Marriage vs. marriage (or, What is marriage?)

March 27, 2013 By

Yesterday morning there was quite a bit of activity in and near the Supreme Court of the United States. You may have heard about that.

Citizens who wish to uphold the traditional understanding of marriage as an institution built around sexual complementarity marched to the Supreme Court where they encountered people who wish to reform that understanding to include same-sex couples.

It was an opportunity for reporters to let their snark fly on Twitter, as Will Saletan of Slate did when he wrote derisively of marriage traditionalists:

Let me get this straight: The guys marching across from the Supreme Court in plaid skirts and puffy hats are AGAINST gay marriage?

A comment like that speaks volumes about the state and quality of media discourse on the topic. But another tweet really got me thinking. It comes from New York Times religion reporter Laurie Goodstein. She writes:

Supreme Court surrounded today by marchers for marriage and their opponents, marchers for marriage.

I love it. Funny but also incisive. That both sides argue they are advocating “marriage” when they are directly opposed to each other reveals a truth that has been obscured through ignorance and/or activism in media coverage. What’s being fought about is what marriage is.

This is not to say that the media should pick sides about which definition is right (although they clearly have) but, rather, that the media should explain the different understandings of marriage and explore the societal ramifications of adopting differing views. We know that an understanding of marriage as an institution built around sexual complementarity has, for instance, the ramification of excluding same-sex couples. That’s been highly explored by the media.

But what about all the ramifications of changing that understanding? What will happen to our understanding of marital norms, if anything, and why? What will happen to our understanding of gender?

There are smart takes on this from both sides of the marriage debate (and, to blow your mind here, there are actually more than two sides to this debate) but in case I’m not being clear, here’s how some traditionalists arguing from natural law explain the two approaches to marriage:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Journalism, Politics, Same-sex marriage, Sex, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pod people: Red America and Bible Belt atheists

November 17, 2012 By

On the latest Issues, Etc. podcast, host Todd Wilken and I discuss my recent post on a Washington Post story that featured a red-state American in her natural habitat.

I explain why I liked that story better than some other post-election autopsies of Republican-leaning states, such as this New York Times story.

While the Post story devoted 1,800 words to attempting to understand a religiously motivated voter, the Times report allowed two paragraphs:

The Rev. Brady Cooper, the pastor of New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., said he had heard acquaintances in the days since the election speculating that social issues cost the Republicans the White House. To a degree, they were probably right, Mr. Cooper said. But he said that he could not abandon his values to win elections, and was increasingly moving away from politics.

“I’m kind of disillusioned more and more with the political process,” Mr. Cooper said. “One of their top priorities is being re-elected, and that kind of drives a lot of decisions that they make. And it means obviously going with the trends of the culture as opposed to the truth.”

(To be fair, the Times’ Laurie Goodstein provided a more in-depth analysis of the Christian right and the election.)

In the podcast, Wilkin and I also revisit my concerns about the ghost of Prince William County.

And we discuss the unasked question about atheists going to church.

By all means, enjoy the podcast.

 

Filed Under: Atheists & Agnostics, Evangelicals, Podcasts, Politics, Religion Tagged With: , ,

Bishops are Republicans, Nuns are Catholic

September 1, 2012 By


Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been invited to give the closing prayer at this week’s Democratic Convention in Charlotte. The New York Times reports the New York cardinal will be one of matched pair of high profile Catholics to appear on the podium before the Democratic faithful, with Sister Simone Campbell of “Nuns on the Bus” fame completing the set.

Religion reporter Laurie Goodstein’s story “At Democratic Convention, a Cardinal and an Outspoken Nun” sets the scene and offers a bit of the “why” — but I’ve seen little so far on the “how” — and outside of the religious press, not much on whether this is a good idea at all.

The Times reports the news the:

Democrats are giving a convention speaking slot to Sister Simone Campbell, an outspoken advocate for the poor and elderly, according to an aide with President Obama’s campaign who would speak only on background.

In doing so, the Democratic Party has balanced its own Catholic ticket by showcasing both Sister Campbell, who pushed for the passage of the Obama administration’s health care overhaul, and Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is suing the White House over a provision in the health care overhaul that requires employers to cover birth control in their employee insurance plans.

The article is framed in good cop/bad cop terms, but seeks to balance the piece by positing a degree of moral equivalence between the Dolan and Campbell’s political activities.

Cardinal Dolan, who says he is a personal friend of Representative Paul D. Ryan, Mitt Romney’s running mate. has been perceived by many Catholic commentators as being too cozy with Republicans, while Sister Campbell has been seen as being too supportive of Democratic causes. In June, she led the “Nuns on the Bus” tour to call attention to cuts affecting the poor and elderly in the budget proposed by Mr. Ryan.

The two will have different roles at the convention:

Cardinal Dolan will give the closing prayer at the convention, and Sister Campbell will speak but not offer a prayer.

And the story then r0unds off with a few paragraphs about Sister Campbell. All in all a solid story with an editorial voice that favors the nun over the cardinal. The theme of the article is that the liberal Campbell is balanced by the conservative Dolan.

