Terry Mattingly

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Why do 'people' celebrate Three Kings Day, as opposed to Epiphany and Theophany?

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Why do 'people' celebrate Three Kings Day, as opposed to Epiphany and Theophany?

I have to admit that I experienced a sense of excitement, mixed with dread, when I saw the following headline this weekend, care of the Gannett wire here in Tennessee: “Why is Three Kings Day celebrated? Epiphany? And what does Rosca de Reyes have to do with king cakes?”

Most of the time, the contents of The Knoxville News Sentinel is dominated by University of Tennessee sports, coverage of bad Republicans doing bad things and updates about business and real-estate news in downtown neighborhoods favored by hip readers.

Coverage of the Feast of Epiphany — which follows the oft forgotten 12 days of Christmas — had the potential to offer unique details about traditions in local churches. But stories about Christian holy days are hard for many newsrooms, since they involve lots of picky facts about, you know, “religious stuff.”

OK, so what is wrong with this lede?

People around the world will celebrate Three Kings Day this weekend.

That lede could have said “Christians” and that would be vague, but OK. But, “people”?

Let’s keep reading, because things get a bit better and also rather strange at the same time.

In Hispanic communities, the day is known as Día de Los Reyes and is celebrated on Jan. 6 which is Saturday this year. The day is meant to honor the story revolving around the Three Wise Men or Magi who came to bring baby Jesus gifts after his birth. For those of the Christian and Catholic sects, it is known as the Epiphany.

The Hispanic reference is helpful, since Día de Los Reyes is a big deal and it’s totally appropriate in many zip codes to stress that. But what, in heaven’s name, is the point of this: “For those of the Christian and Catholic sects, it is known as the Epiphany.”

Think about that for a second. Catholicism is a “sect,” as opposed to being the world’s largest ancient Christian communion? And what are the other “sects” we are talking about here?


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Flashback to 1997: Times legend A.M. Rosenthal on press ignoring religious persecution

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Flashback to 1997: Times legend A.M. Rosenthal on press ignoring religious persecution

The U.S. State Department churns out many newsworthy reports, a few of which make news while the rest vanish into circular files.

In July [1997], the state department finally released its first report on religious persecution in 78 nations. A spokesperson reminded reporters that it was Congress that mandated the 56- page document's emphasis on the persecution of Christians. The state department, stressed John Shattuck, doesn't view this "as more important than other topics involving religious freedom."

On Capitol Hill, critics noted that the report was six months overdue and came weeks after pivotal congressional votes on Most Favored Nation status for China. It created a few media ripples, then vanished. The Religion Newswriters Association did name the state department report as its eighth most important news story of 1997.

On Nov. 16, there was another newsworthy event – a global day of prayer on behalf of the persecuted church. About 8 million Americans in 50,000 Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations took part, pledging themselves to keep praying and to seek changes that would help persecuted believers.

This event received even less news coverage than the state department report. The end-of-the-year ballot mailed to religion-news specialists didn't even mention it.

"That's astonishing. It's quite depressing, actually," said retired New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal. "That state department report was nothing – it was a non-story. It was patched together out of old information and then they delayed it as long as possible to minimize its impact. The only reason that report even existed was because of the movement against religious persecution and all of the pressure it has been putting on Congress. That's the story."

The day of prayer was even perfectly timed to justify major news coverage.


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Podcast: A.M. Rosenthal kept calling for accurate coverage of religion and persecution

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Podcast: A.M. Rosenthal kept calling for accurate coverage of religion and persecution

Does anyone remember fax machines?

This week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) focused on a sad, but very old reality in mainstream news coverage — the lack of mainstream news coverage of the massacres that take place year after year in Nigeria at Christmas.

To put this trend in context, I backed up to an “On Religion” column that I wrote in 1996 that opened like this, focusing on a tragedy that was unfolding in Sudan:

It's possible to buy a Christian slave in southern Sudan for as little as $15.

