Religion News Service

Kenneth Woodward: GetReligion, in so many ways, kept offering on-the-job training

Kenneth Woodward: GetReligion, in so many ways, kept offering on-the-job training

I never went to journalism school or took a journalism course. I learned on the job under a superb editor who never finished college.

Reading Terry Mattingly and his crew of smart contributors at GetReligion over the years was like that on-the-job training.

I especially relished the here’s-what’s-missing pieces pointing out the religion gaps in stories (“ghosts,” in GetReligion-speak), including essential questions that were not asked, core facts that were omitted and perspectives not sought.

Then there were the many can-you-hear-the-axes-grinding stories pointing out where ideology got in the way of basic reporting.

Also, there were the atta-boy pieces, too, that showered measured appreciation on work well done, angles found that no one else had noticed. That was the other side of the equation.

At Newsweek, where I labored for more years than Job had boils, once a story had been written and survived three layers of editors, we writers still had fact-checkers to answer to: Where’d you get that? Who was your source?

GetReligion did some of that too. But gently. More gently than I am inclined to do.

Mattingly and his mates could do all this because they think religion is an important dimension of public life and affairs, especially on matters tied to the First Amendment.

This would make them outliers in most newsrooms. I have the feeling that most of the folks who have written for GetReligion are religiously formed and convicted themselves, in various traditions. Which makes sense: I’ve always thought that those take their own religion seriously are better able than the religiously indifferent to grasp religions not their own.


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Concerning Bob Smietana's kind RNS look at GetReligion (with a few friendly quibbles)

Concerning Bob Smietana's kind RNS look at GetReligion (with a few friendly quibbles)

May I have a brief moment, please, to ask a question to my fellow religion-beat reporters?

I have a style question for you folks. Has the ever-evolving Associated Press stylebook addressed the issue of whether the news beat on which we work is also called the “God beat,” the “Godbeat,” the “godbeat” or maybe the “gods beat”?

Just asking. I asking that question because many GetReligion readers may have seen the Religion News Service piece by Bob Smietana that ran with this double-decker headline:

After 20 years, Terry Mattingly bids farewell to GetReligion

Religion reporting still matters, Mattingly says, but the internet’s ‘preaching to the choir’ algorithms have won out

In that news piece for mainstream newspapers, Smietana went with “ ‘God beat’ specialists” when describing religion-beat professionals. That’s interesting, since I have always seen “Godbeat” as the official nickname (at least for old-timers like me).

I should stress that Smietana and I talked for 90 minutes for this piece, after quite a few long conversations over the years. It’s a remarkably kind piece, although I really wished some other GetReligionistas had been quoted.

I was glad that Smietana did this story. Last year, the media-ethics pro Aly Colon of Washington and Lee University asked me to nominate some speakers for a pair of Poynter seminars to help journalists who, while they don’t work on the religion beat, their work frequently veers into religion territory. Smietana was one of the first reporters I mentioned, stressing that “while Bob and I have argued about lots of things for many years” he is a “pro’s pro on the beat who knows his stuff and he needs to be there.”

In this RNS feature, Smietana wrote:

A proud curmudgeon, Mattingly is known for his outspoken opinions and blunt criticism, as well as his loyalty and willingness to make friends with people he disagrees with.


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Norman Lear: An iconic mass-media seeker who evolved past secularism

Norman Lear: An iconic mass-media seeker who evolved past secularism

Early in the premier of Norman Lear's sit-com "Sunday Dinner," the beautiful environmentalist T.T. Fagori raised her eyes to heaven and, with a sigh, entered a spiritual minefield.

"Chief?", she asked God. "You got a minute?"

In addition to praying out loud in prime time, this character offered a theological reverie at dinner while meeting the family of her fiancé, a 56-year-old widower nearly three decades her elder. The problem: His granddaughter heard Fagori mention God during a science lecture.

"You see, I talk about extending 'love thy neighbor' to include animals, plants, stuff like that. I say that the natural world is the largest sacred community to which we all belong," Fagori explained. "I talk about cosmic piety because the same atoms that form the galaxies are in all of us and it's the universe that carries the deep mysteries of our existence within itself.

"You see how all that sounds pretty spiritual. … So, when the kids hear me say these things, some of them think they hear the word 'God,' but they don't. I don't actually mention it. Interesting, huh?"

This 1991 comedy flopped, but it was an important statement from Lear, whose December 5 death at 101 years of age closed his career as lightning rod in popular culture and politics.

For decades, Lear described himself as a cultural Jew who didn't practice any traditional form of faith. He also founded People for the American Way, an old-school liberal advocacy group on church-state issues. But this television icon became more and more intrigued with religious faith, both as a force in American life and as a topic ignored by Hollywood.


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Legal barriers complicate what the pope wants from next year's pivotal Synod puzzle

Legal barriers complicate what the pope wants from next year's pivotal Synod puzzle

Pope Francis’s extraordinary Synod of Bishops, consisting of two meetings last October and the concluding session next October, is dealing with “synodality.”

What? The media and Catholic activists are all energized about such topics  as letting women be deacons, or married men be priests, or softened LGBTQ+ policies, or allowing Communion for divorced members who remarry, or for Protestants.

