Orthodoxy

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Here's a solid religion information source for office, home libraries and (of course) newsrooms

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Here's a solid religion information source for office, home libraries and (of course) newsrooms

Here are some interesting facts about war-ravaged Ukraine you might not have heard:

* The nation was 97% Christian in 1900, slumped to 60% when atheistic Soviet Communists held power, and has rebounded to 86%. But in one survey only 20% of Ukrainians said religion is “very important” for them.

* The Orthodox Church historically under the Moscow Patriarchate has 13.5 million members. But even before the current Russian invasion, the young rival Orthodox Church of the independent Kyiv Patriarchate had gained a bigger following of 16 million.

* Evangelical, Pentecostal and Charismatic Protestants, though a small minority, have so thrived since national independence in 1991 that Ukraine is known as Eastern Europe’s “Bible Belt.” Pentecostal believers who once survived in the underground church are now a force in civic affairs.

* Despite electing the first Jewish president, anti-Semitic incidents still occur.

* Regarding morals, “domestic violence is a massive problem,” especially in COVID-19 times, with complaints up 40% in the first half of 2020 compared with 2019.

Why mention these newsworthy pieces of information?

That’s a sampling of the sort of data about each of 233 countries you’ll find in the brand-new “Global Christianity: A Guide to the World’s Largest Religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe” (Zondervan Academic, $29.99 paperback). This valuable and inexpensive resource updates key information from the 2019 edition of the invaluable “World Christian Encyclopedia” (Edinburgh University Press, list price $270 with discounts online).

The new book’s editor is Gina Zurlo — https://ginazurlo.com; gzurlo@gordonconwell.edu) — co-editor of the “Encyclopedia” and co-director of the independent agency that produces it, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.


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Columns from 1991 & 2022: Mysteries surrounding the mind and soul of Mikhail Gorbachev

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Columns from 1991 & 2022: Mysteries surrounding the mind and soul of Mikhail Gorbachev

It isn't every day that one of the creators of a political thriller gets to ask its real-life protagonist to evaluate the novel's plot.

But that happened when the late Billy Wireman, president of Queens University in Charlotte, N.C., handed the last Soviet Union leader a copy of "The Secret Diary of Mikhail Gorbachev." The 1990 novel was written by journalist Frye Gaillard, based on a Wireman idea.

The plot: There were spiritual motivations behind "glasnost" and "perestroika," Gorbachev's risky ideas to restructure Soviet life. But furious KGB insiders -- including a would-be assassin -- managed to steal Gorbachev's diary, in which he confessed his Christian faith.

Wireman wrote down Gorbachev's response after hearing the book's premise: "You must have been reading my real diary."

This faith question never vanished, no matter how often Gorbachev reaffirmed his atheism, while also stressing his respect for the beliefs of his Communist father and devout Russian Orthodox mother. His maternal grandparents hid holy icons behind their home's token Vladimir Lenin portraits.

Gorbachev died on August 30 at age 91 and his funeral was held in the Pillar Hall of Russia's House of the Unions, after President Vladimir Putin denied him a state funeral. He was buried next to his wife Raisa, who died in 1999 of cancer, in the cemetery of Moscow's Novodevichy Convent.

"Regardless of the geo-political realities of that era, there was something going on inside Gorbachev," said Gaillard, writer in residence at the University of South Alabama in Mobile and former Southern editor of The Charlotte Observer. He is the author of 30-plus books, including "A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s," which won the 2019 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Prize.

"Why did he do it? That's the question that won't go away," Gaillard added. "That's what has fascinated people for decades and it still does. We may never know now that he's gone. … But all that speculation about his beliefs is at the heart of the book."


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Sam Harris take jab at those who believe in heaven: Maybe listen to some ancient voices?

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Sam Harris take jab at those who believe in heaven: Maybe listen to some ancient voices?

When cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin returned to earth in 1961, after the first manned spaceflight, Soviet leaders claimed he said: "I went up to space, but I didn't encounter God."

Venturing into similar territory, superstar atheist Sam Harris rocked cyberspace during a recent Triggernometry YouTube appearance in which he discussed Donald Trump, faith elements in "wokeness" and the flocks of Americans who insist on believing in heaven.