Last year's going rate for parents who want to buy back their own kidnapped child was five head of cattle – about $400. A boy might cost 10 head. An exiled leader in Sudan's Catholic Bishops Conference reports that 30,000 children have been sold into slavery in the Nuba mountains. In six years, more than 1.3 million Christian and other non-Muslim people have been killed in Sudan – more than Bosnia, Chechnya and Haiti combined.

A Jewish activist, Michael J. Horowitz of the Hudson Center, faxed my column to the legendary A. M. Rosenthal, the retired editor of the New York Times and a former foreign correspondent who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting. This led to many “On My Mind” columns at the Times, including one in which Rosenthal noted that Horowitz “screamed me awake” on the undercovered reality that is religious persecution.

That fax contact led to some conversations — via email and telephone — in which Rosenthal and I talked about the journalism realities behind a global story that was shamefully undercovered then and that remains the case to this day.

When Rosenthal died in 2006, I wrote a column (“Rosenthal refused to remain silent”) that noted:

Some human-rights activists are convinced that one of the reasons he lost his column and was forced to leave the Times was because he wouldn't stop writing about the persecution of religious minorities around the world.

Rosenthal couldn't understand why so many journalists just didn't "get" that story.


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When is Christmas? CBS has no idea how complex that question is right now in Ukraine

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When is Christmas? CBS has no idea how complex that question is right now in Ukraine

Christmas is complicated, if you sweat the details. At the gym I frequent here in Oak Ridge, the management took down all of the Christmas decorations on December 26th.

I asked why. I was told: “Christmas is over.” I asked if they had heard of the “12 days of Christmas.” A staffer said, “Yes,” but assumed that was before the 25th. Another staffer quietly said that she would leave the decorations up until January 6th. It’s safe to assume that she attends the local Catholic parish or another liturgical church.

Hang in there with me. I am working my way toward a stunningly one-sided CBS News report that ran with this headline: “Ukraine snubs Russia, celebrates Christmas on Dec. 25 for first time.”

The key is that America has shopping-mall Christmas and then liturgical-calendar Christmas. Several years ago, I wrote an “On Religion” column noting that when Siri is asked, “When is Christmas?”, an Apple iPhone answered: "Christmas is on … December 25, 2012. I hope I have the day off." Then I asked, “When is Advent?” That led to this “conversation.”

Siri searched her memory and said: "I didn't find any events about 'Ed Fant.' "

Trying again: "When is the Advent season?"

Siri cheerfully responded: "I am not aware of any events about 'advent season.' "

After several more "BEED-EEP" chimes the Apple cloud ultimately drew a blank when asked, "When does the Christmas season end?" Alas, Siri didn't understand the term "Christmas season."

This morning, I asked Siri: “When is Orthodox Christmas.” I was told that Christmas Day is on January 7th.

Ah, but that isn’t accurate in most Orthodox Churches in America. Why? That’s complicated and the fine details are relevant to the CBS News report about Ukraine.

Many people are aware that the Orthodox follow the ancient Julian calendar, instead of the Western Gregorian calendar. However, in many lands shaped by European culture, the Orthodox (this includes my parish) follow a modified Julian calendar that manages to put Christmas on December 25th, but Pascha (Easter) remains on the date that fits the Julian calendar.

Trust me, there is much more that can be said. But here is the key: This is basically a collision between cultures shaped by European culture and those shaped by eastern Orthodox culture.


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Fiducia Supplicans news flashback: 5-star case of the medium being the message

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Fiducia Supplicans news flashback: 5-star case of the medium being the message

Here is a fact from life on the religion beat. Several times a year, a religion-beat reporter is going to be approached by an editor who wants him or her to make a photo-assignment for a religious holiday or a story with some kind of religion hook.

They don’t want Southern Baptists in gray suits (or even megachurch tropical shirts). They don’t want Pentecostal believers in church clothes with their hands in the air. (Well, if there were snake-handlers in urban zip codes near elite newsrooms, they’d be big hits with newsroom photo-desks.)

Reporters know what editors want — pictures of Catholic rites. Catholics photograph well. That’s why there are 100 movies about Catholics for every one movie about run-of-the-mill Protestants. (Episcopalians will do, every now and then, especially since they always are several decades ahead of Rome on the historic “reforms,” such as female bishops, etc.)

