Evangelicals

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Podcast: Can New York City's arts avengers save a tiny, but ultra-valuable, mainline church?

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Podcast: Can New York City's arts avengers save a tiny, but ultra-valuable, mainline church?

I was stunned (I kid you not) that editors at The New York Times didn’t find a way to slip the word “hulk” or even “avengers” into the Gray Lady’s latest feature on politics and the wild, wild world of Manhattan real-estate. Oh, and there is some religion news in here, somewhere.

What am I talking about?

Well, this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) focused on a story that ran with this dry, wordy, double-decker headline: “Why Mark Ruffalo and Wendell Pierce Are Fighting for a Crumbling Church — Congregants of the West Park Presbyterian Church, a Manhattan landmark, want it torn down and replaced by condos. Celebrities are joining the fight to save it.”

In the sprawling Marvel Comic universe, Ruffalo played that Big Green Guy. But you probably knew that.

Let’s work our way through this story, looking for evidence of the religion-beat story — it appears that zero religion-beat personnel were involved — that is at the heart of this story that the Times prelates see as a conflict about money, politics and, maybe, culture. Religion? Not so much.

In the podcast, I also noted that versions of this story are unfolding in urban areas around America, linked to the catastrophic decline of America’s mainline Protestant and the more Americanized versions of Roman Catholic life. What happens to their strategically located and very valuable urban sanctuaries?

The overture, which builds up to the sermon-esque thesis statement:

For years, a conflict over whether to tear down one of New York City’s historic churches, a 19th-century Romanesque Revival building on the Upper West Side, has been cast in epic terms, as a battle between the little people and big business.

In this case, however, those who see themselves as representing the little people include a growing list of New York celebrities.

And big business? That would be a real estate firm working with the tiny congregation of the West Park Presbyterian Church, which says it cannot afford to fix up the deteriorating building and hopes to sell it to a developer to build new luxury apartments on the site.


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Yo, LA Times: Maybe, must maybe, issues of faith, family and culture matter in California?

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Yo, LA Times: Maybe, must maybe, issues of faith, family and culture matter in California?

If you follow the mainstream press coverage of religion — primarily coverage by reporter who are NOT religion-beat specialists — then you know that what really matters in life is politics.

As we say here at GetReligion: Politics is real. Religion? Not so much.

Now, it’s also true that money is real, as in news coverage of economics (which often overlap with politicals). If a story cannot be linked directly to politics, journalists will study its economic implications.

The Big Idea: Politics and economics matter more than culture and religion. Maybe journalists think they can ignore that classic book by candid liberal Thomas Frank: “What's the Matter with Kansas?”

This brings me to a recent Los Angeles Times piece that ran (this is the Yahoo! News version) with this headline: “4 in 10 California residents are considering packing up and leaving, new poll finds.”

This is a religion-free story. Sort of. Here is the sunny overture:

With its unmatched natural splendor and cultural attractions, California is a beacon that attracts people from around the world who put down roots and call it home.

About 70% of residents said they are happy living here, a new statewide poll shows, crediting the state's diversity, economic opportunities and an enjoyable lifestyle as reasons to stick around.

Yet large swaths of residents are also considering packing up and leaving. Many also believe that the state is headed in the wrong direction, and are anxious about the direction of the economy and their ability to pay their bills.

Message received, right there at the end.

Just in case you missed the point, the Times team goes further:


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Plug-In: Updates on faith angles in America's post-Roe cultural landscape

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Plug-In: Updates on faith angles in America's post-Roe cultural landscape

Since the most recent Plug-In edition, the gunman in the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre that killed 11 Jewish congregants was found guilty, as The Associated Press’ Peter Smith reports.

Pittsburgh’s Jewish community came together after last Friday’s conviction, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Megan Guza. Next up is the death penalty phase of Robert Bowers’ trial, which could take six weeks.

In other news, close to 1.5 million foreigners have arrived in Saudi Arabia for Islam’s annual Hajj pilgrimage, the first without the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with Saturday’s one-year anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

What To Know: The Big Story

Post-Roe America: On June 24, 2022, federal protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years came to an end.

Such was the result of the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

A year after Roe’s fall, 25 million women live in states with abortion bans or tighter restrictions, AP’s Geoff Mulvihill, Kimberlee Kruesi and Claire Savage report.

People of faith split: At the anniversary, the nation’s religious leaders remain sharply divided over abortion, as AP’s David Crary points out:

In the year since the Supreme Court struck down the nationwide right to abortion, America’s religious leaders and denominations have responded in strikingly diverse ways — some celebrating the state-level bans that have ensued, others angered that a conservative Christian cause has changed the law of the land in ways they consider oppressive.


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SBC and United Methodist news: Where are America's two largest Protestant flocks heading?

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SBC and United Methodist news: Where are America's two largest Protestant flocks heading?

To recap: Last week’s heavily-covered Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) gathering was without doubt a watershed (pun intended) for America’s largest Protestant denomination. 