What would have made the story stronger would have been a development of the why and how themes. We have surface story of the Democrats playing “me too”, inviting Dolan because the Republicans did. The import being the Democrats are seeking to curry favor with Catholic voters in the same way the Republicans have. But Campbell?

The Times article notes her support for the President’s healthcare initiative and suggests she is an alternative Catholic voice. Yet is there more? In an Aug 24 story in the New Yorker — before the invitation from the Democrats was given to Dolan, Hendrick Hertzberg wrote:

Dolan, as you may also have heard, heads up the male hierarchy’s drive to portray Obamacare as an attack on freedom of religion and is a leading enforcer in the Vatican-ordered crackdown on women religious who regard ministering to the poor and the sick as more urgent and more admirable than railing against contraception and homosexuality.

He then cites with approval the Aug 24 edition of the Carville – Greenberg Memorandum, where James Carville argues the Democrats should invite Campbell to spite Dolan and exploit the social justice agenda of the church for their political advantage.

And now, a week later, we have Campbell speaking and Dolan praying in Charlotte.  How did we get to this point? Do Dolan and and Campbell represent different wings of the same church, different views of what it means to live a Catholic life? Is it wise for the Catholic Church to allow individuals to become symbols of the conflicting views of its teachings?

Should the Catholic Church allow itself to be used by the national political parties in this way? I am not speaking of separation of church/state issues, but whether the integrity of the church, any church, is damaged when it comes in contact with secular politics. The assumption here is that it is social good for religious organizations — as opposed to religious individuals — to take a stand in the public square. Is that a valid assumption?

And should these issues be raised in the reporting on these questions? Not every story need be an essay on the merits of the marriage of politics and church leaders — but should there not be a voice offered from time to time that sees the arrangement differently? What say you GetReligion readers? Have I strayed into editorializing here by suggesting that clergy might be seen, but not heard at political conventions? Am I pushing my interpretation ahead of the simple facts of who is doing what in Charlotte — or is there a deeper truth that has yet to be revealed in the reporting of these issues?

And the title to this post? It comes from the Carville video –his mangling (deliberate?) of the old saw, “Bishops are Republicans, Nuns are Democrats.”

Filed Under: Catholicism, Journalism, Politics

Vatican to sisters: Enough moving beyond Jesus

April 19, 2012 By

One of the things I love about being a media critic is watching how a story develops over time. You may remember that years ago the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith launched a review of U.S. women religious communities. Several years ago, then, and before the the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was involved in helping President Obama pass his health care legislation, we were looking at discussions about the health of these religious orders. I remember tmatt’s column that included one such discussion:

During this era of crisis and decline, some Catholic religious orders have chosen to enter a time of “sojourning” that involves “moving beyond the church, even beyond Jesus,” Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink told a 2007 national gathering of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

“Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is Post-Christian,” added Brink, a former journalist who is a biblical studies professor at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union. For these women, the “Jesus narrative is not the only or the most important narrative.

The questions being hammered out were whether many sisters had rejected Catholic teachings on the priesthood, sex and salvation. Or as one of my favorite Catholic bloggers put it at the time, “If you’re going to be Post-Christian, then be Post-Christian. I don’t say that with snark. It’s just reality. If you’ve moved on — move on. Step out from the protective mantle of identity that gives you cachet, that of ‘Catholic nun.’”

OK, so where are things now? Well, let’s let Laurie Goodstein at the New York Times explain:

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.”

Goodstein’s story is great, with many details. We learn that the Vatican found that the LCWR had serious doctrinal problems and that they were reprimanded for undermining Catholic teaching on various issues. The story mentions that the sisters had given “crucial cover” to the Obama administration back during the health care insurance battles of 2010. There’s also helpful data, such as that the conference claims 1,500 members who represent 80 percent of Catholic sisters in the U.S. That it was formed at the Vatican’s request and answers to the Vatican. I never knew that.

There’s also great color. The news of the Vatican’s action took the group by surprise (something that Rocco Palmo suggested might be a possibility in his helpful analysis at Whispers in the Loggia). We learn that the Vatican singled out Network as one group that was wrongly “silent” on abortion and marriage issues. Sister Simone Campbell, the executive director there, is quoted and given a chance to respond, including this bit:

“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

“I would imagine that it was our health care letter that made them mad,” Sister Campbell said. “We haven’t violated any teaching, we have just been raising questions and interpreting politics.”

One key point in that passage is actually not true.

The group was not cited in the Vatican document for focusing too much work on poverty and economic injustice. Far from it. They were actually praised for their work in this regard. In fact, on the first page alone is this line, “The Holy See acknowledges with gratitude the great contribution of women Religious to the Church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor which have been founded and staffed by Religious over the years.” I read the eight-page document and certainly didn’t see anything coming even close to suggesting that the Vatican wants the sisters to focus less work on poverty issues. The document never indicates any problem with that work at all. Instead, it focuses on the sisters’ silence on other issues of social justice and fidelity to church teaching.

Cardinal William Levada appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead the reform of LCWR, with assistance from a few other bishops. We learn specifics of what the reform will mean. There is a ton of context and analysis without any favoritism shown to the sisters or the Vatican. It’s a very helpful piece, in my view. I also learned that the investigation of LCWR was separate from a visitation of women’s religious orders and communities and that it concluded in December with the results not yet made public. I just assumed this was all part of the same thing.

