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Lots of edgy thinking about 'Weird Christianity' -- in The New York Times, no less

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I was going to let the “Weird Christianity” opus in The New York Times sail past, in part because I wondered if it was a bit too “inside baseball” for this audience.

Well, it is a major weekend piece in America’s most powerful newspaper and people keep asking me if I have seen it. I have also been asked — since it’s about people choosing ancient liturgies and non-binary politics — if this article is, in effect, about people like me.

Not really. This Times essay — by Tara Isabella Burton of The American Interest — is about a recent trend among young Americans. I am, well, old and I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy 20-plus years ago. I did drop my registration in the Democratic Party in 2016. Here is the double-decker headline on this essay:

Christianity Gets Weird

Modern life is ugly, brutal and barren. Maybe you should try a Latin Mass.

I think it’s important to note that this “Weird Christianity” term is not new and there’s more to it than a taste for smells and bells (as Burton makes clear). There’s no question that issues of culture and aesthetics play a role in this trend, but the key is doctrine. And this trend is pre-modern, not postmodern.

To see that in practice, check out this 2015 Christianity Today piece by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, now of the Washington Post (and also a former GetReligion contributor). In this case, the term is being used in a Southern Baptist and evangelical context, as in, “Russell Moore Wants to Keep Christianity Weird: The public-policy leader for the largest US Protestant denomination isn’t worried over Christians’ loss of power. He says it might just be the best thing to happen to them.”

But back to Burton and the Times. Here is a crucial chunk (long, but essential) of her first-person piece:

… I’m not alone. One friend has been dialing into Latin Masses at churches across the United States: a Washington Mass at 11 a.m.; a Chicago one at noon.

The coronavirus has led many people to seek solace from and engage more seriously with religion. But these particular expressions of faith, with their anachronistic language and sense of historical pageantry, are part of a wider trend, one that predates the pandemic, and yet which this crisis makes all the clearer.

More and more young Christians, disillusioned by the political binaries, economic uncertainties and spiritual emptiness that have come to define modern America, are finding solace in a decidedly anti-modern vision of faith.


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Awkwardly timed issue: Should hard-pressed churches still want to be tax exempt?

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Awkwardly timed issue: Should hard-pressed churches still want to be tax exempt?

THE QUESTION:
Should hard-pressed churches want to be tax-exempt?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

“Religion Q & A” has pondered tax exemption three times already, in items posted on November 9, 2013; January 22, 2017; and then on October 25, 2019, when stripping of tax exemption from houses of worship erupted as a surprise issue in the Democratic campaign for president.

The 2019 round involved CNN’s “Equality Town Hall” when anchorman Don Lemon asked candidate “Beto” O’Rourke if “colleges, churches, charities” that “oppose same-sex marriage” should lose their tax exemptions. O’Rourke said yes, that no tax break should be granted to “any institution, any organization” holding that belief. No-one else on stage (Biden, Booker, Buttigieg, Castro, Harris, Klobuchar, Steyer, Warren) expressed disagreement.

But later, Pete Buttigieg (himself in a gay marriage) clarified that such religious colleges and social-service agencies should lose exemptions — but it would be too divisive to penalize religious congregations.

He didn’t mention it but there’d be a major legal tangle if churches and other non-profit groups that favor gay marriage retain tax exemption, but it is denied to those who dissent. The courts say it’s illicit for government to discriminate this way on the basis of viewpoint or to get entangled in one side of doctrinal disagreements.

Now there’s a new twist. Instead of complaints from liberal politicians, secularist lobbies or cities hungry for revenue (which in the Covid era means all of them), a cover story in the January-February issue of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today said churches should not even want to be tax exempt.

Talk about awkward timing. Only weeks later, COVID-19 slammed everything, churches included.


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Podcast: Do journalists doubt that the Little Sisters of the Poor are doing ministry work?

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It should be an obvious question for journalists who have been covering the Little Sisters of the Poor drama at the U.S. Supreme Court.

What do the sisters do in their ministry work that downgrades their First Amendment rights? What are they doing that undercuts their vows to follow the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church?

