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Covering 'mainline' faith: Why do the old Protestant churches get so much news ink?

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Soon after I left the newsroom of the Rocky Mountain News to teach at Denver Seminary, in the early 1990s, a general-assignment reporter was asked to do a story about a trend in religion. It was something to do with prayer, if I recall, and editors wanted to run it on Easter.

The reporter went to three or four nearby churches in downtown. As you would expect, these were old flocks linked to Mainline Protestantism and one Catholic parish. All were, to one degree or another, both historic and struggling, in terms of attendance and membership. The city’s biggest churches were in the suburbs, especially in the booming territory between Denver and Colorado Springs — already a nationally known evangelical power base. The state included at least five internationally known centers on spirituality and prayer, one evangelical, one charismatic Episcopal, one Buddhist and two Roman Catholic.

The story ended up with voices from the dominant flocks of Denver’s past, when liberal Protestant voices were the statistical norm.

Many times, through the years, religious leaders have asked me: Why do the oldline Protestant churches receive so much news coverage? During my Denver years, Episcopalians and United Methodists did make lots of national news — as doctrinal wars escalated about sex and marriage.

These were subjects that editors considered news. Evangelical Presbyterian churches growing to 6,000-plus members in their first five years of existence? That might be worth a column. It’s not big news.

I thought of these discussions the other day when I read a Religion News Service — a long feature with lots of valid material — that ran with this headline: “As a pandemic peaks at Christianity’s Easter climax, churches adapt online.” Here’s the opening anecdote:

On Palm Sunday (April 5), the Rev. Ted Gabrielli, a bespectacled Jesuit with a bushy beard, stood in the bed of a roving pickup truck that traveled through Boyle Heights, a mostly Latino neighborhood on Los Angeles’ east side.

Gabrielli, a pastor at Dolores Mission Church, greeted neighbors from the truck and blessed the homes, alleys and streets he passed. He greeted many by name. One neighbor, caught on a Facebook livestream of the procession, stood from her home waving palms, the symbol of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem in the week before he was crucified.


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For futures files: Women deacons and Latter-day Proclamation (plus bonus Godbeat anecdote)

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Right now, amid a global medical and economic emergency, few editors want stories on complicated religious debates about doctrines and church traditions, nor will distracted readers pay much attention.

Enter the futures file, where religion writers squirrel away material for later coverage when we all get a breather. Here are two key themes from last week.

An important Vatican announcement said Pope Francis has dissolved a study panel that couldn’t agree on whether women should join the order of deacons, and has appointed a completely new commission to undertake the task. This will remain a good situationer months from now because women’s role in the church is perennially interesting and no commission report will appear that soon.

The new study could be the most important — and controversial — result of last October’s synod on the Amazon region. Francis shelved the proposal there to allow married priests in special situations of dire clergy shortages. Deacons could help fill the gap and some said women should be included. Analysts figure that women deacons are more likely to be approved under the liberal Francis than future popes.

Deacons used to be only men on the path to ordination as priests. But the Second Vatican Council restored the ancient order of “permanent” deacons, including married men. They can perform most duties of priests (e.g. leading worship, preaching, teaching, pastoral and charity work, baptisms, weddings, funerals) except for three sacraments: celebration of Mass, hearing confessions and anointing of the sick.

The starting point for writers is a 30,000-word report from the International Theological Commission in 2002.

Also keep on hand National Catholic Reporter articles on the 2020 news here and also here.

The 2002 report acknowledged there were female “deaconesses” in the early Christian centuries but that their functions in church life and, especially, worship “were not purely and simply equivalent to” those of male deacons.


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'Why did God let this happen?' Washington Post report on pastor's death asks fair questions

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My first full-time journalism job was working as a copy editor (and music columnist) for The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. Thus, I spent most of my time editing stories, designing pages and, of course, writing headlines.

Sometimes reporters liked my headlines and sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes readers liked my headlines and sometimes they didn’t. When readers hated my headlines, they usually called the reporter who wrote the story and yelled at them. Why? Because, like most news consumers, they didn’t realize that reporters rarely write the headlines that run with their stories.

As someone who went on to spend years as a reporter and columnist, I really wish more readers understood this basic fact about the news business.

This brings us — once again — to a question about a headline. If you read The Washington Post online, or follow Twitter, you saw this blunt headline:

Prominent Virginia pastor who said ‘God is larger than this dreaded virus’ dies of covid-19

However, if you read the dead-tree-pulp edition of the Post, you saw this:

Pastor preached about virus that took his life

As you would expect, some people — including former GetReligionista Mark Hemingway — raised questions about that first headline. I thought that it was accurate, but rather cruel. It could be read as an attempt to mock (a) this preacher, (b) God or (c) both. The second headline offered a mild statement of the facts.

If the goal is to evaluate work in the Post, which matters most — a click-bait headline or the contents of the actual news story?


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Notre Dame fire a year later: Foreign news outlets lead the way on coverage

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The world continues to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and the lives it has taken. That this global outbreak occurred during Lent put a renewed focus on where and how people practice their faith, especially in so many countries where houses of worship have been shuttered to weaken the spread of the virus.

