For 40-plus years, I have dissected the Religion News Association lists naming the year’s Top 10 religion-beat stories.
Trust me, I understand that preparing the ballot for this poll is a thankless job. One of the hardest tasks is finding a way to describe some of the broader trends during any given year. It’s easier — most of the time — to describe singular events.
During this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), host Todd Wilken asked me to describe some of the patterns that I have seen in the RNA poll results through the decades.
Trend No. 1 is clear: Name the biggest political story of the year and look for a religion angle. After all, politics is the true religion of many folks who run newsrooms.
Trend No. 2 works about 76% of the time: What did the pope do this year, especially if it has any implications for U.S. political fights over moral and social issues (see trend No. 1).
Trend No. 3 comes and goes: What did liberal leaders of the Seven Sisters of Mainline Protestantism proclaim about sex and did it cause new revolts that might split their churches? Every now and then, the Southern Baptists slip in with battles over sex, race or politics (newsworthy topics, in other words).
In light of these trends, it was easy to predict that the RNA poll’s top story for 2021 would be:
Religion features prominently during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. Some voice Christian prayers, while others display Christian or pagan symbols and slogans inside and outside the Capitol.
That’s actually a careful wording and, in particular, note that the RNA leaders refrained (this must have been hard) from including a reference to “white evangelicals.”
The key, in this description, is the tension between “prominently” and “some,” as in the folks saying “Christian” prayers. It’s safe to assume that this is the rebel that they had in mind (as quoted in one of my “On Religion” columns):
Having reached the vice president's chair in the U.S. Senate, the self-proclaimed QAnon shaman, UFO expert and metaphysical healer removed his coyote-skin and buffalo horns headdress and announced, with a megaphone, that it was time to pray.
"Thank you, Heavenly Father … for this opportunity to stand up for our God-given inalienable rights," proclaimed Jake "Yellowstone Wolf" Angeli (born Jacob Chansley), his face painted red, white and blue and his torso tattooed with Norse symbols that his critics link to the extreme right.
"Thank you, divine, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Creator God for filling this chamber with your white light and love," he added, in a prayer captured on video by correspondent working for The New Yorker. "Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ. …
“Thank you, divine Creator God for surrounding and filling us with the divine, omnipresent white light of love and protection, of peace and harmony. Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn. Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the communists, the globalists and the traitors within our government."
That’s “Christian” language, of course. However, it’s just as important that these words were being spoken by a man baptized in pagan and QAnon doctrines.
The RNA poll word is much, much more accurate than this sweeping and unattributed Jan. 6 generalization drawn from the sacred pages of The New York Times:
The blend of cultural references, and the people who brought them, made clear a phenomenon that has been brewing for years now: that the most extreme corners of support for Mr. Trump have become inextricable from some parts of white evangelical power in America. Rather than completely separate strands of support, these groups have become increasingly blended together.
Once again, there is that crucial word “some” in front of the words “parts of white evangelical power in America.”
Months later, I am still asking: What “parts of white evangelical power” are we talking about? As I wrote, in response to that blast from the Times:
… (A)nyone who studies “evangelicalism” — white or otherwise — knows that we are talking about a movement based on the work of powerful denominations (this includes megachurches), parachurch groups, publishers (and authors) and major colleges, universities and seminaries.
Has anyone seen evidence of ties binding evangelical power centers to the planning of this hellish riot? Let me say, once again:
There is no need to ignore the evidence that SOME Southern Baptists backed Trump with enthusiasm and that MANY chose him as the lesser of two evils. But we are looking for hard evidence of some kind of Point A, B, C sequence that puts Christians committing crimes inside the U.S. Capitol security zone while waving “Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President” signs.
What we get in this New York Times piece is people from small, possibly independent, congregations with zero connections to institutions of evangelical power.
The current hearings inside the U.S. Capitol are important (and valid, methinks), but they are also highly politicized, to no one’s surprise.
What we need are some actual courtroom dramas based on solid evidence — emails, smartphone connections, etc. — that show who planned the attack on the Capitol. With that in mind, here is one final chunk of another GetReligion post I wrote, in response to ongoing coverage probing the identities of the rioters:
The question, from the start, is whether evidence would emerge in trials indicating that any of these lawbreakers were linked to powerful evangelical Protestant denominations, ministries, schools, etc. See these two GetReligion posts: “Early arrests after U.S. Capitol riot: So were there evangelical leaders in the attack or not?“ and “Evangelical 'power' and U.S. Capitol rioting: What about Franklin Graham and Falwell Jr.?”
Readers need to know if an “evangelical” who attacks a cop was from a tiny independent church in the hills or from the staff of a major parachurch ministry that, behind the scenes, conspired with other groups of that kind to plan an attack on the U.S. government. So far, I have not seen solid reporting that points to activity among actual centers of evangelical Protestant influence and power.
Let me urge, once again, readers to dig into a Tony Carnes piece — “Mysteries about the Mob in the Capitol cleared up“ — posted at the must-read website A Journey Through NYC Religions.
So what else is worthy of note in the 2021 RNA Top 10 list?
You could make a strong case that item No. 2 will turn out to have been the most important, looking through a global lens:
Taliban retake control of Afghanistan after U.S. military withdraws, reimposing strict Islamic rule 20 years after their ouster by a U.S.-backed coalition in the wake of 9/11. Refugees flee in airlift amid fears for the future of women and religious minorities.
The third item, for me, is a bit premature. Look for the SCOTUS ruling in this case at the top of next year’s RNA poll.
Supreme Court hears Mississippi’s bid to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision establishing a right to abortion. Court refuses to block Texas’s enactment of law allowing private citizens to enforce a ban on abortions after cardiac activity can be detected, early in pregnancy.
Two different items in the list focused on the evolving impact of the coronavirus pandemic — including debates about vaccines — on religious institutions. Alas, this will almost certainly be true next year, as well.
Way, way, way down in the RNA list was another story that I would put at the very top, in terms of long-term impact. This was No. 23:
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sides with a Catholic foster care agency, saying the city of Philadelphia wrongly limited its relationship with the group because its religious views prevent it from working with same-sex couples.
Ponder that word “unanimously.” This was a victory for old-school First Amendment liberalism and could, perhaps, point to similar logic on other big religious liberty cases.
Finally, there was an RNA salute to President Joe Biden and his love-hate relationship with centuries of Christian moral theology.
Biden was, of course, the RNA’s newsmaker of the year. I was sort of surprised that it wasn’t a tie between Biden and his (according to the press) good buddy Pope Francis. The next names in the newsmaker list? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and, well, the Taliban.
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FIRST IMAGE: The famous Trump-Jesus flag, on sale at Amazon.com