Let’s look at another great treatment, this one by David Gibson of Religion News Service. When it ran at USA Today, the web editors put a picture of a bunch of habited nuns attending a Rick Santorum rally in Michigan with it, as if to say “We don’t know what we’re doing!” But the story itself is also helpful. Although the lede underplayed the drama of the report:

The Vatican has launched a crackdown on the umbrella group that represents most of America’s 55,000 Catholic nuns, saying that the group was not speaking out strongly enough against gay marriage, abortion and women’s ordination.

You might recall that the New York Times conveyed this not as “not speaking out strongly enough” but as silence. Which is it? I mean, technically both could be true but one obviously gives a very different impression from the other. Well, in the eight-page summary you can read here, we are told:

The documentation reveals that, while there has been a great deal of work on the part of LCWR promoting issues of social justice in harmony with the Church’s social doctrine, it is silent on the right to life from conception to natural death, a question that is part of the lively public debate about abortion and euthanasia in the United States. Further, issues of crucial importance to the life of Church and society, such as the Church’s Biblical view of family life and human sexuality, are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes Church teaching. Moreover, occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the Bishops, who are the Church’s authentic teachers of faithmorals, are not compatible with its purpose.

And in fact, much of this excerpt is quoted directly or summarized later in the RNS report. The later parts of the report also include some feedback from Sister Campbell as well as some of how the group had attempted to defend itself during the investigation and why that defense was ruled inadequate by the Vatican. The story even goes beyond the context of the health care law’s passage in 2010 to point out that the LCWR is currently backing President Obama in his battle with Catholic bishops over religious freedom. That was one omission I thought odd from other reports, given its timeliness. The lengthy report mentions that the more traditional religious orders, while much smaller than those that are part of LCWR, are the ones that are growing. It is obvious that this story is written by someone with deep knowledge of the topic, as all of these details are included in the report.

I did find this line somewhat interesting:

Increasingly, however, the hierarchy in Rome and the U.S. is focusing on promoting doctrinal orthodoxy and curbing dissent.

Now, maybe it’s just because I’m Lutheran and have some weight of history bearing down on me on this topic, but what does “increasingly” mean here? How is this measured? And over what period of time? Likewise, it would help to know how similar “unorthodox” teaching or dissent has been treated in the states or elsewhere over the years.

Which brings us to the Associated Press report on the topic. This one was not my favorite. Here’s the lede:

The Vatican orthodoxy watchdog announced Wednesday a full-scale overhaul of the largest umbrella group for nuns in the United States, accusing the group of taking positions that undermine Roman Catholic teaching on the priesthood and homosexuality while promoting “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”


See, you might have bristled at the “crackdown” language used by other reporters, but it seems downright tame compared to this lede. Interesting that sanctity of life, whether related to abortion or euthanasia, isn’t mentioned in this lede. It does get mention down-story, right before Campbell is quoted claiming the report was linked to her advocacy on behalf of the Obama administration’s health care bill. The AP points out that the review of LCWR began in 2009 and doesn’t cite the bill.

Perhaps due to the struggles of space constraints, the article includes paragraphs such as this:

When the Vatican-ordered inquiry was initially announced, many religious sisters and their supporters said the investigation reflected church officials’ misogyny and was an insult to religious sisters, who run hospitals, teach, and play other vital service roles in the church. Conservative Catholics, however, have long complained that the majority of sisters in the U.S. have grown too liberal and flout church teaching.

Considering how specific these anonymous complaints are, I wouldn’t mind something more descriptive than “many” people. Whether you think it makes the sisters or their supporters look great or awful for alleging “misogyny,” it’s worth backing that up with a real person. We are told that investigators cited the Brink speech mentioned above, as well as other examples of how the LCWR leadership had publicly disagreed with church teaching and embraced radical feminism.

I’m mildly surprised by the way the story ended, with a quote defending the sisters and attacking bishops. Readers usually focus on headlines and ledes, but you can always tell a lot about a story by the kicker. In any case, the quote was set-up in the following manner:

Nick Cafardi, a canon lawyer and former dean of Duqesne Law School, said he has worked over the years with many nuns and that the description in the report does not reflect his experience with them. Cafardi is an Obama supporter.

Is it just me or is it kind of weird to mention which political candidate Cafardi supports?

Images of nun praying in church and health care paperwork via Shutterstock.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Journalism, Politics

5Q+1: Mark Oppenheimer on belief & skepticism

April 9, 2012 By

We usually stay away from critiquing columns here since we focus on mainstream coverage of religion news. Occasionally, though, a columnist will use reporting to make claims about the state of religion.

Along with many others at the New York Times, we regularly read Mark Oppeneheimer, who writes a regular biweekly religion column for the Times. For the past few years, we’ve read and discussed his work, so we thought we’d talk to him about where he’s coming from and what he hopes to accomplish in his writing.

Oppenheimer holds a Ph.D. in American religious history from Yale and has written for Books & Culture, The Christian Century, The Forward, and Tablet (the Jewish one, not the Catholic one), among other publications. He also authored three books: Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture, Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America, and Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate.

