Religion

Trying to out the Christian baseball team

June 2, 2006 By dpulliam

Sometimes a reporter has an idea for a story, but the facts just don’t hang together tightly, and the story must be modified to fit the facts on the ground. Usually this means the story is less dramatic.

Bob Nightengale’s USA Today cover story Wednesday on the supposed religious revival in the Colorado Rockies’ clubhouse is such a story. It was a good idea to interview a bunch of major league ball players about their faith and how they believe it gives the historically horrific organization sudden success, but the article needed to be adjusted to fit the facts. It wasn’t, and that’s too bad.

The cover article was quickly followed by reports in The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Both articles quoted players and clubhouse managers who expressed deep disappointment with Nightengale’s article. I get the feeling that no one was happy with the piece — otherwise you’d think one of the newspapers would have found that person. The consensus seems to be that Nightengale’s story falls flat on its face when it comes to portraying the Rockies clubhouse accurately.

After reading through the USAT article a couple of times, and before reading the local newspaper articles, I found myself coming to a similar conclusion, despite minimal knowledge of baseball culture and nearly no previous information on the Rockies. Nightengale overreaches in stating that the Christian aspect of the team is “from ownership on down.” That’s a rather grand statement. It’s an apparent overstatement in this case.

I think the Rockies’ story is a bit simpler and less controversial. The article strongly implies that one must be a Christian to be a member of the organization. Such is not the case. Such a policy would be idiotic for a major league sports organization.

From what I can tell, recruiting players of character has become a top priority at the organization, and those players tend to back up that reputation of good character with their words and actions. It’s definitely a good story and it should be told, but the premise of the article falls through quickly:

On the field, the Rockies are trying to make the playoffs for the first time in 11 seasons and only the second time in their 14-year history. Behind the scenes, they quietly have become an organization guided by Christianity — open to other religious beliefs but embracing a Christian-based code of conduct they believe will bring them focus and success.

From ownership on down, it’s an approach the Rockies are proud of — and something they are wary about publicizing. “We’re nervous, to be honest with you,” Rockies general manager Dan O’Dowd says. “It’s the first time we ever talked about these issues publicly. The last thing we want to do is offend anyone because of our beliefs.”

The article implies that O’Dowd is backing up the article’s premise — that the Rockies ball club is an explicitly Christian organization. Nightengale reaches for anything and everything to make it stick:

No racy magazines in the clubhouse (despite a player’s denying this in the Rocky article); only sports and car magazines and the Bible
No obscenity-laced music
Only hushed cursing
Scripture quotes (references not noted) in the weight room
Chapel is full on Sundays
Tuesday prayer meetings are well-attended
Front office executives pray together

Those quoted in the article supporting the premise that the team is stocking up on Christians in an attempt to bring the Rockies out of mediocrity support these moves on a theory known as the prosperity gospel. And the article seems to buy into that theory. The Rockies were a horrid team for many years. They have also had some personnel problems. But it’s nothing that would make the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s blush. The theology that success will follow Christians has no basis in the Gospel of Christ or in reality.

A quote in the Post article backed up the impression that the Christian dimension of the team is driven by character, not the other way around. Nightengale’s view of the team doesn’t quite fit the reality on the ground:

“It was just bad. I am not happy at all. Some of the best teammates I have ever had are the furthest thing from Christian,” pitcher Jason Jennings said. “You don’t have to be a Christian to have good character. They can be separate. It was misleading.”

[First baseman] Todd Helton and Jennings were quoted supporting the article’s premise regarding religion’s role in the clubhouse. But both said they never were asked about religion, and were questioned only in general terms about the clubhouse environment.

“I wouldn’t say it was accurate. (The writer) asked me about the guys in here and I said it’s a good group. We work hard and get along well,” Helton said.

Then there is the section dealing with former Rockies player Mark Sweeney, who speculates that some members of the organization are just playing along with the whole religion thing to hold on to their jobs. Since when do reporters include the speculations of former employees? Does Sweeney know this for a fact? I doubt he does. I wonder if Nightengale was able to get any of the current Rockies to talk about this. Perhaps they asked that their concerns not be mentioned publicly. If so, Nightengale should have said that anonymous players agreed with Sweeney’s assessment. If not, Sweeney’s speculations are worthless.