This brings me, belatedly (I’ve had other things on my mind), to Fiducia Supplicans and what makes that complex and, I would argue, intentionally confusing document so newsworthy and historic.

This was a papal chess move that, in the fine print, stressed that its creators did NOT want to produce photo ops that looked like same-sex marriages. But the big news is that it did precisely that in the media that matter the most — newspapers and television networks in New York City and other deep-blue media environments.

It’s all about the staged visuals. If you look at Fiducia Supplicans from a photo-op perspective, the key New York Times story was perfect. The headline: “Making History on a Tuesday Morning, With the Church’s Blessing.”

These blessing rites had been taking place in Europe for several years now (and privately, we can assume, in North America). The elite press ignored those events, even though — from a church history perspective — they were just as important as blessing rites In. New. York. City.

But anything in New York City, with America’s most important (and Pope Francis favored) priest in a starring role is obviously more important than something in Germany. Right? Now it’s time to celebrate.


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'Naughty' list mass media: Should religious leaders help parents fight screen culture?

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'Naughty' list mass media: Should religious leaders help parents fight screen culture?

Parents in pews rarely turn to Rolling Stone for advice about pop-culture morality.

But the magazine's expose about "The Idol," a summer HBO series about a romance between a pop starlet and an edgy cult leader, produced waves of viral quotes. Production staffers called it a "rape fantasy" that verged on "sexual torture porn." One said the series about a young woman "finding herself sexually" evolved into "a show about a man who gets to abuse this woman, and she loves it."

The network cancelled "The Idol," even though a public-relations statement cited "strong audience response" to "one of HBO's most provocative" dramas.

Thus, HBO landed on the Parents Television and Media Council "naughty list" for 2023. The citation noted: "HBO has led the charge towards marketing explicit, adult content to children and teens, introducing the sexually explicit The Idol to viewers this past summer, quietly adding Naked Attraction featuring uncensored fully naked contestants, and extending teen-targeted Euphoria for another season of drugs and depravity."

National Public Radio hailed "Euphoria" as "thrilling, daring, disquieting and compelling," as well as "a parent's worst nightmare" with its focus on high-school students who have "problems handling an excess of drugs, drink and sex" and "always seem to make the worst choices."

While stressing that PTMC is secular, it's obvious that today's digital screen culture -- delivered through smartphones, tablets, laptops and, every now and then, televisions -- is raising issues that religious leaders cannot ignore, said Melissa Henson, the organization's programming director.

"Unquestionably, COVID accelerated a shift in media consumption patterns. … We're not talking about the end of traditional television, but there is no question that the audience is becoming more and more fragmented," said Henson, in a telephone interview.

"This is making it harder for parents to be aware of what their children are watching, of course. Also, the online world isn't controlled by the kinds of forces that affected TV or even cable TV, such as the desires of advertisers."


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GetReligion will close on February 2, the 20th anniversary of this blog's birth

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GetReligion will close on February 2, the 20th anniversary of this blog's birth

Doug LeBlanc clicked “publish” on the original GetReligion website on February 2, 2004, and the GetReligion team has published at least one piece of new content every day ever since.

That streak will end in just over a month, on our 20th anniversary. The website will close, although some of our features will live on — to one degree or another — on other websites. We will share more details before we close, so hold that thought.

The plan is to keep GetReligion.org online as a massive archive of Godbeat life over a stunningly complex 20 years in the news business, as the realities of the digital age have rocked the landscape of hard-news journalism. The goal is to find a reference-materials home with an academic institution that values the study of religion, mass culture and the First Amendment.

We want to keep this archive online as a way of stressing the three goals that led to the creation of GetReligion.org in the first place. We have tried to:

(1) Promote religion-news reporting in the mainstream press, arguing that journalists on this beat deserve the respect given to those covering other complex topics in the public square. If newsroom managers want to improve religion-beat coverage, they can use ordinary journalism logic — hiring experienced (maybe even award-winning) religion-beat reporters and then letting them do their work.