The local church “messengers” gathered in New Orleans not only expelled congregations that ordain female clergy but passed a constitutional amendment (that needs second approval next year) restricting SBC affiliation to congregations that allow “only men as any kind of pastor or elder.” That blocks any suggestion that females could perform pastoral roles apart from being head pastor of a congregation.

Amid all the gender excitement — and the SBC’s struggle to cope with sexual abuse scandals — the media should not neglect decisive rejection of the long Baptist tradition to uphold shared classical Christian doctrines, such as those in the 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith (.pdf), but leave most matters up to decisions by autonomous congregations.

Journalists might consider that current SBC teaching on women in the church and the home is in lockstep with the fundamentalist Baptist Bible Fellowship International of Springfield, Missouri. Yet that denomination also proclaims the old-fashioned belief that “the local church has the absolute right of self-government, free from the interference of any hierarchy of individuals or organizations.” Then again, the emerging SBC stance is similar to those of Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy and large numbers of Anglicans and Lutherans in the Global South.

Will the media now find any sizable breakaway from the SBC, as opposed to a predictable loss of some disgruntled individuals and scattered congregations? Doesn’t appear so in the early aftermath. The “moderates” have been leaving — slowly — for decades.

That contrasts with the ongoing split in the second-largest U.S. denomination, the United Methodist Church (UMC), over various issues of biblical authority and especially sexual morality.

Local and state news media have been covering the action, but The Guy thinks there’s ample room for comprehensive analysis of the over-all national and international situation. Mainstream journalists have consistently avoided covering important non-LGBTQ+ doctrinal issues linked to this war.

The establishment’s semi-official running tally posted here shows that what some called a “trickle” has become a flood, with (as this is written) 5,864 congregations quitting since 2019, of which 3,861 departed this year.


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What's up with the Rev. Bart Barber's easy win as SBC president? Don't ask the Gray Lady

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What's up with the Rev. Bart Barber's easy win as SBC president? Don't ask the Gray Lady

One of the most interesting stories from the 2023 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention was the easy win by the Rev. Bart Barber, a low-key Texas Baptist who was elected to a second term as president.

Under normal conditions, SBC presidents are elected to a second term without opposition.

However, words like “normal” do not apply to Southern Baptist life in the Internet age — in which there are ordinary conservative Southern Baptists and then there are those gathered in the Conservative Baptist Network tent.

Barber faced opposition from the right, which was a newsworthy fact in and of itself. I would say that the opposition came from the “theological” right, but I haven’t seen strong evidence that this conflict is about theology.

Still, Barber’s easy win in the New Orleans convention was a blow to the rebel conservatives and a win for the establishment conservatives. I found it interesting that some in the elite press didn’t seem to realize this, or appeared predestined to ignore it.

Check out the top of the New York Times wrap-up report on the SBC meeting. The massive double-decker headline tells the readers what really matters:

“Southern Baptists’ Fight Over Female Leaders Shows Power of Insurgent Right.”

Moves this week to oust women from church leadership in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination offer an early look into the psyche of evangelical America ahead of 2024.

Whoa. “Ahead of 2024?” Is this a reference to the next SBC election or a suggestion that what happened in New Orleans is important because it was some kind of symbolic foretaste of what really matters to the religion-desk at the Times — which is the 2024 White House race?

As always, remember: Politics is what is real. Religion? Not so much.

That journalism question, once again: Is this Times sermon “analysis” or “news”?


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The Rev. Pat Robertson -- a charismatic broadcaster who preached to his own choir

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The Rev. Pat Robertson -- a charismatic broadcaster who preached to his own choir

The Pat Robertson for President advance team made it clear that journalists were barred from its campaign rally in a church near Denver.

The candidate wanted friendly faces. As one volunteer said: "What Pat might have to say to a group of pastors … might not be the kinds of things he'd want mainstream Republicans to read in the press."

The faithful inside that 1988 event raised their hands in praise to God and sang familiar choruses with a true believer that they knew shared their embrace of miracles, prophecy and "speaking in tongues." That kind of trust fueled Robertson's media-driven career, which ended on June 8 with his death at age 93.

Yes, I was on the outside of that door, researching my very first syndicated "On Religion" column. Before Robertson arrived, supporters prayed for a "special anointing" of God's power on their candidate. There is the kingdom of heaven, and there is the kingdom of the earth, one man prayed. "We thank you for men of courage, like Pat Robertson, who are working to bring these two kingdoms closer together," he added.

Robertson avoided blunt faith language when facing the press during that high-wire political campaign. However, he kept blending subtle biblical references into remarks about economics, foreign policy and hot cultural issues. He knew fans of his daily 700 Club broadcasts could break the code.

"Robertson had his own program. He knew he could say whatever he wanted to say there," said Kenneth Woodward, known for decades of work at Newsweek and books such as "Getting Religion: Faith, Culture and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama."

On one level, "he didn't need to talk to the press because he could talk straight to his own people. But that doesn't always work in politics, when you need to reach other people in order to succeed," said Woodward, reached by telephone.

Once Robertson veered into politics, his critics paid closer attention to what he said, about almost anything.