There has to be something that creates a legal gap between Catholic parishes and a religious order like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who specialize in taking care of the elderly and the poor.

Maybe the problem is that they do something other than “worship” inside the doors of a chapel or convent? Maybe the problem is that they hire other people to assist them in their ministries? Is that what turns them into a vaguely religious non-profit organization?

These are some of the questions discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), which dug into some of the news coverage of this order’s latest visit to SCOTUS. This is, of course, linked to the order’s rejection of the Obamacare mandate requiring most “religious institutions” to offer their employees, and often students, health-insurance plans covering sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including "morning-after pills."

What’s the problem? Consider this passage from the NPR coverage of the sisters and the high court:

At issue in the case is a Trump administration rule that significantly cuts back on access to birth control under the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare, the massive overhaul of the health care system, sought to equalize preventive health care coverage for women and men by requiring employers to include free birth control in their health care plans.

Houses of worship like churches and synagogues were automatically exempted from the provision, but religiously affiliated nonprofits like universities, charities and hospitals were not. Such organizations employ millions of people, many of whom want access to birth control for themselves and their family members. But many of these institutions say they have a religious objection to providing birth control for employees.

Maybe the problem is that all churches and synagogues do is “worship,” inside the doors of their sanctuaries, while schools, charities and hospitals (often called “ministries”) do “real” things, like education, medicine and social activism. Thus, even if religious doctrines are at the foundation of their work, these groups are not as “religious” as houses of worship?


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Jess Fields got tired of short, shallow news interviews: So he started doing loooong podcasts

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Jess Fields is a small businessman (ask him about cigars), an Eastern Orthodox family man and a news consumer who is especially interested in stories about religion. He has also worked in nonpartisan think tanks linked to issues in state and local governments. He is enthusiastic about life in Houston (due to personal Texas Gulf Coast history I will have no further comment on that).

All in all, Fields is not a logical guy to start a podcast about religion, politics and other subjects that interest him. So why did he do exactly that?

Well, he told me that he “grew tired of the edited mudslinging that passes for ‘interviews’“ and decided that he “could do better.” His goal is to produce “long-form interviews with guests from multiple perspectives, providing a neutral platform for different views to be heard and considered in a respectful manner.” In other words, his interviews are really long.

Fields got off to a hot start with a newsworthy chat with the Rev. Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church just outside of Baton Rouge, La., the man behind a blitz of coronavirus headlines because of his rejection of “shelter in place” orders. Spell has been arrested and faced all kinds of questions when it appeared, on video, that he backed a church bus dangerously close to a protestor.

That led to this:

#1 — Pastor Tony Spell — On Refusing to Comply with Coronavirus Orders

We interview Pastor Tony Spell of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Pastor Spell and his congregation are refusing to comply with Louisiana's stay-at-home orders due to the coronavirus pandemic. He has been arrested for violating the orders, but continues to hold packed church services. This is the most comprehensive interview Pastor Spell has granted.

Pastor Spell has his critics, as you would imagine, so Fields decided to do a lengthy interview with one of them — Rod Dreher (who lives in Baton Rouge).


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There are religion angles with a presidential run by Michigan Libertarian Justin Amash

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U.S. Representative Justin Amash is making a bid to shake up this oddly socially-distanced U.S. presidential campaign with last week’s announcement of an exploratory committee to seek the Libertarian Party nomination. He becomes the first avowed Libertarian in the U.S. House after being its first Palestinian-American. Due to Covid-19, plans for the party nominating convention, originally planned for May 21-25, are in flux.

The Michigan maverick is by far the best-known of the Libertarian hopefuls. He won headlines last year by quitting the Republican Party to protest Trump-ism, became the House’s only Independent, and was the lone non-Democrat voting to impeach the president.

Reality check. No third party has taken the White House since the Republicans in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln won with only 39.8 percent of the popular vote in an unusual four-way race.

