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LDS church leaders enact a major breakthrough on secrecy next Wednesday

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Mitt Romney’s explanation that he voted to expel President Donald Trump as a duty to God, followed by the president’s religious scorn, renews interest in the senator’s well-known devotion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Journalists also need to know that the nation’s fourth-largest religious body will also be in the news on February 19 for a very different reason. For the first time it will grant members (and thus the media and the public) full access to its governing rulebook.

This is a major breakthrough. The General Handbook prescribes the exercise of powers, procedures, and policies that define the church. The quasi-official Encyclopedia of Mormonism says it is “pre-eminent among Church publications” as “an authoritative guide.” But the contents were long kept secret except for those appointed to church offices.

Religion News Service’s “Flunking Sainthood” columnist Jana Riess, author of the 2019 book The Next Mormons (Oxford), noted that since only males hold office, as a woman she’s been denied access to policies “that potentially affect my life” and open access “helps to empower the general membership” of both genders.

We’re dealing here with the most secretive of America’s major religions.

Its strictly-held financial information is the stuff of legend. The texts of the sacred rituals in temples are kept confidential, and non-members and church members who lack their bishop’s approval cannot attend. (There’s special angst when non-LDS family members cannot witness temple weddings.)

Likewise, the Handbook was carefully distributed with numbered copies that were to be destroyed when no longer in use.


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That question I keep hearing: Why isn't slaughter of Nigerian Christians a news story?

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GetReligion readers: It’s time for a poll about a subject that I keep hearing about over and over in emails and in social media. Raise your cyber hands if you have:

* Seen headlines such as this one — “Days Before Attack, Nigerian Bishop Warned of Poor Protection for Christians” — in religious-market publications.

* Seen the same kind of headlines in mainstream news publications that you read, either at the local or national levels.

* Wondered why these headlines rarely, if ever, appear in the news sources that drive most mainstream coverage.

* Sent GetReligion an email on this topic in the past year or two.

Here’s the basic question that I keep hearing from readers: Why would it take to get mainstream coverage of the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria? The assumption, of course, is that journalists are biased on this topic for some reason. Hold that thought.

Meanwhile, here are a few examples of the kinds of stories we are talking about, starting with that Catholic News Agency headline mentioned earlier. Here’s the overture there:

JOS, Nigeria — Just days before a suspected Islamist militant attack killed 30 people in Nigeria, a prominent bishop in the country lamented what he saw as a lack of adequate protection from the Nigerian government for the country’s nearly 100 million Christians.

Suspected Islamist militants set sleeping travelers on fire in Borno state, Nigeria, on Feb. 11, burning 18 vehicles filled with food supplies and killing at least 30, including a pregnant woman and her baby.

In a Feb. 7 interview with Aid to the Church in Need, Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze of Benin City, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, warned that “The current situation in Nigeria reflects an unnecessary, unwarranted and self-inflicted tension. A politically polarized nation.”


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Pope Francis attempts to mend some doctrinal divisions by rejecting Amazonian Rite

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How progressive is Pope Francis? Not as much as many may think.

In a surprise move, Francis rejected a proposal that had called for married men in remote areas of the Amazon to marry, a decision widely seen as a victory for conservative Catholics who feared such an exception would eventually lift the celibacy requirement of priests around the world.

The pope, the first ever from Latin America, also rejected a proposal that would have allowed women to serve as deacons, an even more momentous change within the church’s traditionally male hierarchy. Press reports consistently failed to note that female deacons in altar ministry would have had a bigger impact on Catholic doctrine than ordaining married men.

The pope’s rejection of an Amazonian rite came three months after bishops at the controversial Pan-Amazonian Synod had made several recommendations to the pontiff. The big change would have included allowing community elders to perform Mass and other duties of ordained celibate Catholic clergy in order to deal with the shortage of Roman Catholic priests in South America.

In Francis, progressives have (or thought they had) their man — someone who says he’s unafraid to tinker with church tradition. This passage, high in the New York Times coverage, sums up their disappointment in this decision:

The pope’s supporters had hoped for revolutionary change. The decision, coming seven years into his papacy, raised the question of whether Francis’ promotion of discussing once-taboo issues is resulting in a pontificate that is largely talk. His closest advisers have already acknowledged that the pope’s impact has waned on the global stage, especially on core issues like immigration and the environment. …

The pope’s refusal to allow married priests was likely to delight conservatives, many of whom have come to see Francis and his emphasis on a more pastoral and inclusive church as a grave threat to the rules, orthodoxy and traditions of the faith.

The papacy of Francis has frequently drawn the ire of conservative Catholics, many of them living in the United States and parts of Europe — so they were anxiously awaiting this statement from Rome. After all, the Pan-Amazonian synod, a three-week meeting at the Vatican, was fraught with controversy.


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Trying to embrace friendships at church, in the tense age of #MeToo headlines

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Trying to embrace friendships at church, in the tense age of #MeToo headlines

The email was signed "Worried Wife" and contained a blunt version of a question Bronwyn Lea has heard many times while working with women in and around churches.