(2) Note that far too many journalists (especially those at political desks) tend to miss obvious religion angles in important stories, often mangling basic facts and history in the process. The result is news coverage “haunted” by what we call “religion ghosts.” Why does this happen? As the liberal journalism icon Bill Moyers once told me, many journalists are "tone deaf" to the music of faith in public life.

(3) Defend the traditional “American Model of the Press,” with its emphasis on professional standards that stress accuracy, fairness and even balance. Many journalists seem to believe that these old-school standards do not apply to coverage of hot-button subjects linked to religion, morality and culture. After all, politics is real. Religion? Not so much.

Why close GetReligion now? I will admit that I have, in recent years, struggling to accept the many ways in which the digital age has changed the business model for the mainstream press. What we have here is a classic example of the mass-media doctrine that “technology shapes content.”


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Top U.S. 2023 story for religion-news pros: Islamophobia and antisemitism spike after October 7

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Top U.S. 2023 story for religion-news pros: Islamophobia and antisemitism spike after October 7

The Hamas surprise attack on Israeli citizens was selected as the year's most important international story by religion-beat journalists, in part because it led to "spikes in Islamophobia and antisemitism" when Israel launched its massive counterattack on Gaza.

Members of the Religion News Association echoed that decision when voting to select the top 2023 religion story in America.

"Incidents of hate against Jews and Muslims skyrocket after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel, and Israel's military assault in Gaza," noted the RNA, in its poll. "In Illinois, a Palestinian-American boy is killed, and his mother wounded in an alleged hate attack. The conflict prompts numerous protests, and college campuses see fierce debate about the war and the boundaries of free speech."

The generational nature of the U.S. debates was underlined in a Harvard-Harris poll in which 60% of respondents aged 18-24 agreed that the "Hamas killing of 1200 Israeli civilians and the kidnapping of another 250 civilians can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians." In that poll, 67% of participants in that same age group affirmed that "Jews as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors," as opposed to 9% of respondents older than 65.

The Anti-Defamation League reported 2,031 antisemitic incidents in the United States between October 7 and December 7. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, noted CNN, reported 2,171 U.S. claims of Islamophobic "bias or requests for help" between October 7 and December 2.

For many years, the RNA published one annual list of the world's most important religion-news events and trends. For the second year in a row, the organization produced separate American and global lists. The next few American selections were:

* Legislative and legal battles continued after he 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, with numerous states banning or restricting abortion and others solidifying access to abortions. U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville blocked hundreds of military job nominations and promotions, while protesting a White House policy that allowed U.S. soldiers to travel to obtain abortions in states where these procedures are more easily available.

* At least 25% of United Methodist congregations left America's second-largest Protestant denomination, following decades of conflict about biblical authority and ancient doctrines on marriage and sexuality, including the ordination of noncelibate LGBTQ+ clergy.


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Thinking about a 'slow-motion' Catholic schism, with Ross Douthat and the X choirs

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Thinking about a 'slow-motion' Catholic schism, with Ross Douthat and the X choirs

My history with computers and journalism is long and complex.

Back in 1978, soon after the cooling of the Earth’s crust, I held a newsroom copy-desk job that required me to memorize (OK, I had a filing-card cheat sheet) the manual codes to control all of the fonts and text sizes for news stories, headlines, photo credits, cutlines, etc. I used to have nightmares in which I would mess one up.

A few years later, everyone had work stations tied to a newsroom mainframe. Then there were giant portable computers for the sports reporters and political-desk pros (the people who wrote copy that really mattered). Then there were tiny Radio Shack laptops.

I know, I know. Jurassic journalism territory.

But this brings me to what I think is a must-read online commentary about the Pope Francis decision to allow — some would now say require — priests to bless same-sex couples and/or their relationships. There have been many worth noting (see this essential Clemente Lisi post), but I think a tweetstorm from Ross Douthat looms over the debate, because he writes for The New York Times.

But how to embed all those tweets without making readers jump over hurdles of repeated material? I confess that I do not have the technical skill to do that. Thus, I did a cut-and-paste “think piece” — with Douthat’s leaping off post embedded at the very top.

It’s a quick read, but offers much to think about.


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