Political Twitter screamed when he said there was "a left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump. … Absolutely, but I think it was warranted."

But comedians Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster pushed back, asking if Harris was justifying moral relativism. Perhaps today's truth wars, the Triggernometry team suggested, were linked to a famous G.K. Chesterton quip: "When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything."

During the ensuing discussion, Harris offered another viral soundbite: "Where is heaven, exactly, given that we have multiple telescopes up there beaming back tens of billions of years' worth of information?" Yet millions of Americans still embrace the supernatural claims of an ancient faith, including that Jesus will return to "raise the living and the dead."

"You'd be surprised by the number of percent of sober, non-Bible-thumping people who would say 'yes' to that question," he said. "They might be Christian, they might be, listen, 'I love the Bible. It gives me a great moral framework. It gives my kids a great moral framework. This is the tradition I'm identified with. This is all super important to me' -- but that's kind of as far as it goes. Right? Like, I'm not going to make magical claims about flying saviors who are literally going to come down from … heaven."

While the Twitter masses raged, the French-Canadian iconographer and writer Jonathan Pageau recorded a video essay on his "The Symbolic World" channel about why materialists and religious believers keep debating the meaning of terms such as "heaven" and "earth."


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Podcast: Why are churches closing? There are many forces at work, but doctrine still matters

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Podcast: Why are churches closing? There are many forces at work, but doctrine still matters

For years, there was a simple answer to the old question: Why do some churches grow, while others shrink?

You simply bought a copy of the 1972 book “Why Conservative Churches Are Growing: A Study in Sociology of Religion” by the late National Council of Churches leader Dean M. Kelley and that provided information answering lots (but not all) of the big questions. It was crucial that this groundbreaking book was written by a mainline Protestant insider, as opposed to a Southern Baptist or Assemblies of God leader.

Of course, everyone knew that some churches grew because of location, location, location. Also, there were always a few liberal churches that grew because of talented preachers or other strengths. Like I said: Kelley answered lots of church-decline questions, but not all of them.

What about 2022 in post-pandemic church life? For starters, many churches will never be post-pandemic — because many congregations (and maybe denominations or communions) were changed forever and we will see more evidence of that in the next few years.

All of this is an overture to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in) which focuses on a must-read feature story by Godbeat veteran Bob Smietana. The headline at Religion News Service: “For a small Chicago church, closing down was an act of faith.” This was a personal, heartfelt story for Smietana, since this was a congregation that he once called home.

Like so many pastors around the United States, the Rev. Amanda Olson has kept one eye on the Bible and another on the evolving religious landscape.

She knew change was coming to the church in America.

Yet she hoped her congregation might be spared the worst of it.

“Everyone thinks that churches are going to close,” said Olson, the longtime pastor of Grace Evangelical Covenant Church on Chicago’s North Side. “But nobody thinks it is going to be their church.”


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Another tragedy for Coptic Christians: Did the New York Times get the bigger picture?

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Another tragedy for Coptic Christians: Did the New York Times get the bigger picture?

Every now and then, your GetReligionistas receive emails from readers who are infuriated by the headline on a story, as opposed to the contents of the actual story. Why, they ask, do reporters write terrible headlines like that?

This provides another chance to let readers know a basic newsroom fact: Reporters rarely, if ever, write the headlines that go over their stories. They are written by copy editors.

(It’s possible that this fact has changed in the digital age. Maybe, as economic woes shrink news teams, reporters are asked to submit headlines. Young journalists can drop me notes telling me to get a clue.)

All of this is a set-up to discuss a double-decker New York Times headline that recently caused me to do a near spit take while drinking my morning cold-caffeine beverage. See if you can spot the offending phrase:

A Boom, a Fire and a Stampede: Dozens Die at a Coptic Church in Egypt

A blaze that killed at least 41 at a church in greater Cairo caused anguish among a religious minority that has long felt itself oppressed in Egypt

The key words, for this Orthodox believer, were these (with an added dose of italics — “a religious minority that has long felt itself oppressed.”

Whoa. The Copts feel that they are oppressed? This is a matter of emotions or their own opinions of what is happening to them?