As Nightengale attempts to delve into a controversy he himself has created with a poorly premised article — is it right for a ball club to be explicitly Christian? — the responses mostly reflect bafflement. It’s those questions that should be answered with an “I disagree with the premise of your question” answer.

Overall I am pretty disappointed with the story and I’m glad the local newspapers called USA Today out for it. There is definitely a story to be told here. The managers of the Rockies are openly Christian and their faith has helped them realize that they want to recruit players of character. But by no means is this a revival or an attempt to embrace “a Christian-based code of conduct” that the players “believe will bring them focus and success.”

On a side note, the photo that accompanied the article is incredibly lame. What are the newspaper’s art people implying here? That the players are looking, waiting, for the return of Jesus Christ? There are players who regularly pray together. Is this a photo of them praying? If so, say so.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the Flickr photo I found of Nomar Garciaparra praying before the start of a Chicago Cubs game.

Filed Under: Journalism, Religion, Social Issues, Sports

Pat Robertson can lift a ton … no, really

June 1, 2006 By dpulliam

This has to be the most ridiculous Pat Robertson story ever. I’m only highlighting it to show how ridiculous Robertson coverage can be. Sometimes people should just ignore the guy. All this story is doing is driving up the sales of an energy shake.

To explain how Robertson and his energy shakes got into the news, we start with CBS Sports Online’s SPiN columnist Clay Travis, who wrote on May 22 that he heard from a reader that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s claim that she could leg-press 400 prounds was “nothing” and that Robertson can leg-press 2,000 pounds. Oh and by the way, Robertson is 76 years old.

Travis predicted that Robertson’s gym didn’t even have 44 of those 45-pound weights. Considering my old gym, where I paid way too much membership money, had about 30 of them, for four machines, I was with him on that one.

But alas, Robertson can, according to his spokesman Christopher A. Roslan, leg press 2,000 pounds! Also known as a ton. Which is a lot of weight. A ton can crush and kill a man. I know this because newsprint rolls, at least when I was a kid, weighed about 2,000 pounds and accidents were known to kill.

Somehow I still doubt Roslan, and here’s why. Travis writes:

There is no way on earth Robertson leg presses 2,000 pounds. That would mean a 76-year-old man broke the all-time Florida State University leg press record by 665 pounds over Dan Kendra. 665 pounds. Further, when he set the record, they had to modify the leg press machine to fit 1,335 pounds of weight. Plus, Kendra’s capillaries in his eyes burst. Burst. Where in the world did Robertson even find a machine that could hold 2,000 pounds at one time? And how does he still have vision?

As something of a sports junkie, I found these initial articles relatively amusing. It’s pretty clear that Robertson is just trying to sell his protein shake, but so are lots of people, and this isn’t the first time someone has made a ridiculous claim of strength.

This story was destined to dwell in obscurity until the Associated Press, apparently with little else to do, decided to release the results of its investigation on Monday. It must have been a slow Memorial Day weekend:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says he has leg-pressed 2,000 pounds, but some say he’d be in a pretty tough spot if he tried.

The “700 Club” host’s feat of strength is recounted on the Web site of his Christian Broadcasting Network, in a posting headlined “How Pat Robertson Leg Pressed 2,000 Pounds.”

According to the CBN Web site, Robertson worked his way up to lifting a ton with the help of his physician, who is not named. The posting does not say when the lift occurred, but a CBN spokeswoman released photos to The Associated Press that she said showed Robertson lifting 2,000 pounds in 2003, when Robertson was 73. He is now 76.

Even the photo accompanying the story is controversial. Provided by the Christian Broadcasting Network, the date stamp reads Aug. 1, 1994, but a CBN spokesman said it is from 2003.

Apparently the leg-press isn’t even legitimate. According to CBN information, the 2,000 pounds were loaded onto the machine by two men and they then let the weight down on Robertson, who pushed it up once and let it back down once. I’m also told there is a video of the event. The AP investigation revealed that the weight was 1,000 pounds.

Filed Under: Journalism, Religion, Social Issues, Sports

Missing in the Clinton story

May 31, 2006 By dpulliam

The Washington Post‘s front-page article on the political dynamics of a Sen. Hillary Clinton presidential run is Exhibit A in a political reporter’s attempt to answer the questions that leading candidates historically refuse to answer. As expected, those questions center on “What does [Clinton] stand for? And where would [Clinton] try to take the country if elected?”

