absolute truth

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Farewell, after 20 years: Why we did what we did

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Farewell, after 20 years: Why we did what we did

If you know anything about world religions, then you know that Easter is a big deal in Christianity.

In Eastern Orthodox churches, the Big Idea is stated this way, over and over, in rites for Pascha (Easter): “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life” (see this flash mob celebration in Lebanon).

I don’t bring this up as a matter of evangelism or some other #triggerwarning behavior. I am noting that this is an essential fact about Christianity, the world’s largest religious faith. Easter isn’t a “bunny” thing.

This brings us to one of the more unusual “religion ghosts” we spotted several times during the 20-year history of GetReligion. Here’s a case study at Newsweek and another at Facebook news. However, the classic version of this ghost appeared in the holy (in journalism terms) pages of The New York Times in this 2014 feature: “Hoping War-Weary Tourists Will Return to Israel.” Here is the key passage:

On a recent afternoon in the Old City of Jerusalem, while fighting raged in Gaza, Bilal Abu Khalaf hosted a group of Israeli tourists at his textile store in the Christian Quarter — one of Jerusalem’s tourist gems. …

“That’s the first group I’ve had here in more than a month,” Mr. Abu Khalaf said. “There have been whole weeks when no one has been inside the shop. I’ve sold almost nothing the entire summer. Business hasn’t been this bad since the first intifada in 1989, when the Palestinian groups ordered us to shutter our stores.”

Nearby, the vast Church of the Holy Sepulcher marking the site where many Christians believe that Jesus was buried, usually packed with pilgrims, was echoing and empty.

Now, what’s unusual about that? Well, it helps to know that the printed version said:

Nearby, the vast Church of the Holy Sepulcher marking the site where many Christians believe that Jesus is buried, usually packed with pilgrims, was echoing and empty.

It’s all about the word “is,” isn’t it?

Inquiring minds wanted to know: Was there anyone in the editorial chain at the world’s newspaper of record who knew the essential fact that traditional Christians don’t believe Jesus is buried anywhere? It’s that whole “Easter” thing.


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Podcast: Pope Francis tips his white hat on (location, location, location) same-sex blessing rites

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Podcast: Pope Francis tips his white hat on (location, location, location) same-sex blessing rites

If you have ever bought a home, or looked for property for a business (or a church), you may have heard a realtor say this: “Location, location, location.” The Urban Dictionary defines this term as follows: “Phrase to remind people that the most determining factor in the price of a house is the location.”

Money isn’t the only thing that matters, of course.

Back in the 1980s, I began to realize that this location-times-three mantra was affecting many major religion-beat stories that I was covering, especially in Christian flocks that include folks called “bishops.” In so many cases, what happened in churches — even what was taught from pulpits — was shaped by what that congregation’s bishop encouraged, discouraged or even punished.

This basic equation loomed in the background during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on the stunning responses that Pope Francis offered to “dubia” (Latin for “doubts”) documents from five doctrinally conservative cardinals.

Did he or did he not signal his support for same-sex blessing rites (or sort-of rites) in Catholic parishes around the world? Well, this pope is a Jesuit, which means that he declined to give a “yes” or “no” answer. But what he seemed to say was this: There are Catholic clergy who can find ways to show “pastoral charity” to LGBTQ+ Catholics and, if this is OK with their local bishops, they can proceed with blessing gay couples (since that is what many of them are already doing).

Now, this is long and quite Jesuit (the adjective form of the word). But readers need to see all of this to understand what may or may not be showing up in the news that they read. Francis proclaimed:

a) The Church has a very clear conception of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the begetting of children. It calls this union “marriage.” Other forms of union only realize it “in a partial and analogous way” (Amoris Laetitia, 292), and so they cannot be strictly called “marriage.”

b) It is not a mere question of names, but the reality that we call marriage has a unique essential constitution that demands an exclusive name, not applicable to other realities. It is undoubtedly much more than a mere “ideal.“

c) For this reason the Church avoids any kind of rite or sacramental that could contradict this conviction and give the impression that something that is not marriage is recognized as marriage.

d) In dealing with people, however, we must not lose the pastoral charity that must permeate all our decisions and attitudes. The defense of objective truth is not the only expression of this charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, and encouragement.