In short, are there any experts who study global religious-freedom issues who do not accept, as a reality — demonstrated for centuries — that Coptic believers are persecuted or at least “oppressed” in Egypt? If readers question that statement, I would suggest a quick scan through this U.S. State Department report — “2021 Report on International Religious Freedom: Egypt.”

Now, the good news is that the actual Times report eventually offers quite a bit of information about the plight of Coptic believers. But first, here is the overture that helps set up the implied question in this tragedy: When is a church fire more than a simple church fire?


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Plug-In: Fear, shock, questions follow fatal Albuquerque shootings of four Muslim men

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Plug-In: Fear, shock, questions follow fatal Albuquerque shootings of four Muslim men

First, fear. Then, shock.

Now, questions. Lots of questions.

The Muslim community in Albuquerque, New Mexico — and even nationwide — has dealt with a gamut of emotions since news broke this past weekend of the fatal shootings of four of their own.

“These hateful attacks have no place in America,” President Joe Biden said amid speculation the deaths might be tied to Islamophobia.

After the latest in the string of killings, Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina characterized the shootings as “disturbing” and said police had reason to believe they were related.

“We’re in fear for the safety of our children, our families,” Ahmad Assed, the president of the Islamic Center of New Mexico, said Saturday, as reported by the Wall Street Journal’s Sara Randazzo. “This is a very troubling time for all of us.”

Relief then mixed with shock as the Albuquerque Journal’s Elise Kaplan explains: Authorities charged an Afghan refugee named Muhammad Syed — a Muslim himself — in the homicides of Aftab Hussein, 41, on July 26 and Muhammad Afzaal Hussain, 27, on Aug. 1. Also, police called the 51-year-old Syed a prime suspect in the Nov. 7 fatal shooting of Mohammad Ahmadi, 62, and the Aug. 5 fatal shooting of Naeem Hussain, 25. A later story by Kaplan notes:

Officials estimate there are between 5,000 and 10,000 Muslims living in Albuquerque, representing various races, ethnicities and nationalities. Assed guessed about 80% are Sunni and 20% are Shiite. He said it’s common for members of both groups to visit the Islamic Center of New Mexico.

Of the four Muslim men who were killed, three were practicing Shiite Islam. Syed was a Sunni Muslim, as was Muhammad Afzaal Hussain.

At The Associated Press, Stefanie Dazio and Mariam Fam report:

Investigators received a tip from the city’s Muslim community that pointed toward Syed, who has lived in the U.S. for about five years, police said.

Police were looking into possible motives, including an unspecified “interpersonal conflict.”


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New York Times: LGBTQ rights are a key factor in Ukraine (even if many Ukrainians disagree)

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New York Times: LGBTQ rights are a key factor in Ukraine (even if many Ukrainians disagree)

When I was a sophomore at Baylor University (soon after the cooling of the earth’s crust) the great journalism professor David McHam had an interesting pre-computer way of demonstrating what he wanted to see when a student prepared a second draft of a news story.

Taking a metal straight edge (think pica pole), he would tear the copy into horizontal blocks of text. Then he would rearrange these into a different order, locking them in place with clear tape. Then he would say something like this: “You buried some of the most important information. Go rewrite the story in this order.”

This brings me to a New York Times story about religion, culture, politics and war in Ukraine. There’s a lot of interesting material here, but readers who want to know some crucial basic facts will need to be patient — because they are buried deep in this report. The double-decker headline offers the basic framework:

War Spurs Ukrainian Efforts to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

The role of gay soldiers, the lack of legal rights for their partners, and the threat of Russia imposing anti-L.G.B.T. policies have turned the war into a catalyst for change in Ukraine.

Now, before I go any further, let me note that, yes, I am Orthodox and I attend a parish that includes Slavic believers, as well as lots and lots of American converts. Also, my two visits to Kiev left me convinced Ukraine is — as the Soviets intended — a tragically divided nation. My views are identical to those of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, on that subject.

When Russian began its evil invasion, I posted a note on Facebook that ended with this:

EU-USA was arrogant enough to think they could — with money, culture and military tech — turn Eastern-Russian Ukrainians into Europeans. Will Putin be arrogant enough to think he can, with blood, turn Western-European Ukrainians into Russians?

