Hang on for a wild ride.
Try to avoid whiplash.
Yes, it was another crazy week in the world of religion news and we’re going to cover the highlights in a hurry.
Starting with the obvious: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s selection of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate brings plenty of faith angles.
Elana Schor, the national religion and politics writer for The Associated Press, notes that the 55-year-old Harris “attended services at both a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple growing up — an interfaith background that reflects her historic status as the first Black woman and woman of South Asian descent on a major-party presidential ticket.”
Bob Smietana, editor-in-chief of Religion News Service, dubs Harris “the interfaith candidate,” and RNS national correspondent Yonat Shimron offers “five faith facts about Biden’s VP choice.” In a separate story, Shimron suggests that Harris “is also the future of American religion.”
But the crucial angles related to Harris and religion aren’t all positive, even if some news coverage is. Can you say “Knights of Columbus”?
Her selection prompted the National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis to write about what DeSanctis’ article called “Kamala Harris’s Anti-Catholic Bigotry.” Even before the Harris pick, Kelsey Dallas, the Deseret News’ national religion writer, had reported last week on Biden’s “tough road ahead on religious freedom.”
At the Washington Post, columnist Michael Gerson opines that the Harris pick “exacerbates Biden’s existing problem with religious voters. He must work to reassure them.”
What is the problem? Gerson outlines it this way:
Whether Biden understands it — and whether he cares — the selection of Harris contributes to a Catholic problem that already existed because of Biden’s pro-choice views and his newly discovered support for federal funding of abortions. And this, by extension, is also an evangelical problem.
In 2018, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Harris strongly suggested that being a member of the Knights of Columbus — a nearly 2 million-member Catholic social and charitable organization — was disqualifying for the federal bench. She posed a series of inappropriate questions to federal district court nominee Brian Buescher, who had joined the Knights at the age of 18: “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization? . . . Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when you joined the organization? . . . Have you ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights?”
Harris was effectively treating membership in a distinctly Catholic organization as if it were allegiance to a hate group. The full Senate eventually repudiated Harris’s attempt to apply a religious test for office.
Concerning Biden’s own Catholic faith, my Religion Unplugged colleague Timothy Nerozzi has an interesting analysis this week focusing on “Is Joe Biden Catholic? It depends on who you ask.” Meanwhile, our own Clemente Lisi discusses how Biden’s faith has become “a campaign issue as anti-Catholic attacks rise.”
Did you catch all that? I warned you to hang on for a wild ride. And we’re just getting started.
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. ‘Christianity will have power’: “If there is one question people ask me over and over, it is this: Why do evangelicals support Donald Trump?” tweeted New York Times national religion writer Elizabeth Dias. “This story, told through devout families in Iowa, is our answer to that question.”
Dias’ in-depth piece, datelined Sioux Center, Iowa, and running on Sunday’s front page, definitely ranks as the week’s most talked-about religion story. Some loved it.
Others raised questions about it, including Lee Pitts, a Dordt University journalism professor who lives in Sioux Center. In a viral Religion Unplugged op-ed, Pitts argues that the Times narrative relies on stereotypes about his community.
2. Across faiths, pandemic alters worship, rites: As a writer, I hate to acknowledge this, but sometimes, pictures tell the story much better than words.
With that in check, be sure to check out Associated Press photographer Elizabeth Dalziel’s compelling photo feature on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected religious groups in England.
Continue reading “Kamala Harris' Interfaith Background Draws Focus, But Some Call Her Anti-Catholic” by Bobby Ross at Religion Unplugged.