Walmart

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Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

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Podcast: Beer drinkers and soccer moms -- changes in boycott 'woke' corporations wars

In the summer of 1997, the Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Company, acting in response to some early power mouse gay-rights decisions.

Eight years later, the leaders of America’s largest non-Catholic flock quietly called off the boycott, which was a bit of a dud. The news coverage was, well, joyfully muted.

Why did this boycott fail? Well, for one thing, lots of SBC guys probably found it hard to ditch ESPN and lots of parents who were “conservatives” found it hard to stop using Disney movies as babysitters.

This brings us to the current headlines about Bud Light and Target, which served as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

Baptists vs. Disney? Kind of a big deal, but not really. Then again, Disney executives may be aware of box-office issues with some of their recent LGBTQ+ themes in big-screen products for children. You think?

Ah, but what about beer drinkers vs. Bud Light? That battle over in-your-face corporate support for trans performance art appears to have legs. See this update from NBC News: “'Nobody imagined it would go on this long': Bud Light sales continue to plummet over Mulvaney backlash.”

Suburban parents (especially in red states) vs. Target? That’s a more complex subject, but there are signs that Tarjey executives have started doing homework on the watered-down beer battles.

This raises a perfectly valid question: Are there religion ghosts in the Bud Light and Target backlash stories? I mean, how many Southern Baptists are Bud Light fans?

The actual question is this: Are there religion ghosts in the neverending wars between Middle America and “woke” corporate support for the ever-changing doctrines of the Sexual Revolution?

I would say, “yes.” But it’s clear that the cultural battles now involve armies larger than people in conservative pews.


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Final 2022 podcast: What parts of the Roe v. Wade story deserved additional coverage?

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Final 2022 podcast: What parts of the Roe v. Wade story deserved additional coverage?

Everyone had to know that the fall of Roe v. Wade would be the top pick in the Religion News Association’s annual poll to determine the Top 10 religion-beat stories of 2022. That would have been the case, even if the RNA hadn’t created two lists this year, one for U.S. stories and one for international stories.

Why? I’ve been following this poll closely since the late 1970s and once interviewed the legendary George Cornell of the Associated Press about his observations on mainstream religion-news coverage trends during his decades on the beat.

Let’s briefly review some of the factors that shape this list year after year, since this topic was discussed during the final 2022 “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). This episode was recorded while we wrestled with rolling power blackouts here in the frigid hills of East Tennessee. See if you can guess where we had to do a patch and start again!

First of all, the RNA top story will almost always be a hot political event or trend — with a religion angle. Politics, after all, is REAL news. Think White Evangelicals and Bad Man Orange. Second, it helps if stories feature clashes between religion and sex, usually in one of the progressive Mainline Protestant churches or, ideally, Roman Catholicism. Think Joe Biden, Catholic bishops and just about anything (especially if Pope Francis is involved). After that, you have slots for wars, natural disasters and newsy papal tours.

The fall of Roe v. Wade had it all, putting a core Sexual Revolution doctrine at risk, to one degree or another, depending on the blue, red or purple state involved.

I will not run through the contents of the whole RNA list. However, it’s interesting to note the wordings in some poll items, paying attention to what is included and what is NOT included therein. For example, here is No. 1 in the U.S. list:

The Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent and says there is no constitutional right to abortion, sparking battles in courts and state legislatures and driving voters to the November polls in high numbers. More than a dozen states enact abortion bans, while voters reject constitutional abortion restrictions in conservative Kansas and Kentucky and put abortion rights in three other states’ constitutions.

What is missing in that complex item?


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New York Times: COVID-19 'surges' through pews, as opposed to bars, marches, stores, etc.

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Soon after the word “coronavirus” started dominating headlines around the world, your GetReligionistas started trying to communicate a pair of ideas that we thought journalists needed to “get” in this age of advocacy journalism.

Part I: It was perfectly valid to cover the relatively small number of religious groups — most of them totally independent Pentecostal and evangelical congregations — that were rebelling against government COVID-19 safety laws and recommendations (even when local officials were treating religious groups the same way they were treating stores, bars and other public institutions).

Part II: The bigger story was the cooperation that the leaders of most major religious institutions — from Catholic bishops to Southern Baptist megachurch leaders — were showing. In recent months, many of these religious groups have cautiously opened their doors to small groups of worships, once again following state and local guidelines.

Would that work perfectly? Good question. Here’s another: Will anything work perfectly when dealing with a virus that scientists and public officials are still struggling to understand?

Oh well. Whatever. Never mind.

This leads us to this epic headline in The New York Times, of course:

Churches Were Eager to Reopen. Now They Are a Major Source of Coronavirus Cases.