The Libertarians’ best-ever showing was only 3.3 percent in 2016. Amash "uh-MOSH") got only 1 percent support against Biden (46 percent) and Trump (42 percent) in a mid-April Morning Consult poll. But he claimed to Reason magazine that he’s no “spoiler” and has a shot because “most Americans” think that Joe Biden and Trump “aren’t up to being president” and want an alternative.

Despite his anti-Trump credentials, Politico.com thinks it’s unclear whether Amash “would do more damage to Biden or Trump.” Showing the potential for conservative support, the Washington Examiner’s Brad Polumbo championed Amash against what he sees as the incompetent, “fundamentally indecent” Trump and the “frail,” too-leftist Biden.

Amash is also free of the sexual misconduct accusations against the two major party candidates — which they deny.

Religion reporters will note that Amash is one of only five Eastern Orthodox members of Congress. His Palestinian father and Syrian mother came to the U.S. as immigrants thanks to sponsorship by a pastor in Muskegon. He attended Grand Rapids Christian High School, where he met his wife Kara, later an alumna of the Christian Reformed Church’s Calvin University.

On the religiously contested abortion issue, Amash’s “pro-life” stand agrees with Orthodox Church teaching, and the National Right to Life Committee gives him a 100 percent rating.


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Key words in New York Times look at nuns killed by coronavirus? Don't look for 'Jesus' or 'God'

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There are often times when it isn’t fair to compare a story from one news source with a story offered by another newsroom on a very similar topic. This may be one of those times.

I’ve been reading The Atlantic and The New York Times for decades, through good times and bad — focusing on coverage of religion. I am well aware of the ingredients that you tend to find in feature stories in these elite publications.

Earlier this week, I joined readers and religion-beat pros in pouring social-media praise on an Atlantic feature about the Little Sisters of the Poor. The key was their efforts, in a Catholic nursing home, to carry on with their ministry work — while the coronavirus kept striking down elderly sisters (and a priest) in their flock. Click here to see that post.

As you would expect, the story was packed with news information, as well as poignant details that took readers inside the prayers and rites that define life among the sisters, while discussing the deep religious challenges and questions raised by the pandemic. Yes, “theodicy” questions lurked in the background.

The bottom line: These sisters were living lives defined by the vows and traditions of their faith. There was no way for readers to avoid that — which was crucial during this life-and-death crisis.

This brings me to a stunningly faith-free report at New York Times that ran under this headline:

After Decades of Service, Five Nuns Die as Virus Sweeps Through Convent

The coronavirus outbreak was difficult to trace in the Wisconsin convent, which specializes in care for aging nuns with dementia.

This feature focuses on the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a global order that — as the name suggests — focuses on teaching, at all levels. Here is how they define their mission, shown in an excerpt from the order’s constitution:

Our Mission is to proclaim the good news as School Sisters of Notre Dame, directing our entire lives toward that oneness for which Jesus Christ was sent. As He was sent to show the Father’s love to the world, we are sent to make Christ visible by our very being, by sharing our love, faith, and hope.

How is this mission expressed in Times-speak?


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In search of news coverage of China's moral responsibility for coronavirus pandemic

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A slew of European and African nations, plus Australia and, of course, the United States are angrier at China than they’ve been in a very long time. To which I say, good.

The reason for all this, as you undoubtedly know, is Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which originated on its turf in the city of Wuhan.

Bottom line: It took a direct threat to the lives of other nations’ citizens for the international community to finally react to the heavy-handed and duplicitous manner that China deals with its own people and the world.

Just how widespread this opprobrium has become is detailed in this New York Times overview piece.

My question?

When this pandemic ultimately subsides — or at least becomes relatively manageable — will the international community’s attitude toward China revert to the previous just-look-the-other-way approach because there’s lots of money involved?

Or is there a chance that, at least some Western-style democracies will view China’s morally questionable political and economic values and actions in a different and more critical light?

The realist in me — or cynic, take your choice — thinks that the passage of time and humanity’s seemingly insatiable appetite for material comforts will again serve China’s imperial designs. And that China’s ruthless authoritarianism will again be overlooked. That accepting its police-state treatment of political dissidents and religious believers will again be viewed as the price global capitalism simply must pay to have access to China’s huge markets and it’s relatively cheap consumer products. Correct?