Just possibly something on those might occur next year. But for certain the delegates will try to fill out that mysterious, Zen-like “synodality” term — which means some sort of organizational revamp so male and female lay parishioners are more closely engaged in the life of their church. Some call the whole puzzle Vatican III Lite.

In the flow of comment after the recent first session, Claire Giangravè, Religion News Service’s Vatican correspondent, filed a particularly savvy article on realistic changes required for any substantive doctrinal shifts in that direction. Not a simple process because, as the headline said, “To remake church power in Francis’ vision, synod calls for changes to canon law.”

In the interim leading to next October’s session, The Guy thinks the news media should be tracking down experts on the canon law code, which was revised in 1983 under Pope John Paul II to accommodate the documents from the Second Vatican Council. (Note: Eastern Rite churches in communion with the pope have separate laws.) See a Canon Law Society of America member listing here.

A reminder of the basic realities begins with Catholicism as a supremely hierarchical church centered on Francis’s own office. The code (#331) states that the pope as head of the college of bishops worldwide and the “Pastor of the universal Church on earth … enjoys supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he can always freely exercise.”

Don’t miss the importance of that word “immediate.”


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Amid Israel-Hamas War, Hanukkah 2023 Mixes Fears With Festivities

Amid Israel-Hamas War, Hanukkah 2023 Mixes Fears With Festivities

I’m excited to be back after a two-week break while I traveled on a reporting trip to Vanuatu and Australia.

Believe it or now, among the big headlines last week was this: Taylor Swift is Time magazine’s Person of the Year. For fans, Swift’s concerts are “a religious experience,” according to Sam Lansky’s insightful cover story.

Meanwhile, the presidents of three elite American universities are facing a backlash “over their refusal to say whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates their policies against bullying and harassment,” as USA Today’s Michael Collins explains.

The backlash at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania includes “threats from donors, demands that their presidents resign and a congressional investigation,” the New York Times’ Alan Blinder, Anemona Hartocollis and Stephanie Saul point out.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with the concerns that the Israel-Hamas war has brought to Hanukkah.

What To Know: The Big Story

The war and Hanukkah: The eight-day holiday commenced at sundown Thursday, prompting veteran religion writer Cathy Lynn Grossman to ask here at ReligionUnplugged:

With Israel at war and antisemitism, particularly on college campuses, showing a sharp upswing across America, is this any time to put a menorah in the window — to “publicize the miracle” of Hanukkah by celebrating boldly, according to Jewish tradition?

Grossman — best known for her time as a national religion correspondent for USA Today and later Religion News Service — talks to Jews across the nation “about yearning to be simultaneously joyful and careful, to be festive in fearful times.”

Light in darkness: The Hanukkah message feels uniquely relevant to U.S. Jews amid the war and antisemitism, The Associated Press’ Giovanna Dell’Orto writes.

“We need Hanukkah now more than ever,” a rabbi tells the Dallas Morning News’ Joy Ashford.

But parties have been canceled and celebrations toned down, and Hanukkah won’t be the same, according to Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron.


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Church of England backs same-sex blessings and the elite press yawns, once again

Church of England backs same-sex blessings and the elite press yawns, once again

What we have here is a battle between two relevant parables linked to a major religion-beat story.

The first is that classic ducks analogy. You know the one (care of UsingEnglish.com): " If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's a duck"

In other words, if the Church of England narrowly approves the use of stand-alone (that’s crucial) rites to bless same-sex relationships, then that is the visual equivalent of same-sex marriage rites. Cue the “duck.”

It’s safe to say that a formal, honest change in Church of England doctrine on marriage would be the last straw for the stressed-out Anglican Communion causing a schism that would probably end up in the lap of King Charles III. At this point, Global South leaders — representing about 75% of Anglicans in pews — have already proclaimed that it's time to start cutting the ties between the "Canterbury Communion" and the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Does it matter that the technically evangelical Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby abstained from the vote? Click here for a conservative Anglican news-you-can-use collection of his actions on this issue in the past.

So the walking duck image is certainly relevant, in this case. However, this brings us to an image that I have used several times here at GetReligion — with Anglican news events, even. I am referring to the “lighthouse” parable and, dang it, it’s relevant once again

As the story goes, this lighthouse had a gun that sounded a warning every hour. The keeper tended the beacon and kept enough shells in the gun so it could keep firing. After decades, he could sleep right through the now-routine blasts. Then the inevitable happened. He forgot to load extra shells and, in the dead of night, the gun did not fire.

This rare silence awoke the keeper, who leapt from bed shouting, "What was that sound?"

Now, once upon a time, almost anything that Anglicans and/or Episcopalians approved on LGBTQ+ issues was automatically one of the year’s most important mainstream news reports. Ditto for actions by Pope Francis or Catholic leaders in once-important lands (think Germany).

Now, this no longer seems to be the case.


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Question for Diwali news coverage: Why does Hinduism extol vegetarian diets?

Question for Diwali news coverage: Why does Hinduism extol vegetarian diets?