It is in this context that the date April 15 takes on larger significance this year. It marks the one-year anniversary of an accidental fire that destroyed large sections of Notre Dame, the famed gothic cathedral that soars over the Parisian skyline. The French capitol hasn’t been the same since the blaze.

A year later, there remain so many unanswered questions about the cathedral’s future, how and when it will be rebuilt and what hurdles remain. The current pandemic has shifted attention and journalistic resources away from a story like the status and future of Notre Dame. Journalists are limited in their ability to travel to Paris, for example, to report on this story as France remains on lockdown — like most of the world.

A sweep of news sites shows that the cathedral did get some attention in the days before Easter — but only because a special liturgy was celebrated there on Good Friday. The cathedral’s most prized relic, the Crown of Thorns, even made a return after it had been rescued from the blaze.

Anniversary journalism is a big part of what editor’s remember when assigning stories every morning, when making pitches in editorial meetings or for stories to fill their Sunday editions.

Despite that, Notre Dame fire coverage has been sparse a year later, especially in the U.S.-based press. It is also a religion story and one that the mainstream press largely covered a year ago like it wasn’t. In general, the fire was covered like it had destroyed a museum rather than a house of worship. Anniversary coverage also remained focus on the building, but had no mention or quotes from religious leaders.

As mentioned, Easter did bring Notre Dame temporarily back into the news cycle. The New York Post, in its Easter Sunday editorial, held up the cathedral as a metaphor for our current troubled times:

As Notre Dame recovers from its ravages, so may we all rebound from the ravages of COVID-19.

Metaphors aside, there are lingering questions about what the future holds for this iconic structure.


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Passover Seders without your grandchildren? Coronavirus crisis forced painful changes

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Passover Seders without your grandchildren? Coronavirus crisis forced painful changes

Passover Seders include one moment that is especially poignant for grandparents.

Early in this ritual meal they look on as one or more of their grandchildren sing or recite the "Ma Nishtana," the "Four Questions" that frame the lessons Israelites learned from their bondage in Egypt and Exodus to freedom.

The first line echoes from generation to generation: "Why is this night different from all other nights?"

This year, Jews everywhere are wrestling with the fact that -- in a world wracked by the coronavirus -- this Passover is radically different from other Passovers.

"There's no way to replace having Passover with your parents, your grandparents, your friends and loved ones," said Rabbi Yaacov Behrman, founder of the Jewish Future Alliance and director of Operation Survival, a drug abuse prevention program in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.

"A grandmother looks forward to seeing her grandchildren at the Seder. Fathers and mothers look forward to seeing their families around that table. … There's no way to ignore the pain of what is happening this year."

Prayers and symbols describing suffering and liberation are at the heart of Haggadah (Hebrew for "telling") texts that guide the Seder meal and interpret the eight-day Passover season, which began this year at sundown on Wednesday, April 8.

Why is matzo the only bread at Passover? Because the Israelites didn't have time to bake leavened bread as they fled Egypt. Why dip bitter herbs into chopped apples, dates, nuts and wine? Because this paste resembles the clay Hebrew slaves used to make bricks. Why dip parsley into salt water? This represents new life, mixed with tears.

One ritual will have special meaning this year, as the leader of the Seder prays: "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us concerning the washing of the hands."

Some secular and religious Jews are creating digital windows from one table to another, following how-to guides for "online Seders" using Zoom and similar video programs.


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Enforcement overkill? Louisville newspaper tries to document the 'war on Easter'

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This past week was quite the drama-filled battle of church vs. state fought out in, of all places, Louisville/

Here you had a mayor saying one thing, a governor saying another, the nation’s oldest Southern Baptist seminary weighing in and members of Congress jumping in with angry tweets and phone calls. And a federal judge jumped into the drama, as well.

The Louisville Courier-Journal did yeoman work — with one or two small holes — in covering this battle that began with an announcement on Good Friday that cops were going to be taking down license plates in church parking lots and plunking quarantine notices on car windshields.

But there was a ton of confusion as to who was in charge.

Louisville Metro Police officers will be writing down the license plate numbers of those who attend church services over Easter weekend, Mayor Greg Fischer said Friday.

Fischer has asked Louisvillians to forgo in-person gatherings, including drive-in services, to lessen the spread of the coronavirus. He said the license information would be given to the city's health department.

"If we allowed this in Louisville, we'd have hundreds of thousands of people driving around the city Sunday, and boy, the virus would just love that," Fischer said.

Really? Is that what Louisville is like on a typical Easter? (Also, note the phrase “including drive-in services.”)

This is where the reporter should have pointed out there’s never “hundreds of thousands” of locals driving about the city on a Sunday morning.

Dr. Sarah Moyer, the city's public health director, said knowing who was at gatherings, such as in-person church services, can help the department notify those who might have been exposed if an attendee later falls ill.

"If we have a case, we have a list of names of who needs to quarantine and isolate," she said. "And it'll just make our investigation go quicker, as well."