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New take on culture wars? American Muslims clash with the Sexual Revolution

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New take on culture wars? American Muslims clash with the Sexual Revolution

In terms of Islamic doctrine, alcohol is "haram," or forbidden, and the Quran is blunt: "O ye who believe! Strong drink and games of chance and idols and divining arrows are only an infamy of Satan's handiwork."

But it isn't hard to find Muslims that never boarded that bandwagon.

"There are Muslims who drink and get drunk. That's a fact, but that doesn't mean they can change what Islam teaches," said Yasir Qadhi, dean of the Islamic Seminary of America, near Dallas. "That's a sin. We all sin. But we cannot change our faith to fit the new norms in society."

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be controversial for Islamic leaders to affirm that their faith teaches absolute, unchanging truths about moral issues -- including subjects linked to sexuality, marriage and family life.

But Muslims in America never expected to be called "ignorant and intolerant" because they want public-school leaders to allow children to opt out of academic work that clashes with their faith. But that's what is happening in Montgomery County, Maryland, and a few other parts of the U.S. and Canada, where Muslim parents have been accused of cooperating with the cultural right, said Qadhi.

"That is so painful. … Truth is, we are not aligning with the political left or right," he added. "You cannot put Islam into a two-party world, where you have to choose the Democrats or the Republicans and that is that."

On the legal front, a Maryland district court recently ruled that parents do not have "a fundamental right" to avoid school activities that challenge their faith. The legal team for a coalition of Muslims, Jews, Orthodox Christians, evangelicals and others quickly asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider the Mahmoud v. McKnight decision.

At the same time, Muslim leaders are debating a May 23 statement -- "Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam" -- signed by more than 200 Muslim leaders and scholars, representing a variety of Islamic traditions.


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Podcast: Let's play, 'Name that pope!' The Pope Francis vs. St. Pope John Paul II edition

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Podcast: Let's play, 'Name that pope!' The Pope Francis vs. St. Pope John Paul II edition

Nearly a decade ago, I wrote my “On Religion” anniversary column (No. 26 at that time) about a game that Catholics seemed to be playing in cyberspace.

Some called this game, “Name that pope!” At this stage of Catholic life, early in the Pope Francis era, quite a few Catholics were frustrated with the many journalists who claimed there were striking differences — on social justice, poverty, the environment and peace — between the new pope and the previous two occupants of the Throne of St. Peter.

Pope Benedict XVI and St. Pope John Paul II were, you see, stern conservatives obsessed with clashes between centuries of Catholic moral theology and the Sexual Revolution. Pope Francis offered a kinder, more compassion vision focusing (all together now) on social justice, poverty, the environment and peace.

That old “Name that pope!” game played a pivotal role in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). We were talking about a new Associated Press story that ran with this headline: “Pope says some ‘backward’ conservatives in US Catholic Church have replaced faith with ideology.”

Hold that thought, as we return to the earlier edition of “Name that pope!” Let’s run through this unedited chunk of that column:

Start with this quotation: "The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion."

Name that pope: That's Pope Francis, believe it or not.

Round two: "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs."

Name that pope: That's Pope Benedict XVI.

Round three: "If we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! ... Instead of bringing life, they bring death."


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Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

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Podcast: David Brooks is still trying to describe the 'flexidoxy' DNA in American elites

People who spend years riding commuter trains — Baltimore to Washington, D.C., for me — learn that there are community rules. For example: Don’t crack up laughing and make a lot of noise.

I violated that written law several times while reading a snarky, hilarious 2000 book by David Brooks called, “Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There.” The term “Bobo” was short for “Bourgeois Bohemians.”

But what is a religion writer supposed to do while reading its “spirituality” chapter, which ended with a vision of "Bobo Heaven.” Brooks offers a tweedy angel of death sentencing an urban lawyer to spend eternity in her chic, “green” summer house, with National Public Radio on every channel. Heaven or hell?

