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About Rodney Howard-Browne and what happens to Easter, Passover and the hajj during a plague

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When President Donald Trump first talked about churches being “packed” on Easter Sunday, many listeners must have wondered if he meant July 12 instead of April 12.

A lot has changed since Trump’s pronouncement and, for the most part, churches are not packed except for notable exceptions, such as the arrest of a Florida megachurch pastor on Monday for holding services this past Sunday.

Some of you may have heard that the Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne ignored the social-distancing warnings and preached to a packed church this past Sunday. TMZ and other outlets reported on that story.

This is the clear and present danger ... people continuing to congregate -- squeezing into close quarters like sardines -- and that's exactly what happened Sunday at a Florida Church.

The River Church in Tampa was packed to the gills with worshipers who clearly were looking for hope. Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, who presides over the megachurch and has been reportedly defiant over social distancing, has claimed he'll cure coronavirus just the way he did with Zika.

He has vowed he will never close his church ... despite every doctor and scientist saying social distancing is the only thing that will prevent the disease from spreading even more.

On Monday, Florida police arrested Howard-Browne and charged him with two misdemeanors. CNN’s Daniel Burke had the best lede about it all:

(CNN) Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne said he wouldn't close his doors of his Tampa, Florida, megachurch until the End Times begin. The police weren't willing to wait that long.

News of this was all over Facebook and Twitter by Monday night. For those of you who are afraid of the Constitutional implications of all this, don’t worry. The CNN story points out that the police have been trying to work with this pastor for days, but getting nowhere. Now, the Christian Post says that Howard-Browne (which I am shortening to RHB) made family groups stand six feet apart from each other, but as I watched the video (atop this page), it was hard to tell. Take a look.

But then again, I’ve a history with RHB. I interviewed him back in 1994 for this article when he first hit the American religious scene (he’s from South Africa), introducing the “holy laughter” phenomenon and calling himself “the Holy Ghost bartender.” I was not impressed.


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Rank these stories: Falwell rolls dice with virus or potential collapse of some small colleges?

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What we have here are two stories about Christian higher education during the coronavirus crisis.

One is set in a rather remote part of America, but it involves — kind of — Citizen Donald Trump. The other is a national-level story with news hooks that will affect institutions (and thus newsrooms) in several hundred communities spread out from coast to coast.

So which of these two stories is grabbing national headlines, including chunks of time on TV news?

That isn’t a very hard question, is it?

Here is the main New York Times headline on the latest chapter in the saga of Jerry Falwell, Jr., and his mano y mano fight with the coronavirus: “Liberty University Brings Back Its Students, and Coronavirus Fears, Too.” We can expect all kinds of updates and national coverage about this issue, of course.

LYNCHBURG, Va. — As Liberty University’s spring break was drawing to a close this month, Jerry Falwell Jr., its president, spoke with the physician who runs Liberty’s student health service about the rampaging coronavirus.

“We’ve lost the ability to corral this thing,” Dr. Thomas W. Eppes Jr. said he told Mr. Falwell. But he did not urge him to close the school. “I just am not going to be so presumptuous as to say, ‘This is what you should do and this is what you shouldn’t do,’” Dr. Eppes said in an interview.

So Mr. Falwell — a staunch ally of President Trump and an influential voice in the evangelical world — reopened the university last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. Eppes said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. Another eight were told to self-isolate.

Note that Falwell is an “influential voice” in “the evangelical world” — as opposed to one corner of a large and complex movement. At the very least, this implies that he is an “influential voice” in the larger world of evangelical and conservative Protestant higher education — which is a hilarious statement. He’s “famous,” for sure. “Influential?” For some people, yes, but for most evangelicals — statistically — the answer is “no.”


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Medical ethics or religion? Killing Grandma and other questions during the COVID-19 cris

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I bring this column to you, once again, from my news organization’s hastily configured satellite bureau.

That’s correct: I’m writing from home, where I’m properly socially isolated in the time of coronavirus. (Right, Ted Olsen?)

I launched the “Weekend Plug-In” column in January with big dreams of bringing readers new and exciting topics each week. Lately, though, it’s all coronavirus all the time, and guess what? That doesn't appear likely to change anytime soon.

Amid the COVID-19 horror stories, I’m stressed. I’ll admit that much. How about you? As a person of faith, I’m trying my best to trust in God. But it’s a crazy, crazy time to be alive. Can I get an amen?

Once again this week, I’ll forgo our normal format. Let’s focus on key coronavirus-related questions making religion headlines.

Power Up: The Week’s Big Questions

1. Should we kill Grandma to boost the economy?: Apparently, that’s not a rhetorical question.

Here’s how Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey described the issue on Twitter: “Today I watched a miserable debate unfold: should we let older Americans die or save the economy.” As Bailey’s Post story noted, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested that “he and other older Americans should be willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the economy, which he said was in mortal jeopardy because of shutdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic.”


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Time capsule as Italy approached edge of cliff: Rome and art in the time of coronavirus

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EDITOR”S NOTE: This weekend’s think piece is a kind of time capsule, written and published earlier this month as the coronavirus crisis appeared on the horizon in the city of Rome.