He, his wife, three daughter and two dogs live in New Haven, Connecticut. You can find him through his columns, on his blog, Twitter and Facebook. Here’s what Oppenheimer had to say about his role in religion coverage.

What kinds of issues do religion columnists navigate that might be different from others kinds of columnists? How can religion columnists cover old ideas in new ways?

First off, I think it’s weird that I am a “columnist.” At the Times, that largely means that I am freer to write stuff that has no obvious news peg. But I still believe in reporting, and in striving to be fair. I have a point of view, but I try not to be polemical or argumentative.

But to answer your question, I think we have one huge problem: we often are describing beliefs for which there is no evidence of the traditional kind. That does not mean those beliefs are stupid or to be scorned, but if they were new beliefs we’d often treat their holders as quite mad. Religions gain respectability with age, for better or worse. Believing in a messiah who died two thousand years ago is okay — so is believing in one who is yet to come — but believing in one who stands outside your building with a sandwich board is ridiculous. Those are the terms of the discussion. Even a religiously observant and devout reporter has to admit there is something queer about that. There are good reasons the discussion is held that way, but it troubles me sometimes.

How would you describe the advocacy or point of view you’re trying to get across in your columns?

Wow! What a loaded question. Advocacy? I advocate for good journalism. I am often writing short profiles of people, and so in 900 words I try to portray them fairly and accurately. I hope they would recognize themselves in my portraits. I also hope people who know them well would recognize them.

When you profile individuals, is there a temptation to portray them too positively?

Of course. I like most people, so I am often seduced into portraying them more positively than I should. Journalists are supposed to be skeptics. If someone says “Christ died on the cross,” we should say, “How do you know?” We should want to know what happens to the money in the collection plates; whether priests who preach against masturbation have ever masturbated; whether rabbis sneak a snack on Yom Kippur. Especially with clergy, there is a temptation to think them better than other people; as one example, we give them honorifics: “Father,” “Rabbi,” “Monsignor.” I’d prefer “Mister” and “Ms.” They are people. Any time a journalist gets too reverent, we have a problem.

What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media are having a hard time grasping?

I think we are always misunderstanding the connection between professed belief and behavior. I often read surveys that suggest that religious belief has almost no influence on key behaviors: premarital sex, abortion, crime, etc. The one exception seems to be charitable giving (although it’s unclear how the stats would shake out if we excluded church giving and tithing from charitable giving). But basically I don’t really know how coming to Christ, or getting deeply involved in a mosque, or whatever, changes people’s private morality or their citizenship. We haven’t even begun to figure out what questions to ask.

What is the story that you will be watching carefully in the next year or two?

I don’t know. But I have been very interested in divorce lately. Annulments are given quite freely in Catholicism, the stigma is largely gone in evangelicalism, and Orthodox Jews are searching for a way to help women secure divorce rights (only the Orthodox Jewish man can give a religious divorce). Meanwhile, we have gay men and lesbians marrying, and we don’t know at what rates they will divorce. So a lot of interesting questions out there…

Do you have anything else you want to tell us about religion coverage in the mainstream news media?

It’s not skeptical enough. I blame myself, but I blame all of us. We either treat religion with reverence, or we treat is as a human-interest curiosity — but we rarely treat it as a vice-filled human institution in need of investigative reporting. And we all suffer for that, religious people most of all. Think how much pain we could have spared Roman Catholics if we, as the media, had investigated the behavior of a vicious minority of priests decades earlier. If we could crack Watergate in 1972-1974, maybe we could have cracked some scandals in organized religion, too. And one tragic thing is that many religious people think the mainstream media is too critical of religion, when the truth is that the mainstream media is not critical enough. It misunderstands religion, sure — but is still oddly hands-off and reverent. And again, it’s the people in the pews who suffer. It’s not the children of atheists who were being molested.

Filed Under: 5Q+1, Interviews, Journalism, People, Religion

Planned Parenthood and media thank each other

February 6, 2012 By

Here at GetReligion, we analyze how well the media handle religion news. Last week was not one of those weeks that make me proud to be a journalist.

Generally speaking, reporters and their editors provide a valuable service and deliver news day after day under never-ending deadlines. We rarely lack for things to analyze here, but last week was a particular low point. In covering Planned Parenthood’s PR campaign against Susan G. Komen, far too many reporters failed to do their jobs and instead engaged in advocacy on behalf of Planned Parenthood.

If you were discouraged by what you saw, read or heard, believe me when I say I understand. But if there’s any positive that I can think of, it would be that if religion and values reporters had covered this story more, we would have seen much better coverage. Even take this early New York Times story on the Planned Parenthood campaign. It wasn’t good, but the one thing I can say for it is that at the end of the story, it mentioned that some pro-lifers were pleased with the initial news about Komen not funding Planned Parenthoood. Considering how much of the rest of the media failed to even acknowledge the existence of pro-lifers (or talk to them, quote them, etc.), this mere mention is notable. And did you catch who was contributing to the piece? “Douglas Quenqua and Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting.” Goodstein is, of course, the religion reporter at the Times. Now, the story was still awful – although not as bad as the follow-up – but at times like this, you have to take what you can. See: it could have been worse!