Readers who have been online lately will know where this is going, because of the multi-media firestorm ignited by his New York Times column: “On Anti-Trumpers and the Modern Meritocracy.” That Brooks essay provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in). Here’s a sample:

The meritocracy isn’t only a system of exclusion; it’s an ethos. During his presidency, Barack Obama used the word “smart” in the context of his policies over 900 times. The implication was that anybody who disagreed with his policies (and perhaps didn’t go to Harvard Law) must be stupid.

Over the last decades, we’ve taken over whole professions and locked everybody else out. When I began my journalism career in Chicago in the 1980s, there were still some old crusty working-class guys around the newsroom. Now we’re not only a college-dominated profession; we’re an elite-college-dominated profession. Only 0.8 percent of college students graduate from the super-elite 12 schools (the Ivy League colleges, plus Stanford, M.I.T., Duke and the University of Chicago). A 2018 study found that more than 50 percent of the staff writers at the beloved New York Times and The Wall Street Journal attended one of the 29 most elite universities in the nation.

Now, let’s leave Orange Man Bad out of this. I’d like to focus on the fact that Brooks has been writing about this phenomenon for several decades now.

As you would expect, I appreciated that Brooks dared to mention the ice-blue trends in elite journalism. I started paying attention to that in the late 1970s (hold that thought). However, I have to admit that I wondered why Brooks defined his meritocracy in terms of class (correct), zip codes (correct), resume credentials (correct), but — in this case — ignored the obvious religion themes in this drama.


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Podcast: A growing post-Roe divide between 'Jesusland' and the 'United States of Canada'?

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Podcast: A growing post-Roe divide between 'Jesusland' and the 'United States of Canada'?

Over the past week or so, I have received several emails — while noticing similar messages on Twitter — from people asking: “Why is The Atlantic publishing the same story over and over?” Some people ask the same question about The New York Times.

It’s not the same SPECIFIC story over and over, of course. But we are talking about stories with the same basic Big Idea, usually framed in the same way. In other words, it’s kind of a cookie-cutter approach.

The key word is “division,” as in America is getting more and more divided or American evangelicalism is getting more and more divided. A new Ronald Brownstein essay of this kind at The Atlantic — “America’s Blue-Red Divide Is About to Get Starker” — provided the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in).

The villains in these dramas are, of course, White evangelicals or, in more nuanced reporting, a radical wing of the White evangelicals. Just this week, I praised the New York Times for running a feature that offered a variation on one of these templates: “Bravo! The New York Times reports that evangelicals are divided, not united on politics.” That piece showed progress, in part, because it undercut the myth of the evangelical political monolith on issues such as Donald Trump, COVID vaccines, QAnon, etc.

Let me make this personal. There is a reason that all of these stories written by journalists and blue-checkmark Twitter stars sound a big familiar to me. You see, people who have been paying attention know that the great “Jesusland” v. the “United States of Canada” divide is actually at least three decades old. It’s getting more obvious, methinks, because of the flamethrower social-media culture that shapes everything,

So let’s take a journey and connect a few themes in this drama, including summary statements by some important scribes. The goal is to collect the dots and the, at the end, we’ll look at how some of these ideas show up in that new leaning-left analysis at The Atlantic.

First, there is the column I wrote in 1998, when marking the 10th anniversary of “On Religion” being syndicated (as opposed to the 33rd anniversary the other day). Here’s the key chunk of that:

… In 1986, a sociologist of religion had an epiphany while serving as a witness in a church-state case in Mobile, Ala.


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'On Religion' flashback to 1998: Ten years of reporting on a church-state fault line

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'On Religion' flashback to 1998: Ten years of reporting on a church-state fault line

Back in the 1980s, I began to experience deja vu while covering event after event on the religion beat in Charlotte, Denver and then at the national level.

I kept seeing a fascinating cast of characters at events centering on faith, politics and morality. A pro-life rally, for example, would feature a Baptist, a Catholic priest, an Orthodox rabbi and a cluster of conservative Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans. Then, the pro-choice counter-rally would feature a "moderate" Baptist, a Catholic activist or two, a Reform rabbi and mainline Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans.