The writer said her husband had become friends with another woman his own age. There were no signs of trouble, but they traded messages about all kinds of things. This was creating a "jealous-wife space" in her mind.

"Worried Wife" concluded: "I need a biblical perspective. What is a godly view of cross-gender friendships, and how should they be approached within the context of marriage?"

That's a crucial question these days for clergy and leaders of other ministries and fellowships, said Lea, author of "Beyond Awkward Side Hugs: Living as Christian Brothers and Sisters in a Sex-Crazed World." All of those #ChurchToo reports about sexual abuse and inappropriate relationships have people on edge -- with good cause.

Lea, who has a seminary degree and law-school credentials, is convinced that it's time for churches to act more like extended families and less like companies that sort people into niches defined by age, gender and marital status.

"Many people are lonely and they truly long for some kind of connection with others," she said. "But they've also heard so many horror stories about what can go wrong that they're afraid to reach out. They think that everyone will think that they're creepy or weird if they open up. … Lots of people are giving up and checking out."

Everyone knows the church is "supposed to be a family that everyone can belong to. … That's the vision that we need to reclaim," said Lea, a staff member at the First Baptist Church in Davis, Calif. Thus, the New Testament says: "Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity."

The problem is making that work at the personal level, where pastors, teachers, parents and laypeople are trying to find realistic ways to handle social media, complex career pressures, tensions in modern families and constantly-changing gender roles.


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Iran's Baha'is lose 'other religion' ID card bracket: A global story ripe for local coverage

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The world, unfortunately, is awash in cases of state-supported religious persecution.

Among the better known examples are China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslim and Tibetan Buddhist minorities. Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims and Russia’s Jehovah’s Witnesses have also drawn international attention.

Perhaps less well known is the case of Iran’s Baha’is, who have long been persecuted for their beliefs in the land where their faith first emerged in the 19th century. Since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, however, government-instituted oppression has increased substantially.

Late last month, Teheran’s rulers moved to prevent Baha’is from obtaining national identity cards. Without such cards they cannot participate in Iran’s banking system — which means they cannot cash a check, apply for a loan, or purchase property — adding to their impoverishment.

“The exclusion of the Iranian Baha’i community from national identification cards is unconscionable, and we are disturbed to see how this action against the Baha'is fits into a broader pattern of heightened persecution over the past few months,” Anthony Vance, an American Baha’i spokesman, told The National an English-language publication based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

(Other than the The National, as of this writing my quick web search turned up little other international coverage of this latest Iranian Baha’i twist. Great Britain’s The Telegraph was the best that I found. Also, Germany’s Deutsche Welle carried a piece on its English web site, as did the U.S.-financed Radio Free Europe (Radio Liberty), and Israel’s English-language daily The Jerusalem Post. I suspect other outlets will sooner or later follow suit.)

The faith’s official international website says that Baha’is, Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, “are routinely arrested, detained, and imprisoned. They are barred from holding government jobs, and their shops and other enterprises are routinely closed or discriminated against by officials at all levels. Young Baha’is are prevented from attending university, and those volunteer Baha’i educators who have sought to fill that gap have been arrested and imprisoned.”

The latest affront to Baha’i freedoms resulted from Teheran’s decision to eliminate the “other religions” category from government-mandated personal identity cards. Other than Islam, Iran recognizes only Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism as acceptable religious identities. Previously, Baha’is registered under “other religions.”


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Orson Bean's wild life: Why did Los Angeles Times obit skip God's role in final chapters?

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No doubt about it, actor Orson Bean lived a wild life — even by Hollywood standards.

As you would expect, the lengthy Los Angeles Times obituary for Bean — who died at age 91 when hit by two cars — was packed with colorful details. I mean, this is a man whose early life included a run-in with the Hollywood blacklist, yet he ended up as a conservative who helped inspire the career of his son-in-law Andrew Breitbart.

But here is the GetReligion question for this day: Why would the newspaper of record in La La Land avoid one of the key elements of the final chapter of this man’s life, as in his conversion to Christianity?

Surely there was room for a phrase or two about that development in lines such as these?

Bean’s onstage antics included stand-up comedy and magic tricks as he made the rounds on game shows and late-night television. He was fondly remembered by baby boomers for bringing his wit and sophistication to “What’s My Line?,” “I’ve Got a Secret” and “To Tell the Truth” and guest-starring in variety series and talk shows, including “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson” and “The Mike Douglas Show.” Later in his career, he starred in “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” “Being John Malkovich” and “Desperate Housewives” while racking up dozens of guest appearance credits, with “Two and a Half Men,” “The Closer,” “Modern Family” and “How I Met Your Mother” among them.

Bean, who wrote several memoirs and a cookbook for cats, was briefly blacklisted, became a hippie, a peddler of a self-help method and a beloved Venice resident as he bolstered the local theater scene with wife Alley Mills. All along, his true passion was the stage, though he acquiesced to television, films and even commercials just to pay his bills.