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Gallup team think piece: Concerning the 'Thorny Challenge of Defining Evangelicals'

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Gallup team think piece: Concerning the 'Thorny Challenge of Defining Evangelicals'

Your GetReligionistas have, over the past two decades, dedicated oceans of digital ink to mainstream press struggles (especially political reporters) to grasp the meaning of this church-history term — “evangelical.”

You ask: Oceans?

Here is a small sample of those headlines:

* Define ‘evangelical’

* Please define 'evangelical' (yet again)

* Define 'evangelical,' please. Alas, many Americans don't think that this is a religious term

* Define 'evangelical,' 2023: What is a 'reconstructionist,' low-church Protestant?

This is a complex topic. The Rev. Billy Graham told me, back in the late 1980s, that he had no idea what “evangelical” meant. Honest.

Now, the professionals at the Gallup organization have offered a Frank Newport “think piece” on this topic that journalists and news consumers need to read. The headline: “The Thorny Challenge of Defining Evangelicals.” Here’s the overture:

The practical challenge arising from any analysis of evangelical Protestants in the U.S. is finding a reliable and valid way to measure the group. Much of the data about evangelicals comes from surveys, creating the need for a lucid and straightforward measure that can be easily incorporated into questionnaires.

In recent decades, this challenge has more often than not been met by using the question, “Would you describe yourself as ‘born-again’ or evangelical?”

Gallup began incorporating this question into its surveys in the summer of 1986, primarily as a way of understanding political issues.


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Should women serve as pastors? Big majorities of modern evangelicals say, 'Yes'

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Should women serve as pastors? Big majorities of modern evangelicals say, 'Yes'

The Southern Baptist Convention is holding its annual national meeting right now in New Orleans. About 12,000 messengers are assembled to chart the direction of the convention for the next year. There are lots of issues that are being discussed these next few days that are really about a schism in the SBC between the very conservatives and the pretty conservatives.

The most public aspect of that conflict is allowing women to be pastors in Southern Baptist Churches. In the last year, Saddleback Church, in Southern California was disfellowshipped from the SBC for ordaining women. Their former pastor is the Rev. Rick Warren, who is one of the most famous evangelicals in the United States.

He’s been mounting a social media campaign the last few days, trying to make the case for a return to fellowship for Saddleback.

But really what is happening is Warren is trying to steer the SBC in a slightly less conservative direction while groups like the Conservative Baptist Network’s rallying cry is “change the direction” — which I will argue is code for this: become more conservative in the coming years.

What does polling say about Warren’s view of women serving as pastors?

I can answer that with some polling data that I collected with Paul Djupe and Andrew Lewis in March of 2020 when COVID-19 was just ramping up. We asked folks if a woman could operate in certain capacities in a church given that they had training and certification. The results here are restricted to just those who self-identify as evangelical.

Yeah —-there’s overwhelming agreement among evangelicals that women can teach Sunday School, lead morning worship and preach at a women’s conference. Even in the case of women preaching from behind the pulpit on Sunday morning there is very little resistance.

Nearly three quarters of evangelicals agree that a properly trained and certified woman can preach on Sunday morning. Just 12% disagree with that statement and 15% have no opinion.


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Pat Robertson: Was he an influential religious broadcaster or some kind of 'evangelicalist'?

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Pat Robertson: Was he an influential religious broadcaster or some kind of 'evangelicalist'?

I must admit that I have not had the time to dig into the 666 million words or so (that’s an estimate) of news and commentary dedicated to the death of the Rev. Pat Robertson. It’s hard to do much reading when at the wheel of a car for about 1,400 miles (and that was the return trip).

But I do have some thoughts on the passing of the charismatic quote machine that journalists loved, loved, loved to hate (see my 2005 commentary for the Poynter Institute). If Robertson didn’t exist, blue-zip-code pundits would have created him ex nihilo.

Truth be told, I never met the man — even though, technically speaking, I briefly worked for him during a failed 2000 attempt to build a D.C. beltway-based master’s degree journalism program for Regent University.

How to describe Pat Robertson?

First and foremost, he was a media maven and entrepreneur, creating the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1960. Years later, he sold the Family Channel for something like $2 billion. Love it or hate it, the niche-news and commentary DNA of The 700 Club can be found all over the place on cable television.

For journalists, he was mainly a political activist — playing a major role in the creation of the Christian Coalition. In 1988 he made a surprisingly relevant attempt to win the White House, seeking the Republican nomination. He was the son of a U.S. senator and, before jumping into media work, graduated from Yale Law School and New York Theological Seminary.

The media entrepreneur poured millions of dollars into academica, with the creation of Regent University — which only offered graduate-school degrees in subjects that Robertson considered culturally significant (such as law and mass communications).

Robertson was a bestselling author, with the help of numerous ghost writers (including a major gay-rights pioneer).

I would argue that his most significant achievement was helping merge the charismatic movement into mainstream evangelical Protestantism, adding doctrinal elements of Pentecostalism into the rapidly growing world of post-denominational Christianity in America and around the world.

But here is the big journalism question: Why do so many mainstream journalists call Robertson an “evangelist,” even though crusades and public preaching of that style were never part of his life and work?


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