Journalists might want to start asking these questions now. And not only of the business and political leaders in their area. But of their religious leaders and thinkers — their community’s presumed moral compasses.

Also, don’t overlook the rank-and-file religious believers (and non-believers); they represent a community’s popular moral outlook.


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Sacraments in age of social distancing: How will bishops walk that church-state tightrope?

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Sacraments in age of social distancing: How will bishops walk that church-state tightrope?

Priests in the Church of England have faced many challenges in recent decades -- from plummeting attendance numbers to fierce debates about marriage and sexuality.

Nevertheless, a coronavirus epistle from Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York John Sentamu was a shocker -- offering worship guidelines even stricter than those released by the government.

"Our church buildings must now be closed not only for public worship, but for private prayer as well and this includes the priest … offering prayer in church on their own," they wrote. "A notice explaining this should be put on the church door."

Thus, there was quiet defiance in Father Marcus Walker's voice as he stood alone near the altar of St. Bartholomew the Great -- London's oldest surviving church -- on the first Sunday after Easter and said, "I speak in the name of the Living God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. And so we're back."

There was no response from his Facebook Live flock, but the priest stressed that he had been listening to his people. The bottom line: There had to be some way to proceed that stressed public safety, while addressing people's spiritual needs.

"Their voices have been loud, insistent and -- so far -- unanimous," he said, in his sermon. "I have received scores of letters and emails, calling on services to be restored here in their church: the church they have upheld and kept up, where they were married, where they buried a partner, saw a child christened, found God, were confirmed.

"This is their church and I am their pastor. I owe them my solidarity. As one said in her letter: 'We don't need you in solidarity at home, we need you in solidarity at the altar of our church.' "

With Easter in the rear-view mirror, members of ancient Christian flocks -- those built on liturgies and sacraments -- are waiting to see how their shepherds will walk a liturgical tightrope between church and state.

The bottom line: It's easier for megachurches to put their dramatic sermons and worship bands on home computer screens than for priests to digitize Holy Communion and rites of confession.


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The New Yorker profiles a disgraced missionary and comes to a surprising conclusion

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Many of you may remember a story that broke last summer about a disgraced evangelical missionary who faces a lawsuit in Uganda for practicing medicine at a quasi-clinic where numerous children died. Complicating the matter was how many of these children were hopelessly malnourished and gravely ill when they were brought to her in the first place.

I wrote about Renée Bach’s situation here at GetReligion last August while everyone was ripping into her for being a white woman trying to save black African babies. I thought the amount of venom directed against this woman was over the top in that she didn’t have to take these kids on at all. The parents of these kids had other medical choices in Jinja, the city on Lake Victoria in which Bach’s clinic was set up. Jinja is Uganda’s second-largest city, so we’re not talking about a hamlet here.

So when I heard that the New Yorker had written about this story on the whole matter last month, I figured this would be another screamer of a piece ripping up folks who go to Africa for evangelistic reasons.

Instead, I found a nuanced piece by Ariel Levy, a Jewish writer who brought her faith into the picture to give a whole different read as to why a young Christian woman set up a health clinic, called Serving His Children, over there in the first place. I started digging into who Levy is and found some pretty surprising stuff.

More on her in a moment. First, the story. This section is long, but essential:

Twalali was one of more than a hundred babies who died at Serving His Children between 2010 and 2015. The facility began not as a registered health clinic but as the home of Renée Bach — who was not a doctor but a homeschooled missionary, and who had arrived in Uganda at the age of nineteen and started an N.G.O. with money raised through her church in Bedford, Virginia. She’d felt called to Africa to help the needy, and she believed that it was Jesus’ will for her to treat malnourished children. Bach told their stories on a blog that she started. “I hooked the baby up to oxygen and got to work,” she wrote in 2011. “I took her temperature, started an IV, checked her blood sugar, tested for malaria, and looked at her HB count.”

In January, 2019, that blog post was submitted as evidence in a lawsuit filed against Bach and Serving His Children in Ugandan civil court.


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