I was curious how the media would respond to Andrea Mitchell’s “interview” of Nancy Brinker, the CEO of Komen. It wasn’t an interview so much as a diatribe, where Mitchell passionately delivered Planned Parenthood talking points and refused to let Brinker answer. (I’ve embedded it below.) By comparison, please watch this embedded video above where Mitchell permits Sen. Barbara Boxer — a high priestess in the Church of Planned Parenthood — to monologue without interruption while thanking Mitchell for her work on behalf of Planned Parenthood, demonizing pro-lifers, issuing straw man arguments and general politicking. One of the things she says — that is unworthy of interruption, apparently, is that “the far right wing that just don’t believe — this is a fact — that women should have reproductive health care.” Mitchell ends, and I am in no way joking, by thanking Barbara Boxer for her work on behalf of Planned Parenthood.

What was the journalistic defense for this advocacy? Would there be any? Well, I’m sad to report that some in the media seemed to cheer Mitchell on. I keep wanting evidence that all of these media folks aren’t communicant members evangelists apologists in the Church of Planned Parenthood, but it’s hard to find.

Politico reporter MJ Lee continued with the Church of Planned Parenthood meme of pretending that the half of the country that’s pro-life just doesn’t exist. “MSNBC host personal about Komen,” we learn. We’re told that Mitchell’s diagnosis of breast cancer enabled her to express “the anger of a lot of people” about ending grants to Planned Parenthood. We’re never told how breast cancer equates to support of the country’s largest abortion provider — it’s just assumed.

It wasn’t enough. The next day, MJ Lee proselytized some more:

Susan G. Komen-Planned Parenthood showdown: Andrea Mitchell brought passion to story

For Andrea Mitchell, reporting on the showdown between Susan G. Komen for the Cure and Planned Parenthood was a wrenching experience — “one of those stories you really don’t want to be covering,” she says — but the MSNBC correspondent drew strength from knowing she was providing a voice to fellow breast cancer survivors.

Isn’t that amazing that pro-lifers don’t get breast cancer? Or so I assume since this reporter seems to indicate that all people with breast cancer love Planned Parenthood. Which will be news to the dozen or so women I know who’ve had breast cancer and oppose Planned Parenthood. Politico doesn’t mention any journalistic critiques of Mitchell’s performance. Politico doesn’t mention that any pro-lifers might have been less than pleased with her treatment of the topic. Time takes a similar approach in its treatment of the interview.

But remember, pro-lifers don’t exist. We discussed that last week. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat — the lone pro-lifer there — noticed some of these same problems:

[I]n the first Gallup poll to show a slight pro-life majority, conducted in May 2009, half of American women described themselves as pro-life.

But if you’ve followed the media frenzy surrounding the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation’s decision — which it backpedaled from, with an apology, after a wave of frankly brutal coverage — to discontinue about $700,000 in funding for Planned Parenthood, you would think all these millions of anti-abortion Americans simply do not exist.

From the nightly news shows to print and online media, the coverage’s tone alternated between wonder and outrage — wonder that anyone could possibly find Planned Parenthood even remotely controversial and outrage that the Komen foundation had “politicized” the cause of women’s health.

You really should read the whole thing. He gives some examples — he, too, noticed the ABC News report and Andrea Mitchell speech — and writes:

Conservative complaints about media bias are sometimes overdrawn. But on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudices are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable. In many newsrooms and television studios across the country, Planned Parenthood is regarded as the equivalent of, well, the Komen foundation: an apolitical, high-minded and humanitarian institution whose work no rational person — and certainly no self-respecting woman — could possibly question or oppose.

But of course millions of Americans — including, yes, millions of American women — do oppose Planned Parenthood. They oppose the 300,000-plus abortions it performs every year (making it the largest abortion provider in the country), and they oppose its tireless opposition to even modest limits on abortion.

He gives quite a few facts and figures that don’t make it into mainstream media reports, pointing out that Planned Parenthood referred women for adoption 841 times during the same year it performed 329,445 abortions. Journalists betray their calling when they ignore truths about a story, he notes. He mentions three — that while the fight against breast cancer is non-controversial, provision of abortion is; that it’s no more “political” to disassociate from the country’s largest abortion provider than it is to associate; and that for the Americans who were enraged by Komen’s decision, there were others who were elated. (For a dissenting view, try out this Religion Dispatches piece.)

It’s fine for the Planned Parenthood PR team to claim that disassociating with the largest abortion provider is to engage in politics while associating with the largest abortion provider is not. That’s what PR teams do. It’s fine for the 26 Democratic Senators to issue a press release praising Komen for backtracking on the Planned Parenthood and for putting “politics aside” while also claiming credit for political pressure getting them to change that decision. That’s what politicians do. They speak outside of both sides of their mouth. It’s fine for pro-choice activists throughout the country to say that Komen should always associate with a $1 billion organization that performs 330,000 abortions a year … or else. Pro-abortion-rights activists can say whatever they want (although they shouldn’t have hacked into Komen’s web site and claimed that the breast cancer research giant kills women).

But what’s not OK is for the media to join this abortion-industrial complex. You don’t have to be pro-life to oppose what happened last week, and certainly there are pro-choice people who condemned it.

