he now regrets the seizure of the diplomatic compound and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed.

Speaking to The Associated Press ahead of today's 40th anniversary of the attack, Ebrahim Asgharzadeh acknowledged that the repercussions of the crisis still reverberate as tensions remain high between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran's collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.

Asgharzadeh cautioned others against following in his footsteps, despite the takeover becoming enshrined in hard-line mythology. He also disputed a revisionist history now being offered by supporters of Iran's Revolutionary Guard that they directed the attack, insisting all the blame rested with the Islamist students who let the crisis spin out of control.

“Like Jesus Christ, I bear all the sins on my shoulders,” Asgharzadeh said.

Yes, that’s apparently what he said.

As our reader commented in an email: “He mentions Jesus taking on the sins of the world on his shoulders, and he is doing likewise. Might he have become Christian?


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It's time for journalists to ask: What has happened to the Vatican press office?

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Let’s start with a loaded question. But it’s a questions that journalists really need to ask, because of trends during recent events in Catholic life.

So here goes: Is the Vatican’s press office helping to push a progressive agenda that could forever change the Catholic church?

Here’s the background: The Pan-Amazonian Synod that ended over a week ago wasn’t without controversy, to say the least. The recommendations put forth regarding bestowing Holy Orders to women in the form of making them deacons is something Pope Francis has to make a decision on by the end of the year. Toss in the theological debate over the Pachamama statues present at the Vatican and at a nearby Rome church and there was no shortage of fodder for reporters and columnists.

That takes us to the Vatican’s press office, the people on the front lines of getting out the pope’s message to the world’s media.

Like the White House in the age of Trump, so too does the Holy See’s messaging need some further examination. Former White House Press Secretaries Sean Spicer, followed by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, were all placed under the news media’s microscope for their statements and actions — and rightly so. The PR men and women behind Francis also deserve similar examination by the press.

Long gone are the days of Joaquin Navarro Valls. A “suave, silver-haired Spaniard,” as the Los Angeles Times described him in their 2017 obituary, Valls was both a close confidant of Pope John Paul II and served for more than two decades as chief Vatican spokesman. He defined what it was to be the pope’s press man. And he defended church teachings while doing it.

Navarro-Valls, a lay member of the conservative Catholic movement Opus Dei, had worked as a foreign correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC when the Polish pope offered him the job as director of the Vatican press office. He was the first journalist to hold the post. He was the right man at the right time for a globe-trotting pope at a time when mass media was growing.

Fast-forward to the present. The backlash to Francis by traditionalists is based on convictions that he has politicized the church, wanting to transform it into a social service agency.


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Death of a Latino astrologer pushes all the right buttons on gayness, drag queens and love

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I am still not sure why the death of a Puerto Rican astrologer last weekend made headlines in a lot of elite newspapers, but there were stories everywhere this week about Walter Mercado.

The way he was written up, you’d think he was a reincarnated Jeane Dixon, so lavish was the praise. Among other things in his garish wardrobe, Mercado would sport a huge cross on a chain around his neck. Also, there was lots of God-talk involved in his work.

But you didn’t hear about any religion connections in all the obits, other than how Mercado had transcended all kinds of labels. What mattered was that, in an era in which drag queens are in fashion, Mercado was a forerunner in that culture. The Los Angeles Times said this:

Stars and fans of the late Puerto Rican astrologer and television personality Walter Mercado took to Twitter on Sunday morning to mourn the LGBTQ and Latino icon.

Mercado, who never publicly stated his sexuality, was an icon in the gay community for never conforming to traditional gender roles and challenging Latin America’s conservative television culture.

In an emotional thread, comedian Gabe Gonzalez shared his personal connection to the astrologer, who died Saturday of kidney failure.

I turned to the Remezcla site, which has a video of Mercado telling of paranormal experiences he had as a youth that led to him turning to astrology. He had more of those experiences — contacts with a “being of light” — at other points in his life, but he didn’t identify these experiences with any theological system.

It seems that this astrologer radiated, to his followers, far more love and acceptance than what leaders in organized religion were doling out.


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