Civil Rights movement

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Podcast: Are (all) evangelicals the only folks tempted to gloss over candidates' sins?

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Podcast: Are (all) evangelicals the only folks tempted to gloss over candidates' sins?

Oh my. It appears that editors at the New York Times has veered back into what could be called “evangelical voter monolith mode” once again.

I base that comment on the thesis paragraphs of a recent Times report that ran with the headline, “‘Saved by Grace’: Evangelicals Find a Way Forward With Herschel Walker.” That story was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). I will return to the Walker drama in a minute.

But before we go there, let’s pause and flash back to a Gray Lady report from a few months ago that ran with this headline: “As a ‘Seismic Shift’ Fractures Evangelicals, an Arkansas Pastor Leaves Home.” It’s the first half of that headline that interests us, right now. Here is some of the crucial language:

Across the country, theologically conservative white evangelical churches that were once comfortably united have found themselves at odds over many of the same issues dividing the Republican Party and other institutions. …

Michael O. Emerson, a sociologist at the University of Illinois Chicago, described a “seismic shift” coming, with white evangelical churches dividing into two broad camps: those embracing [Donald] Trump-style messaging and politics, including references to conspiracy theories, and those seeking to navigate a different way.

That’s accurate, of course. Anyone who has followed evangelical debates in the Trump era knows that the big story is rooted in tension, pain and divisions — not monolithic unity about how to approach politics.

At the same time, evangelicals are still facing a crushing binary reality when they approach election-day decisions — trying to decide, in some cases, between what they view as flawed GOP candidates and Democratic candidates whose stances on First Amendment and sanctity-of-life issues put them in a “can’t go there” category.

Evangelicals of various kinds do not agree on how to handle that, falling into camps that resemble the 2016 and 2020 national elections.

Thus, here is a flashback to my Trump-era evangelical voter typology from several years ago. When reading it this time, simply substitute “Walker” for “Trump” and apply these camps to White, Black (they exist) and Latino (they exist) evangelical/charismatic voters in Georgia.


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When covering riots and flames, it's wise to seek veteran voices from black churches

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It was impossible to continue business as usual in a seminary classroom in the spring of 1992, as flames and violence spread through parts of Los Angeles.

This was especially true while team-teaching a seminar blending studies of the Old Testament prophets with moral and spiritual signals drawn from contemporary news and entertainment media. In this particular seminar at Denver Seminary, half of the future pastors were black and half were white.

Old Testament prophets? Hear a few words from Jeremiah 22:

Hear the word of the Lord, O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David — you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates. Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place. … (If) you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.

Our leader, the late Haddon Robinson — one of the greatest homiletics professors ever — approved the following assignment, as we approached the first Sunday during the riots. We asked each white student to contact a black pastor, seeking insights into the sermon preached that Sunday. We asked black students to contact white pastors with the same goal.

I thought of that assignment while reading waves of news coverage of the protests and riots — note that the distinction — after the death of George Floyd, his neck under a white Minneapolis police officer’s knee. I also remembered that seminar in 2015, standing in my front yard watching smoke and flames in the night sky over Baltimore.

It’s impossible to do justice to the many religious themes and images in the events — peaceful and violent — linked to Floyd’s death, from the many protestors kneeling in prayer (sometimes with police) to rioters painting obscene curses on historic sanctuaries.

But we can see one constant that journalists should remember under these circumstances: The voices of the black church will be there — somewhere — and if you seek them out, you will find words, images and ideas that are crucial to those building coalitions seeking justice and change. And when it’s time to heal and clean up, look for religious folks of all kinds — black, white, whatever. They will be there, day after day.


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Holy ghost in Alabama: NYT interviews white pastor friend of Rosa Parks, neglects to ask about his faith

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"Bombed by the K.K.K. A Friend of Rosa Parks. At 90, This White Pastor Is Still Fighting."

That really nice headline atop a recent New York Times story certainly grabbed my attention.

When I clicked the link, I expected to read — at least a little bit — about the pastor's faith.

Amazingly, I didn't.

The Times managed to avoid a single detail about how the minister's religion influenced his approach to civil rights. This, friends, is what we at GetReligion refer to as a "holy ghost."

The haunted piece opens compellingly enough:

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Rev. Robert S. Graetz was virtually alone among Montgomery’s white ministers in supporting the bus boycott that helped galvanize the civil rights movement.

That’s when the bombings began.

As the white pastor at an all-black Lutheran church in Alabama in the 1950s, Mr. Graetz was just 28 years old when he became a recurring target for the Ku Klux Klan.

“The noise awakened us,” Rosa Parks, who was a neighbor of the Graetz family, wrote of a 1957 attack.

In the brief, handwritten document, Mrs. Parks described decades later how she and her husband went quickly to the Graetz family’s home after the bombing. The area had been roped off by the police.

“They said we could not enter. Rev. Graetz spoke to me and said, ‘Come in Brother Parks and Mrs. Parks,’” she added. “We went and offered to help. We began sweeping the floor and picking up.”

Keep reading, and the Times offers more details on the document written by Rosa Parks and the Graetz family's plans to donate it to historically black Alabama State University.


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Wedgwood Baptist flashback: A clock started ticking on a new era of attacks on religious believers

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Day after day, I get waves of promotional emails from groups that I have covered during my 30 years as a religion-beat columnist.

Some of them I merely glance at. Others I fill away for future use.

One email this morning stood out, for obvious reasons. It was from the team of church-security advisors with an organization that calls itself the Sheepdog Seminars (as in workers who fight the wolves that prey on "sheep" in a church flock). One member of the team, Jimmy Meeks, is a Hurst, Texas, police officer who is also a Southern Baptist preacher. I've been corresponding with him for years (click here for a column from five years ago).

The email was from Sutherland Springs, Texas. Here's what it said:

This newsletter is short. Quite frankly, I don't know what to tell you this time. I do know this: we have now set a new "record" for the number of people killed on church and faith-based property this year: 92 so far.

The old "record" was 77 lives in 2015. This violence is not going to stop. You had better prepare your church. 

As our own Bobby Ross, Jr., noted at midweek, journalists have been all over the church-security angle of this latest tragedy -- with good cause. The fact that there are multiple companies and networks dedicated to this kind of work is evidence of the validity of this story.

The common theme is not that church pews need to be packed with people who have concealed weapons. The bottom line is that religious institutions need some kind of plan for security and, tragically, this now means preparing to stop or slow down a gunman, with worshipers briefed on evacuation plans, etc.

This is not a new story, of course. Thus, I appreciated that The Fort Worth Star-Tribune team dug into its own local angle on this latest massacre in a church. I am talking about the attack nearly two decades ago at that city's Wedgwood Baptist Church, which was the tragedy that -- for security experts -- started the clock ticking on a bloody new era.


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