Kentucky’s governor issued a similar order Friday, saying in-person attendance at religious services was forbidden — but not drive-ins.

So you’ve got two standards being pushed here by public officials who didn’t check with each other first. That confusion lingered over the online firestorm that grew out of this conflict.


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Here we go again: Protestant pastor locked out of his church when he arrived for 'mass'

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This is one of those questions readers keep asking in the Internet age: Is an error an error, even if newspaper editors correct it without admitting that they made an error?

What if it’s one of those tiny errors that only matter to strange religious believers who care about picky little words that have to do with their most cherished beliefs? You know, like the fact that Protestants are not Catholics and they use different words to describe what goes on in their sanctuaries?

What we have here is a mistake that happens all the time, especially when religion is in the news and, for logical reasons (think holiday breaks or the current COVID-19 crisis), newsroom managers are short on well-rested personnel.

Nevertheless, a mistake is a mistake and journalists need to pay attention to this kind of thing. In this case we are dealing with yet another story about a preacher who wants to carry on with business as usual, no matter what. The New York Post headline says: “Landlord changes church locks to stop pastor from defying coronavirus lockdown.”

Now, this is a piece of click-bait aggregation, which means that it’s even more likely that an intern or someone low on the journalism food chain cranked it out. Here’s the crucial information:

Pastor Jon Duncan had vowed to continue preaching at Cross Culture Christian Center in Lodi, telling Fox 40 the services were “protected by the First Amendment and should be considered essential.” But he was met by several police officers when he arrived on Palm Sunday — and was unable to enter the completely shuttered church, the Los Angeles Times said.

The building’s owner, the nearby Bethel Open Bible Church, had “changed the locks on the doors in response” to his threats to defy coronavirus restrictions, Lodi police Lt. Michael Manetti told the paper. …

Duncan had no idea that the locks had been changed when he arrived for mass, his attorney, Dean Broyles, told the L.A. Times.

Now, that’s what the story said when a GetReligion reader read it, did a face-palm move and sent me copy from the original story.


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This journalist did her job: Now she hopes that it didn't expose her to COVID-19

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Silvia Foster-Frau did her job.

The 27-year-old San Antonio Express-News reporter hopes her dedication to her profession didn’t expose her to COVID-19.

For more than two years, Foster-Frau has produced sensitive, nuanced coverage of the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas — site of a Nov. 5, 2017, mass shooting in which 26 people died and 20 were wounded.

Her journalistic prowess has earned her honors such as Texas AP Star Reporter of the Year in the biggest newspaper category and the national Cornell Award for religion reporting excellence at mid-sized newspapers.

On Sunday, Foster-Frau returned to the rural area southeast of San Antonio to report on the Baptist church continuing to meet, “despite the potential danger posed by the novel coronavirus” — as she put it in her story.

Her news article was excellent. No surprise there. Equally impressive were the compelling images captured by Express-News photographer Josie Norris.

But given the concerns over the possible spread of COVID-19, I wondered about the decision to send journalists into an assembly with 40 worshipers, none of them wearing masks, according to the newspaper’s story.

Foster-Frau was kind enough to talk with me about her experience. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bobby Ross Jr.: You developed some really good relationships with people involved in the massacre and have excelled at covering that. Can you tell me a little about that?


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An Easter think piece: What happens when movie-makers talk to scribes who 'get' religion?

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When I first met Dwight Longenecker in 1999 I already thought his life story was unique.

The setting was an international journalism conference in Chichester, England. Longenecker was working in journalism at the time, after studying theology at Oxford University. He had already been ordained as an Anglican priest, but then saw the writing on the ancient church walls and swam the Tiber to Roman Catholicism.

But here’s the biographical detail that grabbed me. I was fascinated that, after growing up evangelical in Pennsylvania, he had done his undergraduate work at Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C. — America’s famous campus that proudly embraces the loaded term “fundamentalist.”

From BJU to England and on to Rome! What a journey, I thought. And people said my pilgrimage from Southern Baptist preacher’s kid to Eastern Orthodoxy was unusual.

But there was one more remarkable shoe to drop in the Longenecker story. In 2006 he returned to America with his wife and four children and — taking the Pastoral Provision door opened by Pope John Paul II (now a saint) — Longenecker was ordained as a Catholic priest.

So where is he now? He is the pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church in — wait for it — Greenville, S.C., a few miles from his old BJU stomping grounds. So the Catholic priest who is “in charge” of Bob Jones territory (long ago, the founder called Catholicism a “Satanic cult”) is a BJU graduate.

Now, I offered all of that as an intro to our think piece for this Easter Sunday (for Western churches). It’s a blog post by Longenecker entitled “The Passion of the Christ, me and Mel Gibson” that includes a fascinating detail about what many consider the most beautiful image in that controversial movie (click here for his “Standing on my head” website).

The key: Longenecker, as a journalist, did quite a bit of writing about film. Thus, he ended up in one of those famous advance screenings with Gibson — who showed a rough edit to a variety of religious audiences while raising money to independently release the film. After showing this early version of his movie, Gibson came out to take questions from the small crowd. Then this happened:


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