After Komen seemed to reverse course, press critic Jay Rosen said that he’d wanted to write up something about Mitchell’s speech but that he wasn’t sure if it was moot now. I encouraged him to write it up, saying that he couldn’t ignore the Church of Planned Parenthood’s “Here I Stand!” speech. He did write it up and one reporter noted that it seemed like he and I watched different speeches from Mitchell. I don’t think so — I think he just writes from within the Church of Planned Parenthood while I write from outside it. Also, his approach to media criticism includes evaluating the performances of interview subjects. I focus on journalists. He tweeted:

Two views of that trainwreck interview with CEO of Susan G. Komen. Mine: http://bit.ly/xSwI8l Catholic, pro-life writer http://bit.ly/ADfIl5

When you don’t know much about people who oppose abortion, I guess we all look alike! Just kidding — he’s noted he was wrong about my religious affiliation. I have absolutely no idea why he felt it necessary to characterize my professional work and media criticism in terms of my religion, but I didn’t go to journalism school.

Anyway, Rosen is known for criticizing “the view from nowhere.” He is consistent, then, in praising Mitchell’s view which comes from within the Church of Planned Parenthood. He also blames the victim:

Brinker seemed to approach Mitchell as “one of us,” a sympathetic ear who of course had a job to do but someone who also held the mission — fighting breast cancer — sacred. Herself a survivor! But Brinker never considered that this could cut two ways. Mitchell’s enormous stake in the work of the Foundation could incline her to sympathy for Brinker’s position. It’s plausible. But it could just as easily place her among the millions of women enraged that the Foundation had somehow stumbled into the politics of abortion without a clue as to what might happen if it cut off funding for Planned Parenthood. Equally plausible. A shrewd executive, well briefed, would understand that.

See, from within the Church of Planned Parenthood, you only stumble into the politics of abortion if you don’t give hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to an abortion company. You do not stumble into the politics of abortion while funding abortion organizations. That is dogma.

Anyway, I am curious how Rosen would compare the video embedded above with Mitchell’s performance that he praises. Either way, you should read his media criticism of the woman interviewed by Mitchell.

There’s so much to write about what happened last week that we could go on for days. I should probably write something about how there’s good indication that everyone in the media (including me) got the story wrong, both in falling for the Planned Parenthood PR campaign and in writing that Komen backtracked. Not wrong, maybe, but certainly not right.

There are some interesting facts and figures documenting how the mainstream media is ignoring the HHS scandal while hyping the Planned Parenthood PR campaign. There are more examples of awful stories. And there are stories that weren’t bad and deserve to be highlighted.

No matter your views on abortion, Planned Parenthood or Komen’s handling of this crisis, this has been a terribly interesting week in media coverage. Did last week affect your view of the media at all? If so, how? Did you enjoy their advocacy on behalf of Planned Parenthood? Or were you disappointed?

Filed Under: Catholicism, First Person, Journalism, Politics, Social Issues

Gray Lady’s brave Mormon doctrine story

January 17, 2012 By

It takes a certain amount of courage to write a news story about the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

First of all, the beliefs of almost all religions are so complex that, in order to explain them, a reporter is forced to confront the highly technical language that will be used both by its leaders and its critics. To make matters worse, various camps of believers on both sides of these debates will use this doctrinal language in subtly different ways. It’s picky stuff.

The New York Times waded into these troubled waters the other day with a piece by religion-beat veteran Laurie Goodstein. According to the headline — “The Theological Differences Behind Evangelical Unease With Romney” — the goal was to explain why those nasty evangelicals have so much trouble coming to grips with the presidential aspirations of Mitt Romney.

In a way, this assumption that there are big, important theological differences is progress in and of itself. Most of the time, mainstream reporters simply assume that evangelicals are a bunch of bigots and move right on. It is a credit to Goodstein’s reporting that what she delivers is a story with more depth than what is described in the headline. This story, you see, is bigger than ongoing tensions between candid, highly-informed evangelicals and candid, highly-informed Mormons.

She begins with the Rev. R. Philip Roberts, the president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is introduced as “an evangelist with a particular goal: countering Mormon beliefs.”

Actually, there’s a lot more to Roberts than that. It appears that he is a specialist in Christian apologetics in a variety of cultures, with the kind of intellectual range that one gets while earning a doctorate at the Free University of Amsterdam, followed with a dose of studies at Oxford University. The story simply adds that he has “traveled throughout the United States, and to some countries abroad, preaching that Mormonism is heretical to Christianity.”

Anyway, this is a man prepared to debate about the fine points of theology.

“I don’t have any concerns about Mitt Romney using his position as either a candidate or as president of the United States to push Mormonism,” said Mr. Roberts, an author of “Mormonism Unmasked” and president of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, who said he had no plans to travel to South Carolina before the voting. “The concern among evangelicals is that the Mormon Church will use his position around the world as a calling card for legitimizing their church and proselytizing people.”

Alas, that is that. In other words, Roberts is an evangelist — not a scholar — who objects to the evangelistic efforts of Mormons. If this guy wrote a book on this topic, let’s ask about his actual concerns when it comes to faith and doctrine. However, he vanishes at this point and never gets to make a point of substance. Moving on.