I raise this issue because, at a crucial point deep in this Times story, I believe it is relevant. Hold that though.

The anecdotal lede for this story focuses on the fears of a young Ukrainian combat medic named Olexander Shadskykh. That leads to the thesis statement:


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Ciao, GetReligion: Thanks, all, for my tenure. Critic that I am, though, here are some final thoughts

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Ciao, GetReligion: Thanks, all, for my tenure. Critic that I am, though, here are some final thoughts

I’ve been a contributor to GetReligion since 2015, when founder Terry Mattingly recruited me over salad at an Annapolis mall eatery. I’m grateful that he did.

Seven years is, for me, a hefty professional run. But nothing lasts for ever. Change is constant. In short, this is my last regular GetReligion post.

During my time here I’ve noticed what I consider an imbalance in the stories GetReligion bloggers generally choose to critique. It is this: The underwhelming and frequently inaccurate religion news coverage too often offered by “mainstream media” is criticized at GetReligion on a near-daily basis. The ignorance of important religion details and the coverage’s overall poor quality are often attributed to mainstream journalists’ “secular,” or “progressive,” worldviews.

Another regular criticism is that mainstream media journalists view everything through a zero-sum political lens. This, goes the argument, renders them incapable of understanding or communicating religious complexity as it’s actually lived by believers living outside the blue-state mindset. Politics is all that really matters, is the trope.

hese broadsides are standard GetReligion fare. Importantly, the accusations are generally on target. It’s more than a coincidence that the GetReligion team members behind this website have decades of experience in the mainstream press.

Religion journalism has suffered greatly in this Internet era. Relatively few news outlets ever invested in upping their religion coverage. Today, even fewer do. Blame that on journalism’s downward economic spiral brought about by the World Wide Web explosion — a major theme here at GetReligion.

However, what’s too often missed here is criticism of the similar lackluster coverage originating in clearly conservative media. At GetReligion, conservative-market media more often than not get a pass. This is, in part, because conservative media’s most popular content is offered by right-wing commentators who make little to no effort to hide their biases and whose stock in trade is pure opinion.


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St. Anne plays a major role in papal visit to Canada: Is she important to Catholics, alone?

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St. Anne plays a major role in papal visit to Canada: Is she important to Catholics, alone?

Long ago, I had a strategic and symbolic on-deadline argument with Rocky Mountain News (#RIP) editor.

Holy Week loomed on the horizon, on the Western calendar, and I was asked to fill out a form requesting quick Ash Wednesday feature art. I suggested — thinking beauty and diversity — a visit to an Episcopal parish in the heart of Denver’s most prominent Black neighborhood, a congregation known for the beauty of its high-church, Anglo-Catholic rites.

The editor said the photo needed to be in a Catholic church, since Holy Week is a Catholic story. I said that was a logical way to think about it, since the Catholic church is so prominent. However, I noted that Holy Week is an ancient Christian tradition observed in many Christian churches and denominations. It would be good to remind readers of that fact. I won that debate and the result was a stunning photograph.

I thought of that debate when reading a timely Religion News Service piece that ran with this headline: “Who is St. Anne and why is she so important to Indigenous peoples?” Let me stress that this is a good story and a valid angle during the Pope Francis pilgrimage to Canada. I urge readers to check it out. Here is the top of that report:

When Pope Francis met with a delegation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people in April at the Vatican, he told them he wanted to visit them in Canada this year. And not just at any time of the year, but during the Feast of St. Anne (July 26).

“I think with joy, for example, of the great veneration that many of you have for Saint Anne, the grandmother of Jesus,” Pope Francis told the Indigenous delegation to the Vatican. “This year I would like to be with you on those days.”

As the pope visits Canada through Friday (July 29), he will indeed celebrate the Feast of St. Anne in the country. He also will visit several sites dedicated to the saint, whom Catholics believe to be the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus.

That last sentence includes a classic example of a statement — “whom Catholics believe to be the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus” — that is certainly accurate, but it would still cause some readers to think, “Wait a minute. Aren’t there millions of other Christians who honor St. Anne for the same reasons?”


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