This piece was written by the veteran religion writer previously known as Roberta Green, best known for her work at The Orange County Register. She was living in Rome for several months, as she will explain, while researching and writing a book on art, faith and the importance of beauty. That’s the kind of topic that sends a writer to Rome. She returned to the United States on one of the last flights out.

This was published on March 9th at Religion Unplugged. I have made no attempt to update it, in terms of the COVID-19 statistics. I find it kind of sobering to read this essay and then think of all that has happened in the relatively short time that has passed since this was written. (tmatt)

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ROME — When my husband and I decided to move to Rome for the first half of this year to escape distractions and try to write books we’ve been working on for years, we had no idea that we’d be living in one of the centers of a global epidemic.

At the time we left California in January, coronavirus had surfaced in China and the World Health Organization was yet to name the disease it caused COVID-19. We didn’t expect to encounter it in Rome. But we did.


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This debate is older than you think: Is socialism Christian? Is capitalism Christian?

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This debate is older than you think: Is socialism Christian? Is capitalism Christian?



THE QUESTION:

Is Socialism Christian? Is Capitalism Christian?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The COVID-19 crisis has produced a nearly unprecedented degree of U.S. government intervention in the economy and more may lie ahead. This occurs at a time of surprising and rising Democratic Party fondness for more thoroughgoing socialism. Although the prime mover of this phenomenon, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is very unlikely to win the presidential nomination, his status as the runner-up in both 2016 and 2020 is significant.

While polls show growing fondness for socialism among Democrats, Americans as a whole disagree, due to opposition from self-identified political Independents and, more especially, Republicans. Some remarkable numbers show this is no business-as-usual era, as surely as did the election of President Trump.

After the 2018 election, BuzzFeed found that 47% of young Democrats (ages 22 to 37) identified as socialists, or democratic socialists, or accepted either label. Early this year. Gallup said 76% of Democrats are willing to vote for a socialist as president. Public Opinion Strategies reported that 77% of Democrats thought the nation would be “better off” by moving in a more socialistic direction.

Yet another thunderbolt came this month from a CBS/YouGov tracking poll. It showed that 56% of Democratic primary voters in Texas had a favorable view of socialism but only 37% were favorable toward capitalism. In California, voters aligned the same way, 57% vs. 45%.

All factions recognize that “markets” are the universal fact of life in modern internationalized commerce. The issue is how “free” or centralized they should be, whether businesses are owned by the government or workers or private investors or some blend, whether unguided market forces or public officials control decision-making, and the extent to which government imposes regulations and what they should be.


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'Blue Movie' time again: Massive New York Times op-ed says the 'pew gap' is real and growing

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It’s deja vu time, all over again. Again and again.

This week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) felt like one long time-travel ride in the WABAC machine (think “Rocky and Bullwinkle”) or Doctor Who’s TARDIS.

Let’s start at the beginning. Way back in 2003, I read an article in The Atlantic Monthly that — more than any other — made me start thinking about creating some kind of website about how many (not all) reporters in the mainstream press struggle to see the role that religion plays in public life.

The essay was called, “Blue Movie — The ‘morality gap’ is becoming the key variable in American politics” and it was written by Thomas B. Edsall, a former Washington Post political reporter who had moved to the faculty of the Columbia University journalism school.

Although I have used it’s opening paragraphs many times, here they are again:

Early in the 1996 election campaign Dick Morris and Mark Penn, two of Bill Clinton's advisers, discovered a polling technique that proved to be one of the best ways of determining whether a voter was more likely to choose Clinton or Bob Dole for President. Respondents were asked five questions, four of which tested attitudes toward sex: Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong? Do you ever personally look at pornography? Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married? Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong? The fifth question was whether religion was very important in the voter's life.

Respondents who took the "liberal" stand on three of the five questions supported Clinton over Dole by a two-to-one ratio; those who took a liberal stand on four or five questions were, not surprisingly, even more likely to support Clinton. The same was true in reverse for those who took a "conservative" stand on three or more of the questions. (Someone taking the liberal position, as pollsters define it, dismisses the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong, admits to looking at pornography, doesn't look down on a married person having an affair, regards sex before marriage as morally acceptable, and views religion as not a very important part of daily life.) According to Morris and Penn, these questions were better vote predictors—and better indicators of partisan inclination—than anything else except party affiliation or the race of the voter (black voters are overwhelmingly Democratic).

The question is obvious: Were we looking at a political divide or one based on differences rooted in religious doctrines and attempts to practice them? There was no way around the fact that there were religion ghosts all over the place in this incredible “Blue Movie” piece.

This past week — taking a break from coronavirus coverage — I wrote my “On Religion” column about former Barack Obama staffer Michael Wear and efforts to probe religious tensions inside today’s Democratic Party (click here to see that). The key: Many political reporters and other Democrats just didn’t “get” the role that African-American churchgoers and other pew-based moderates play in their party.

As I was getting ready to ship that column to the syndicate, I did my morning cruise through The New York Times and spotted this headline: “In God We Divide: The political dimensions of worship have never been greater.”