The Times does find other voices, however, and what they have to say is quite interesting. Here’s the heart of the matter:

Mormons consider themselves Christians — as denoted in the church’s name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Yet the theological differences between Mormonism and traditional Christianity are so fundamental, experts in both say, that they encompass the very understanding of God and Jesus, what counts as Scripture and what happens when people die. …

On the most fundamental issue, traditional Christians believe in the Trinity: that God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all rolled into one. Mormons reject this as a non-biblical creed that emerged in the fourth and fifth centuries. They believe that God the Father and Jesus are separate physical beings, and that God has a wife whom they call Heavenly Mother.

You can see how that might upset evangelical Protestants. However, Goodstein immediately offers another important point of view, resulting in an angle rarely found in mainstream stories on this topic.

It is not only evangelical Christians who object to these ideas.

“That’s just not Christian,” said the Rev. Serene Jones, president of Union Theological Seminary, a liberal Protestant seminary in New York City. “God and Jesus are not separate physical beings. That would be anathema. At the end of the day, all the other stuff doesn’t matter except the divinity of Jesus.”

It would have helped if The Times had noted that many of the defining elements of Mormon theology are also rejected by the two largest and oldest branches of Christianity, as in the Catholic Church (click here for a key document) and the churches of Eastern Orthodoxy. Why not add that additional sentence to give readers the wider picture?

The bottom line: The Times was in a position to clearly state that the essential doctrinal differences behind the political scenes are between Trinitarian Christians — left and right, Catholic and Orthodox — and Mormons. While missing one or two key facts, the most important thing this particular story does is to undercut its own headline. There is, in other words, more to these tensions than narrow evangelical beliefs.

One more issue: GetReligion readers may want to know if this story deals with the explosive term “exaltation” and Mormon teachings about eternal life? Well, kind of.

Another big sticking point concerns the afterlife. Early Mormon apostles gave talks asserting that human beings would become like gods and inherit their own planets — language now regularly held up to ridicule by critics of Mormonism.

But Kathleen Flake, a Mormon who is a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt Divinity School, explained that the planets notion had been de-emphasized in modern times in favor of a less concrete explanation: people who die embark on an “eternal progression” that allows them “to partake in God’s glory.”

“Mormons think of God as a parent,” she said. “God makes the world in order to give that world to his children. It’s like sending your child to Harvard — God gives his children every possible opportunity to progress towards this higher life that God possesses. When Mormons say ‘Heavenly Father,’ they mean it. It’s not a metaphor.”

I’m not so sure about the emphasis here on “early Mormons,” since I heard very literal references to these doctrines during the 1985 funeral of LDS President Spencer W. Kimball and in interviews with other high church officials about that time.

The key is that this section of the story contains numerous doctrinal landmines that would inspire tremendous debates between LDS apologists and their critics, both secular and religious. For example, is it accurate to say that faithful Mormons were said to become “like gods” and then inherit their own creations, worlds or planets? Does that mean that the creator of this planet, Planet Earth, is “like” a god? The Times states as fact what is actually a subject that many would Mormon leaders and their critics would say is worthy of fierce debate.

But let’s say that this Times statement is totally accurate. Is saying that a controversial Mormon revelation has been “de-emphasized” the same as saying that it has been changed or overturned? Has this change ever been publicly reported? You see, this would be a major news story in its own right. It is possible that Mormonism is evolving and moving closer — on a few issues — to the forms of Christianity that it has historically called heretical. But what are the facts?

Despite my criticisms, this Times story has put some crucial information into print about the hot-button issues that cause tensions between Mormons and Trinitarian Christians — evangelicals, the Orthodox, Catholics and liberal Christians of various kinds. These tensions will affect some votes, but probably not as many as some journalists may hope. Either way, the story will continue. The differences between these believers are sincere, important and newsworthy.

NOTE: It goes without saying that comments arguing pro or con on Trinitarian or Mormon doctrines will be spiked with great haste. The goal here is to discuss this attempt by The Times to cover some of these subjects.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Journalism, Mainline, Mormons, Politics

About that new Mormon PR blitz…

November 27, 2011 By

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, either because you haven’t paid close attention or don’t live in one of the areas currently being bombarded with ads, but the Mormon church has launched a flashy new public relations campaign. The Mormon church running ads is not new, but an article by The New York Times’ Laurie Goodstein explains why this campaign is different:

Brandon Burton, president and general manager of Bonneville Communications, an advertising agency owned by the church, said that the church’s previous, long-running media campaign promoted the church’s doctrine, providing a toll-free number to call for a free Bible or Book of Mormon. However, this new campaign introduces doctrine only if a viewer seeks out the Web site mormon.org.

The Prop 8 battle has brought some more scrutiny on the church. This isn’t really a criticism, but Goodstein only touches on how the church’s advertising campaigns have evolved in various places. I would have enjoyed more background on the history here. Anyway, Goodstein explains why the church is taking a new tack:

After Sunday worship in recent months, Mormon bishops around the country gathered their congregations for an unusual PowerPoint presentation to unveil the church’s latest strategy for overcoming what it calls its “perception problem.”

