Intersectionality

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Religion-beat crash: RNS wades into intersectional fight between LGBTQ clout and race

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Religion-beat crash: RNS wades into intersectional fight between LGBTQ clout and race

The journalism nightmare begins with an email, a text or, in the old days, a telephone call or a photocopy of a document in the mail.

Sources may or may not demand to remain anonymous. They want your newsroom to dive into a controversy that — in most cases — involves money, sex, power and what violations of religious law, criminal laws or both.

The source has tons of information on one side of a conflict that has two sides, or more. There is no way to write the story without multiple voices speaking — but only one side will talk. Nine times out of 10, there are legitimate issues of confidentiality, often legalities linked to counseling or medical care.

The reporter describes all of this to an editor. It’s clear this story will require untold hours of research (money, in newsroom terms) and, if the story ever pans out, the result will be long and complicated. The editor’s eyes glaze over. The question: Why is this story worth the time, money and effort?

I got one of those calls, long ago, about the sex life and financial times of PTL’s Jim Bakker. Eventually Charlotte Observer editors passed, pulling me off that lead. I left and, years later, a great reporter (see the essential Charles E. Shepard book) pulled the evolving threads together for a Pulitzer.

I cannot imagine how many emails and calls Robert Downen and Houston Chronicle reporters fielded before being allowed to dig into years of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention. I’m waiting for the book.

All of this is a long introduction to the challenges that, I suspect, loom over this double-decker Religion News Service headline:

Why the largest US Lutheran denomination apologized to a Latino congregation

It’s been a ‘perfect storm’ of charismatic personalities and a heightened awareness of racism, all brewing in one of the country’s whitest denominations

But the story doesn’t open with issues linked to race.

What we see in this unbelievably complicated story is a head-on collision between key elements of postmodern theories about “intersectionality.” Think race, sex, gender, economics and the demographic realities facing the declining world of oldline liberal Protestantism.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

About that Southern Baptist 'binder' story: What do Black biblical 'inerrantists' say about CRT?

, , , , , , , , ,
About that Southern Baptist 'binder' story: What do Black biblical 'inerrantists' say about CRT?

Reporters receive all kinds of bizarre things in the mail (analog or digital). Religion-beat reporters have been known to have some really, really bizarre items come out of nowhere.

My all-time “favorite” (I am using that term loosely) was a 35-page, handwritten manifesto detailing why — using lots of biblical references — Barbra Streisand was the Antichrist. I filed that one away. That wasn’t the case, however, with the typed, unsigned note in a plain white envelope that pointed to public documents detailing the arrest of a prominent clergyman for a sex crime committed in a public bathroom.

Journalists offered hot documents have to ask two questions:

(1) Can this information be verified as accurate?

(2) What are the motives of the person sharing the information? That question leads to another: How can those motives be explained to readers without identifying the person who provided the documents?

It goes without saying that documents from an on-the-record source will be trusted — by informed readers and “stockholders” in the story — more than those from a source demanding anonymity. The key is to give as much information as possible about the source of the information as possible, including why anonymity was acceptable in this case.

This leads us to the Nashville Tennessean story that rocked the world of Southern Baptist Convention social media, the one with this headline: “Inside the Southern Baptist Convention's battle over race and what it says about the denomination.”

The entire story pivots on documents linked to a former SBC president, the Rev. James Merritt, and the Rev. J.D. Greear, the convention’s leader at the time of the events described in the story. It also helps to know that Merritt was the chair of the national convention resolutions committee in 2021.

All of this focuses on efforts to pass a 2021 SBC resolution that condemned “critical race theory” outright — by name and with no qualifications, as desired by leaders of the SBC’s most conservative churches. Here is a key passage:


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Don't give us those old time religions: New York Times asks what it means to be a Democrat

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hey, news consumers: Does anyone remember that "Nones on the Rise" study from the Pew Research Center?

Of course you do. It was in all the newspapers, over and over. It even soaked into network and cable television news -- where stories about religion is rare.

The big news, of course, was the rapid rise in "Nones" -- the "religiously unaffiliated" -- in the American population, especially among the young. Does this sound familiar? One-fifth of all Americans -- a third of those under 30 -- are "Nones," to one degree or another.

Traditional forms of religious faith were holding their own, while lots of vaguely religious people in the mushy middle were being more candid about their lack of ties to organized religion. More than 70 percent of "Nones" called themselves "nothing in particular," as opposed to being either atheists or agnostics.

When the study came out, a key researcher -- John C. Green of the University of Akron -- said it was crucial to note the issues that united these semi-believers, as well as atheists, agnostics and faithful religious liberals, into a growing voter block on the cultural left. My "On Religion" column ended with this:

The unaffiliated overwhelmingly reject ancient doctrines on sexuality with 73 percent backing same-sex marriage and 72 percent saying abortion should be legal in all, or most, cases. Thus, the "Nones" skew heavily Democratic as voters. ... The unaffiliated are now a stronger presence in the Democratic Party than African-American Protestants, white mainline Protestants or white Catholics.
"It may very well be that in the future the unaffiliated vote will be as important to the Democrats as the traditionally religious are to the Republican Party,” said Green. ... "If these trends continue, we are likely to see even sharper divisions between the political parties."

These sharp divisions are also being seen INSIDE the major political parties. If you want to see that process at work, check out the fascinating New York Times report that ran the other day under this headline: "As Primaries Begin, Divided Voters Weigh What It Means to Be a Democrat." It isn't hard to spot the religion "ghost" in this blunt overture:

PALOS HILLS, Ill. -- When Representative Daniel Lipinski, a conservative-leaning Democrat and scion of Chicago’s political machine, agreed to one joint appearance last month with his liberal primary challenger, the divide in the Democratic Party was evident in the audience that showed up.


Please respect our Commenting Policy