Thinking about J.S. Bach: As it turns out, it's hard to ignore the composer's views on doctrine

Sometimes we forget how strange the Internet is, in terms of providing an environment for reading and sharing news stories and other features.

Readers used to be able to flip through their daily newspaper and know that they had a chance, in an orderly manner, to look at “everything” that was in those pages. Today, there is no way to know — for a variety of technical reasons — if you’ve looked at everything in the “daily” New York Times or any other news product . It all exists in a vast digital cloud of material that is always evolving and being updated. There is no logical sequence or form.

People find “news stories” with a search engine, they run into them on Facebook or people end them URLs in emails or texts. Often these articles are stripped of context — news or editorial, for example — and often the publication dates vanish, as well.

Thus, every now and then, GetReligion readers ship us a story that they think deserves praise or criticism. Sure enough, I’ll find that it’s amazing and start work on a post and then notice — oh no — that it’s actually several years old.

This happened to me the other day with a “feature” story from the Times with this headline: “Johann Sebastian Bach Was More Religious Than You Might Think.” Well, I love Bach. As far as I am concerned, the stunningly productive and brilliant Bach is either (a) evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, (b) the most important artist in the history of Western civilization or (c) both.

I dug into the piece and quickly realized that this essay by Michael Marissen, author of “Bach & God,” wasn’t a news feature and, on top of that, it ran in 2018. I’m sharing it as a weekend “think piece” because it is fascinating stuff and contains an interesting example of modern thinkers reaching conclusions about a historical figure — even though there is hard evidence that directly contradicts their views. This feature focuses on a piece of Bach material (not a piece of music) that I didn’t know about — with incredible implications for discussions of this cultural giant’s faith. Here is the overture:

Bach biographers don’t have it easy. Has there ever been a composer who wrote so much extraordinary music and left so little documentation of his personal life?

Transgender Filipinos and playing journalism's conflict card when the conflict's largely settled

A tried, true and irrepressible journalistic contrivance to pull media consumers into a story is the widely played conflict card. And by conflict I mean of any kind — two nations in opposition, or two politicians, two ideas, two religions, two siblings; two of anything with strongly differing goals.

Theater, films, novels, opera and other story-telling forms have their own conflict cards, of course. It's the stuff of drama. But since this is a journalism blog we’ll put those others aside for now.

Conflict grabs attention, enabling us to relate to news stories. Pick a side and you’re emotionally engaged and providing your own backstory, beyond what’s been reported. We all succumb.

The problem is that journalists -- brace yourself because the following words will likely rock your understanding of how journalism is practiced -- often overplay the conflict card, molding mountains from molehills, trying to breathe life into a conflict that’s already been largely settled.

Shocking, isn't it? Why would journalists do that?

Well, how about because we need a hook and we’ve got nothing better? Or because we believe its what an editor and the news consuming public expects? It's our programmed default.

Sometimes it’s done because a reporter is working off assumptions that no longer apply, confusing past with present.

Take the following New York Times story from the Philippines that strives in its lede to portray a hot conflict between the Roman Catholic Church’s historic teachings and influence, and the nation’s widespread contemporary acceptance of homosexuality and alternative gender identities.

It's not a badly constructed story, in my opinion. Opponents and proponents get their say. However, the story is undercut by it's attempt to give oxygen to a conflict that seems largely settled.