I have strong memories, to say the least, of the first Overby Center program in which I was able to participate, as a senior fellow for the center and as editor of GetReligion.
The topic was the role that religion would play in the 2020 presidential election. Religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling was there and both of us stressed that, while journalists were pouring oceans of ink into coverage of (#TriggerWarning) white evangelicals, Catholic voters would play the pivotal role in swing states. I also noted the little-covered 2016 impact of Latino evangelicals and, especially, Pentecostal believers in Florida. I didn’t think to predict a starring 2020 role these Latino voters in Texas.
When was that program? Here’s a clue. As I drove home, I stopped for lunch in Jackson, Tenn. As I pulled back onto the interstate headed east, I heard a radio report noting that the mysterious virus that was causing havoc in Wuhan, China, had now been detected in Europe and, perhaps, in New York City.
Days later, the whole world turned upside down.
With social-distancing, masks and vaccines in mind, we recently gathered in Oxford for a forum addressing a logical topic — why religion was a key factor (but not the only one or even the dominant one) in America’s wars over COVID-19 vaccines. Click here to watch the event on YouTube.
In addition to Center founder Charles Overby, I was joined by three logical voices on this subject.
First, political scientist (and GetReligion contributor) Ryan Burge Zoomed in with several crucial charts full of relevant info. Take this post, for example: “Thinking about white evangelicals, COVID-19 vaccines and VERY popular headlines.” Then there was Marquita Smith of the University of Mississippi faculty, a journalist I came to know while she was teaching at John Brown University on the edge of the Ozarks. She is now the assistant dean of graduate programs at the Ole Miss J-school.
The final panelist was the Rev. Daniel Darling, who was recently named director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.
Then again, Darling may be better known in religion-beat circles because of this New York Times headline: “Fired After Endorsing Vaccines, Evangelical Insider Takes a Leadership Role.”
Early in the week that Darling was fired, I interviewed him for an On Religion column with this headline: “When facing vaccine-doubters in pews, trust is crucial (as opposed to shame).” Two days later, all heck broke loose.
This was actually my second On Religion column focusing on Darling’s work, my first focused on his book “A Way With Words: Using Our Online Conversations for Good.” You can see the rather ironic content of that column in the headline that I gave it: “It doesn’t help when true believers start joining mobs engaged in online combat.”
You can see how that would connect to the vaccine-war discussion. Here’s a big chunk of that column:
It seemed that whenever the Rev. Daniel Darling ventured into social media, he saw the same red flags – so he posted a commentary on "Christians and Conspiracy Theories."
"Because it's online, doesn't mean it's true," he noted. "Because a story is advanced by someone whose ideology I agree with, doesn't mean it's true. …
"For some reason, we are a people who want to believe there is a big plot behind every single thing that happens. … If you watch enough cable TV, depending on your political persuasion, you will come to think that behind every act in Congress there is a string of connected dots that go back to either George Soros (liberal) or the Koch brothers (conservative)."
This wasn't a hot take on QAnon letters or rumors of shredded Georgia ballots.
Darling wrote those words a decade ago, while leading an evangelical church near Chicago.
Here’s one more relevant quotation:
"I'm not saying we should run away and hide," said Darling, in a telephone interview. "There's no way to avoid the fact that social media is a crucial part of American life. I don't think Christians have any choice about whether or not to be engaged. …
"What we need to do is be more careful when deciding where to draw lines and take stands. But, unless you're Amish, I don't see anyone sitting this one out."
Enjoy the YouTube and, please, pass it along to others. And by all means, let me urge readers to consider supporting GetReligion and future programs of this kind.