The story gets wilder and wilder, which only points to the irony of journalists (the Times was not alone in missing the faith angle here) avoiding any discussion of Bean’s faith — which he made no attempt to hide, as one can see in the videos accompanying this post.

You can see a hint of what is missing in this colorful passage:


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At the heart of the National Prayer Breakfast was an explosion of religious debate

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Wow. Last week’s combo of the National Prayer Breakfast on the heels of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address and acquittal — along with the Sen. Mitt Romney rebellion — filled the news with so much religious content that one would have thought the event was a papal conclave.

But no. This was Washington, DC.

The timing could not have been better. The prayer breakfast, always the first Thursday each February, brings some 3,000 guests to town, creating the perfect audience for the political theater that is our nation’s capital these days. And the major players did their best to ramp up the drama.

The opening act was Romney voting last Wednesday to remove Trump from power; the lone Republican to do so. As the Washington Post noted, retribution was quick.

Mitt Romney no longer has to guess about what “unimaginable” consequences are in store for him after the Utah senator voted to convict President Trump of abuse of power: A Utah legislator has moved to censure him; Donald Trump Jr. has called for Romney to be expelled from the Republican Party; and the National Prayer Breakfast (and later White House speech) turned into a Romney rage-fest, as the president insulted both the senator’s ethics and his faith.

Romney grew emotional on the Senate floor on Wednesday, when he explained that whatever waited for him in terms of political retribution for his vote would pale in comparison to what he would lose by violating “an oath to God.”

The cascade of articles about Romney’s faith that followed was a religion writer’s dream — often with the focus is on commentary, as opposed to news coverage (see our own tmatt’s post on that topic).

The Deseret News ran a column by a Brigham Young University professor that set the debate in more of a Mormon context wavered on whether Romney should have voted as he did. Writing for the Atlantic, Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University said Romney’s speech will go down in history as one of the great speeches in American politics. Notice how the article segues into a faith Hall of Fame.


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Thinking along with Mark Pinsky: On talking with Trump's lawyer who was raised Jewish

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I am sorry for the delay on this think piece from The Forward, since really should have run during the impeachment proceedings. However, I never thought of this as a piece about Donald Trump or any of his pack.

No, I thought GetReligion readers would want to see this because it was written by Mark Pinsky, the veteran religion-beat pro best known for his work in the heavily evangelical world that surrounds Orlando.

Pinsky is also the author of a book that I recommend when asked one of the questions that I hear all the time. That question: What is the best book to use in a college or university level course about covering religion news?

Well, of course I am going to recommend this project from my friends and former colleagues linked to The Media Project: “Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion.” It includes my essay on religion-beat strategies for editors and publishers, “Getting Religion in the Newsroom.”

But there really isn’t a religion-beat 101 book, a kind of manual for professionals who are starting the process of reading themselves up to speed on the myriad subjects, movements and vocabularies needed to cover this complex subject.

But there is a book that I recommend that does a great job of explaining WHY reporters need to take the challenges of this beat seriously and why they should strive to get inside the beliefs and worldviews of the believers they need to cover. That book is Mark Pinksy’s small volume entitled, “A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.”

This brings us to the weekend think piece, that recent Forward feature that ran with this headline: “Trump Impeachment lawyer Jay Sekulow says ‘I’ve never felt not Jewish.’ “

Why did Pinsky land this exclusive interview?

Sekulow said the interview with the Forward was the only one he planned to do ahead of the impeachment trial, and that he agreed to do it because I have been writing about him on and off for more than a quarter century — and because his great-uncle, Sonya Sekular, worked for the Forward in the 1940s, Sekulow said.


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This is not a trick question: Can students pray in U.S. public schools?

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This is not a trick question: Can students pray in U.S. public schools?

THE QUESTION:

Can students pray in U.S. public schools?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The Trump Administration’s education and justice departments, after work with government attorneys, issued policy guidance to public schools January 16 on this emotional-laden and oft-misunderstood issue. The answer is well settled in American law and agreed upon by a very wide range of religious and public education organizations.

The answer is: Yes, depending.

Yes, if a student initiates prayer and does not disrupt classes. Students also enjoy other religious rights on an equal basis with non-religious activities, as surveyed below. 

But the answer is no if public school systems, administrators or teachers authorize prayers in an official capacity. Federal court edicts say that violates the Constitution’s ban on government “establishment of religion.” (Private schools, of course, can do whatever they want about religion.)

The Trump announcement (nicely timed to boost religious enthusiasm in the 2020 campaign) merely repeats the well-settled consensus. However, the federal government might now enforce more strictly local schools’ required written certification that they keep hands off students’ voluntary religious activities, and it might investigate complaints of violations more vigorously.

Our story starts with Engel v. Vitale, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1962 ruling that saw an obvious “establishment” violation in public school recitations of a bland interfaith prayer of 22 words that was authorized by the New York State Regents.


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