Similar line-ups would appear at many rallies linked to gay rights, sex-education programs and controversies in media, the arts and even science. Along with other journalists, I kept reporting that today's social issues were creating bizarre coalitions that defied historic and doctrinal boundaries. After several years of writing about "strange bedfellows," it became obvious that what was once unique was now commonplace.

Then, in 1986, a sociologist of religion had an epiphany while serving as a witness in a church-state case in Mobile, Ala. The question was whether "secular humanism" had evolved into a state-mandated religion, leading to discrimination against traditional "Judeo-Christian" believers. Once more, two seemingly bizarre coalitions faced off in the public square.

"I realized something there in that courtroom. We were witnessing a fundamental realignment in American religious pluralism," said James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia. "Divisions that were deeply rooted in our civilization were disappearing, divisions that had for generations caused religious animosity, prejudice and even warfare. It was mind- blowing. The ground was moving."

The old dividing lines centered on issues such as the person of Jesus Christ, church tradition and the Protestant Reformation. But these new interfaith coalitions were fighting about something even more basic – the nature of truth and moral authority.


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Thinking about journalism as religion: Damon Linker on 'woke' press shunning old liberalism

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Long ago, when GetReligion was born, another website set out to offer its own view of religion and the news.

From the start, GetReligion wanted to defend the old-school approach to journalism that historians call the American Model of the Press.

The other site — The Revealer — basically approached religion as a great global mystery that journalists feared handling. Since it was all a mystery, it should be covered that way — with a magazine feature approach that offered all kinds of room for analysis, opinion and strange details. It’s kind of an online magazine about religion that you can tell is rooted in college and academic culture.

At the time of that site’s birth, New York University journalist professor Jay Rosen wrote a piece entitled “Journalism Is Itself a Religion.” The epic subtitle said, in part: “The newsroom is a nest of believers if we include believers in journalism itself. There is a religion of the press. There is also a priesthood.”

Rosen described some of the doctrines of this de facto newsroom religion, as he saw it from his desk in New York. I bring this up as a way of introducing a think piece — another Damon Linker essay at The Week about the civil war inside the newsroom at The New York Times: “The woke revolution in American journalism has begun.” This war is, you see, a clash between competing doctrinal approaches to journalism.

But before we go there, let’s go back to a key chunk of the Rosen piece — which focuses one of the key problems that shape the religion of journalism. You will immediately see the link to GetReligion. This is long, but essential:

Ninety percent of the commentary on this subject takes in another kind of question entirely: What results from the “relative godlessness of mainstream journalists?” Or, in a more practical vein: How are editors and reporters striving to improve or beef up their religion coverage?

Here and there in the discussion of religion “in” the news, there arises a trickier matter, which is the religion of the newsroom, and of the priesthood in the press.


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Another look at an old question: 'Can we be good without God?'

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Another look at an old question: 'Can we be good without God?'

MARY’S QUESTION:

Is a belief in God essential to morality?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Many online articles carry that above headline, so Mary’s question is a classic, one seen in this little incident: A traditional Nativity scene is being moved away from Nebraska’s state capitol for Christmas week 2015 to make way for atheists’ “Reason This Season” display. A sponsor explained the purpose: “It’s meant to communicate that atheists are not bad people; we can be good without God.”

Some might hold a simplistic view that religionists think they and only they are or could be moral, and that all non-believers fall short.

Such assertions are nonsense, of course, and no serious religious figure would claim them. An individual atheist can lead an exemplary life, and a believer can be a scoundrel. British scholar C.S. Lewis observed that the fair comparison isn’t between problematic Christian X and virtuous non-believer Y, but rather what X would be like if he didn’t believe.

The actual question here is not virtues and vices of some individual but whether morality in general prospers if believers predominate, and whether society’s well-being suffers if many spurn faith in God. Does widespread respect for religious teachings, or fear of divine judgment, help people behave? Do supernatural ideals improve society’s over-all moral texture?

And the flip side. What is life like when foes of religion control society?


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