The virus has infiltrated Sunday services, church meetings and youth camps. More than 650 cases have been linked to reopened religious facilities.

Now, we are going to need a definition — right up top — of the word “major.”

How many cases are we talking about that have been shown to be linked to worship, in comparison to bars, big-box stores, beaches and, oh, massive public demonstrations? So here is the overture:

PENDLETON, Ore. — Weeks after President Trump demanded that America’s shuttered houses of worship be allowed to reopen, new outbreaks of the coronavirus are surging through churches across the country where services have resumed.


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Podcast: Yes, religion plays a major role in battles over the Mississippi flag

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Editors at the Associated Press were on to something big with that recent story that ran with this headline: “Baptists and Walmart criticize rebel-themed Mississippi flag.”

That’s a story. If you were listing major forces in Sunbelt life, you’d have to include the Southern Baptist Convention and Walmart.

But the AP team did downplay a key angle to that Mississippi flag fight, one that many locals would — with a chuckle — say was a “religion thing.” I’m talking about this recent story, seen here in a New York Times headline: “SEC Warns Mississippi Over Confederate Emblem on State Flag.”

Religion? You bet.

If SEC football isn’t functionally a “religion” down here then I don’t know what is. Some kind of ban on SEC events taking place in Mississippi? That would be like the end of the world. The AP folks put a passing reference to the SEC action way down in the story.

Think about the clout of this trinity of social forces in a Bible Belt state — SEC sports, Walmart and the Southern Baptist Convention. Add Chick-fil-A and NASCAR (speaking of racial tensions) and life would come to s stop.

All of those topics were in the mix as host Todd Wilken and I recorded this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). We decided that it was pretty clear that folks behind the AP story really didn’t understand some of the forces affecting the battles over the Mississippi flag.

But let’s start with a chunk of the AP story that was spot-on accurate:

Mississippi has the last state flag that includes the Confederate battle emblem: a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars. …

The conservative-leaning and majority-white Mississippi Baptist Convention has more than 500,000 members at more than 2,100 churches. Mississippi’s population is about 3 million, and 38% of residents are African American.


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This El Paso report is emotional, heart-wrenching and maybe the best religion story you'll read all year

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Los Angeles Times national correspondent David Montero’s front-page feature on the parents of an El Paso, Texas, shooting victim is not perfect.

But it’s pretty darn close.

It just might be — in terms of the mixture of storytelling prowess and attention to faith details — the best religion story you’ll read all year.

However, be sure to grab a tissue before clicking the link and becoming engrossed in the narrative. Trust me on that.

Montero opens with this powerful scene (it’s a big chunk of text, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut it off any quicker):

EL PASO — The pastor had never prayed so fervently.

Michael Grady had just learned that his 33-year-old daughter was lying in a pool of blood at Walmart.

Shot three times, Michelle Grady had managed to dial her cellphone to call her mother, Jeneverlyn, who jumped in her car and kept her on the line until she reached the store.

His wife called him from the store, and Michael Grady raced to join them. The drive from his house to the Walmart normally takes about seven minutes. It felt longer.

When he finally arrived, the parking lot was already taped off. He saw his wife’s car by the theater next to the store. He parked. He ran.

But his 65-year-old body, which had endured a quadruple-bypass heart surgery a few years prior, couldn’t move nearly as fast as he would’ve liked.

Grady prayed.

Keep reading, and Montero quotes Grady — in the father’s own words — on exactly what he was praying. And later in the piece, he does so again.


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Friday Five: Matt from Walmart, pope vote, icky details, execution reprieve, butts and bagels

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Hey Godbeat friends, can we please get a faith angle on Matt from Walmart — and pronto?

I kid. I kid. Well, mostly.

I heard about “How a dude named Matt at an Omaha Walmart went viral” via a tweet by Mary (Rezac) Farrow, a writer for Catholic News Agency. She described the Omaha World-Herald story as her “favorite piece of journalism” she’s read in a while.

After clicking the link, here’s my response: Amen!

Now, let’s dive into the Friday Five:

. Religion story of the week: We are blessed here at GetReligion to have religion writing legends such as Richard Ostling on our team of contributors.

Ostling’s post this week “Down memory lane: A brief history of Catholic leaks that made news” is a typical example of his exceptional insight.

The news peg for the post is Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell’s recent scoop in America magazine on the precise number of votes for all 22 candidates on the first ballot when the College of Cardinals elected Pope Francis in 2013. Ostling offers praise, too, for Washington Post religion writer Michelle Boorstein’s coverage of the story.


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