QUESTION:

Why does Hinduism extol vegetarian diets?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

In the leadup to Diwali, the Festival of Light on November 12, an article by Richa Karmarkar, the Hinduism specialist with Religion News Service, brings the faith’s vegetarianism up to date.

First, it observes that Hindus can make good use of the increasing availability and variety of plant-based mock “meat” under such brand names as Beyond Meat and Impossible.

Second, the article reports on an interesting futuristic issue that faces Hindu authorities: Will meat be permissible if it’s artificially grown from cells in laboratories and therefore does not involve animal slaughter?

That brings up one main reason for Hinduism’s vegetarian tradition, the principle of “ahimsa,” that is, non-violence and avoidance of any harm to other beings. This teaching from the ancient Hindu scriptures is reinforced by deep cultural reverence for cows as sacred (on which see below), and the belief that a human may be born into animal species in future lives through the process of “transmigration of souls” a.k.a. “reincarnation.” In addition, violent acts accumulate negative karma that affects one’s status in the next life.

Note that Hindus are vegetarian, not vegan.

Both groups avoid eating animal flesh, but a vegetarian diet may include animal products like dairy items and eggs that vegans totally shun. The same with the use of leather goods. In India, the faith’s homeland, believers especially delight in sweet dairy dishes and regularly use ghee (clarified butter) in cooking.

Anglo-Indian historian Nirad Chaudhuri said Hindu scriptures from ancient times depict meat-eating as widespread and celebrate warriors.


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Surprise! Speaker of the House is pro religious liberty, which means he's ultra-conservative

Surprise! Speaker of the House is pro religious liberty, which means he's ultra-conservative

Before diving into the valid religion-angle hooks in the life and career of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, please allow me to address that “election denier” thing, since I am a pedigreed (nod to Religion News Service editors) #NeverTrump, #NeverClintonBiden voter.

Yes, I have closely followed election-denial issues from 2016, when the deniers were elite Democrats haunted by Russia ghosts. Ditto for 2020, when the deniers were Republicans, who kept losing court cases — even when the judges were selected by Donald Trump. I do think Big Tech efforts to cancel hot news stories affected the election (but maybe not, since the nation seems frozen 50-50 in red/blue concrete).

Truth is, I am more interested in Johnson’s First Amendment activism than I am in Trump stuff. “First Amendment,” of course, means religious liberty, free speech and freedom of association. Is Johnson concerned about religious liberty for all or for some? His legal career should include on-paper info on that.

Meanwhile, the mainstream coverage of his surprise election stressed his “anti-gay” work and related religious convictions. On X, I tweeted a question: “Does anti-gay rights mean pro-First Amendment?”

Everything you need to know on press views of that can be found in this double-decker headline at the New York Times, serving as a kind of editorial memo to the news industry as a whole:

For Mike Johnson, Religion Is at the Forefront of Politics and Policy

The new House speaker has put his faith at the center of his political career, and aligned himself with a newer cohort of conservative Christianity that some describe as Christian nationalism.

Obviously, “Christian nationalism” is currently one of the hot terms in journalism. Also, it’s clear that many journalists are concerned about the success that Alliance Defending Freedom lawyers are having at the U.S. Supreme Court and elsewhere. Again, there is a crucial question there: Is this First Amendment group winning victories for a variety of religious minorities?

The Times editors simply went with this, stating that Johnson spent time as a “lawyer and spokesman for the anti-abortion and anti-gay rights group Alliance Defense Fund.” Of course, that puts him in interesting company — with Times columnist David French (whose First Amendment work I have admired for two decades).

It’s important to know that Johnson declined a Times interview request. I think that he should have done that interview, with an agreement that he could post a transcript online. Would the Times have agreed? The speaker should test that.


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Plug-In: Pope Francis, the nones and an embattled pastor's life after Mars Hill Church

Plug-In: Pope Francis, the nones and an embattled pastor's life after Mars Hill Church

The next generation is leaving the Christian faith faster than parents realize, Lifeway Research’s Aaron Earls writes.

Religion cases are notably absent from the U.S. Supreme Court’s fall schedule, the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas notes. The question: Is that a good thing?

Surprisingly, state-level pandemic restrictions had no measurable, lasting impact on American churches, according to data cited by Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with major news we previewed last week: the Catholic Church’s Synod of Bishops on Synodality.

What To Know: The Big Story

Blessing same-sex unions: Even before the synod opened Wednesday, a doctrinal earthquake shook the Catholic world, as our own Clemente Lisi explains:

In a move that would signal a seismic shift for the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said he’s open to blessing same-sex unions and to studying the possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood.

The comments came in an eight-page letter Francis penned this past July — and released by the Vatican on Monday — in response to five cardinals who had written to the pope expressing concern about a number of issues that will be discussed at a meeting of bishops set to start Wednesday at the Vatican.

“Pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or several people, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage,” Francis wrote.

A welcome for “everyone” — Lisi, a veteran journalist who has reported on the Vatican for years — offers additional insight in his coverage of the synod’s opening day:

Pope Francis opened a meeting of bishops at the Vatican on Wednesday by warning that the Catholic church needs to put aside “political calculations or ideological battles” and welcome “everyone” to dialogue about the faith.


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