My head spun when I say the byline: Thomas B. Edsall.


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Many patients and not enough ventilators: Is religion part of this coronavirus debate?

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Let’s state this coronavirus question bluntly: Is the emerging “let Granny die” puzzle a political story, an economics story or a religion story? Based on the coverage I am seeing, it appears that the safe route is to call this a “medical ethics” story.

Something tells me — based on his fierce writings about materialism, greed and modernity — that Pope Francis would insist that centuries of traditions in multiple faiths are relevant during debates about this equation.

But I understand that news organizations only have so much space and time. However, I believe this is a case where some editors are editing religious questions and voices out of stories that — for millions of people in America and around the world — are “haunted” by religion. This is, of course, what GetReligion is all about.

So here are the bare bones of the story, as covered in faith-free USA Today story with this headline: “ ‘Who lives and who dies': In worst-case coronavirus scenario, ethics guide choices on who gets care.” The overture states:

In a worst-case scenario of ventilator shortages, physicians may have to decide “who lives and who dies,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and chairman of the University of Pennsylvania’s department of medical ethics and health policy.

“It’s horrible,” Emanuel said. “It’s the worst thing you can have to do.”

Respiratory therapists, who take care of patients who struggle to breathe, are aware of the pressures that comes from a swift, sudden need for ventilators

This story contains tons of valid information. However, it’s clear that the team that produced it didn’t include anyone with a background in religion reporting or debates about “whole life” doctrines in moral theology.

The only mention of faith may have been an accident — through an interview with a prominent scientist who also happens to be an articulate Christian.


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Prayers in the news: Five saints Catholics are calling on to help fight coronavirus pandemic

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The coronavirus outbreak has led millions upon millions of Christians around the world — and other faith traditions as well — to prayer. Pope Francis prayed the rosary last Thursday with Catholics around the world via internet to ask God to end the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more people in Italy than anywhere else.

The Vatican also announced that Holy Week and Easter services would go on without any public participation for the first time ever. Churches around the world have closed to help stop the spread of the deadly virus. As a result, people are worshiping from home, following worship services streamed on the Internet.

But here is an interesting story for journalists and readers during this crisis.

As the need for for more respirators and protective masks grows to combat the pandemic, more and more people are urgently praying these days. So what does this look like, especially for Catholics and other members of churches with ancient liturgical roots?

Pope Francis called on the leaders of all Christian churches worldwide, as well Christians everywhere, to join together in praying the Our Father (that’s the Lord’s Prayer, for many other Christians) on Wednesdays to combat COVID-19.

At the same time, in both Catholic and Eastern church traditions, saints are venerated and given special ecclesiastical recognition. These exemplary heroes of the faith are looked upon for help through the power of prayer — what some Christians call intercession — especially in times of need.

The church’s 2,000-year history can give us a glimpse into how Christians reacted to past pandemics. Plagues, being quarantined and social distancing (a monastic life in religious terms) are nothing new to Christians. As a result, Catholics around the world have primarily called for the intercession of Mary and a number of saints whose prayers have helped defeat plagues and epidemics over the centuries.

There are scores of saints that be called upon in a time of illness, including a group called the 14 Holy Helpers. Many readers — even at mainstream news sites — might want to know more about them.


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Did Hobby Lobby letter really say God told company to keep stores open during virus crisis?

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It’s totally logical that many unbelievers (and thus some pros in newsrooms) have trouble understanding how religious believers talk about prayer.

This is especially true when it comes to evangelical and Pentecostal Protestants, who have their own lingo about spiritual matters that is easy for outsiders to mock. This can become a problem, for example, when an evangelical who is a political conservative becomes Secretary of the Interior and starts using insider language about creation and the end times.

This brings us to — no, not Chick-fil-A — coronavirus news linked to another evangelical powerhouse that the Twitter left loves to kick. That would be the wealthy (evangelicals might prefer the word “blessed”) folks at Hobby Lobby.

For years, I have told my students that business news is a chunk of the journalism marketplace that is relatively free of political and cultural bias. People who invest billions or millions of dollars like their news to be rather objective, in terms of accurate quotes and information.

This, apparently, does not apply to Business Insider editors making a good-faith effort to understand how evangelical Christians think and talk. That brings us to that story that roared through social media under this headline: “Hobby Lobby founder reportedly told employees a message from God informed his decision to leave stores open amid the coronavirus outbreak.” Here’s the overture:

Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain that is no stranger to controversy, is once again finding itself in hot water for allegedly citing a message from God in its decision to leave stores open amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Though more than 90 retailers in the US have temporarily shuttered in the past week in an effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus, Hobby Lobby has remained steadfast in staying open for business. … (D)igital strategist Kendall Brown tweeted a widely circulated photo of a note allegedly written by Hobby Lobby founder David Green, in which the openly conservative Christian businessman repeatedly mentions the power of God as part of his justification to leave stores open.

In the note to employees, Green reportedly wrote that the decision was informed by a message from God bestowed upon his wife Barbara Green, who he described as a "prayer warrior."


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