Top Mormon leaders had hired two big-name advertising agencies in 2009, Ogilvy & Mather and Hall & Partners, to find out what Americans think of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Using focus groups and surveys, they found that Americans who had any opinion at all used adjectives that were downright negative: “secretive,” “cultish,” “sexist,” “controlling,” “pushy,” “anti-gay.”

She also explains what the new campaign looks like:

On seeing these results, some of those watching the presentation booed while others laughed, according to people at the meetings. But then they were told that the church was ready with a response: a multimillion-dollar television, billboard and Internet advertising campaign that uses the tagline, “I’m a Mormon.” The campaign, which began last year but was recently extended to 21 media markets, features the personal stories of members who defy stereotyping, including a Hawaiian longboard surfing champion, a fashion designer and single father in New York City and a Haitian-American woman who is mayor of a small Utah city.

One interesting detail that Goodstein doesn’t mention here is that maybe the most talked about aspect of the new campaign is the fact that the LDS church managed to snag Brandon Flowers, lead singer of rock band The Killers and Mormon, to do one of the ads. (We learn he’s even named one of his children Ammon.)  There’s no shortage of Mormon celebrities and artists, but the really high profile ones tend to be ex-Mormons or have a very complicated relationship with the church. (See Ryan Gosling, Eliza Dushku, Aaron Eckhart, Neil LaBute, Walter Kirn et al.) Flowers is a rare bird in that he’s a genuine celebrity publicly speaking out about his Mormonism. Anyway, the Flowers ad made something of a splash and I’m surprised it goes unmentioned — espeicially since The Grey Lady has reported on his religion in the past.

Speaking of well-known Mormons, Goodstein raises some interesting questions about how the two Mormon presidential candidates relate to the church’s new campaign:

Church leaders like Mr. Allen say that the timing and tenor of the campaign have nothing to do with the political campaigns of two Mormons running for president: Mitt Romney, the putative front-runner, and Jon M. Huntsman Jr., both former Republican governors. To avoid the percep-tion that it was trying to influence politics, the church is intentionally not airing the campaign in states that have early primaries, going so far as to cancel their advertising in Las Vegas when Nevada moved up its primary, said Mr. Allen.

And yet, the church’s campaign could prove to be a pivotal factor in the race for the presidency. The Mormon image problem is a problem not only for the church, but also for Mr. Romney.

That’s interesting. When I was working for National Review in 2007 the church requested an editorial meeting with the publication. I was there and met with some of the church’s General Authorities. They weren’t pushing a political agenda at all, so much as to say that the church was well aware that Romney’s candidacy had raised a lot of questions about the church and that they were happy to be of assistance answering questions. While the new ad campaign is decidedly non-political, it’s bizarre to say the timing of the campaign has nothing to do with the increased scrutiny brought on by the campaign or for representatives of the church to say they’re not sensitive about Mormonism intersects with politics. Indeed, she later quotes someone as saying: “You would think … that the higher Romney’s profile, the better it is for the church. It’s actually the opposite.”

Then there’s this passage:

In many ways, Mr. Romney and Mr. Huntsman embody the Mormon archetype: clean-cut, Republican American family men. The church’s campaign is designed to introduce a rainbow of Mormon faces who counter the stereotype. These Mormons are not only white, but also Asian, black and Hispanic, and from countries other than the United States. There are plenty of traditional two-parent families, but there are also single parents, working women and stay-at-home fathers, and even an interracial couple — all family arrangements rare among Mormons until recently.

It’s true that the LDS church’s has had serious issues race relations and the changes to the doctrine not allowing blacks to hold the priesthood in the church didn’t occur that long ago in historical terms. It’s also true to some extent that Mormon stereotypes exist for a reason, particularly if you spend some time in small town Idaho or Utah suburbs. But commenting on the evolution of stereotypes in vague temporal terms is something that I think journalists should do with more precision. It’s also a missed opportunity for discussing some of the church’s unique doctrinal beliefs — for instance, the church’s beliefs about marriage explain a lot about family arrangements in the church.

These (relatively) minor criticisms aside, on the whole it’s really well done as you would expect from Laurie Goodstein. Lots of great quotes and background, and the issue of of Mormon doctrinal differences is handled reasonably well. It’s well worth reading.

And speaking of Mormons and politics, also worth noting is this article from The Daily Caller – “What would the White House be like with a Mormon president? Pretty much the same“:

“There’d be a Book of Mormon, maybe, in the nightstand,” said Brooks, grasping at straws to come up with some things that would change. Of course, she pointed out, there’s already one in the nightstand in every Marriott hotel room in America.

Mormons obey the Word of Wisdom, a religious law that prohibits consumption of alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea and illegal drugs. But does that mean that under a President Romney or Huntsman, the White House would go dry and sleep-deprived aides wouldn’t be permitted to refuel with coffee?

“I would absolutely predict and bet a thousand bucks that you would not have a dry White House,” Chuck Warren, a Republican strategist and a practicing Mormon, told The Daily Caller.

It’s probably not too revelatory an article for GetReligions’ savvy consumers of religion news, but I bet the Daily Caller article will answer a lot of questions for a lot of people.

 

Filed Under: Journalism, Mormons, Politics, Pop Culture, Religion