Despite candidate Clinton’s coyness, longtime WaPo political reporter Dan Balz draws out a decent amount of analysis on the New York Senator from an interview he scored Friday:

To the contrary, she made clear in a telephone interview on Friday that her governing philosophy may never be easily reduced to a slogan. “I don’t think like that,” she said. “I approach each issue and problem from a perspective of combining my beliefs and ideals with a search for practical solutions. It doesn’t perhaps fit in a preexisting box, but many of the problems we face as a nation don’t either.”

Her detractors find much — and much different — to criticize. Liberal columnist Molly Ivins dismisses Clinton as the embodiment of “triangulation, calculation and equivocation.” Markos Moulitsas, whose Daily Kos Web site often attacks the Democratic establishment, ridicules her as a leader who is “afraid to offend.” The Rev. Jerry Falwell, echoing a view shared by many Republicans, calls her a liberal “ideologue” who is far more doctrinaire than her husband.

A selective reading of Clinton’s record can produce evidence to prove she is a centrist, a liberal and much in between. But there are clear patterns. On defense, she has consistently supported the use of force abroad, having advocated military intervention in the Balkans during her husband’s administration. She differs with Bush administration officials on many aspects of how they have conducted foreign policy, but not on combating terrorism or the imperative of winning in Iraq.

Domestically, she has a more complex profile, a product of life experiences that have shaped and refined her approach to issues. She is an activist who believes in the power of government to solve problems, but those pro-government instincts have been tempered by the health-care debacle of 1993-94 and the nation’s budgetary squeeze. On family policy, she has some traditional, even moralistic, instincts that those who know her best say are genuine and deeply felt.

Not that there isn’t more than enough to write about when it comes to Clinton, but I found it interesting that Balz all but ignores a previous WaPo splash on the alleged rise of the religious left. Not that I’m complaining at all, but I am curious what the leaders of the religious left think of Clinton and whether Clinton’s people think the group is significant enough to make them worth a political courtship.

Here Balz hints at Clinton’s beliefs on religious issues:

She believes government is an essential partner in a three-sided relationship that also includes the free market, and a “civil society” of churches and nonprofit groups. “I am a big believer in self-help and personal responsibility and a work ethic that holds people responsible,” she said. “But I know one of the reasons our country has been one of the most successful organizations in the world is because we got the balance right.”

This and a mention of her January 2005 talk regarding abortion being a “sad, even tragic choice” for women is it when it comes to religion in this story. And that’s too bad, because there’s plenty to write about when it comes to religion and Clinton.

A couple of notes for reporters venturing into this tenuous area: As tmatt has said repeatedly, what of Clinton’s Methodist roots and her very public churchgoing when she was First Lady?

Outside Clinton’s personal life, I think it would be difficult to draw in the religious left angle in an article such as this. The voters who make up the religious left have yet to define themselves or carry a significant candidate to victory.

That said, would Clinton be the religious left’s candidate of choice? Or would that honor go to the more moderate Mark Warner? And what of former Vice President Al Gore? If the religious left story is going to have legs, it’s going to need a candidate for the 2008 election.

Filed Under: Evangelicals, Journalism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues

It’s not anchorlady, it’s anchorman. And that’s a fact.

May 31, 2006 By mollie

womenpriests2 A few readers sent along Kim Vo’s Mercury News piece about a renegade group of Roman Catholic women who have been ordained.

The fledgling congregation gathered in a circle at Sunday Mass at Spartan Memorial Chapel to introduce themselves. A woman in a long, white robe spoke first.

“My name is Victoria Rue,” she said. “And I am a Roman Catholic woman priest.”

Rue belongs to a renegade movement that is ordaining women as Catholic priests, in defiance of the Vatican. Today, Rue celebrates Mass at the non-denominational chapel at San Jose State University.

Joining her at the altar on Sundays — also in clerical robes — have been a married man, his wife and another woman. The ceremonies prompted the Diocese of San Jose this month to warn Catholics that the sacraments there would be invalid.

Vo says increasing numbers of women are joining the ordination movement, citing the dozen who will be ordained in Pittsburgh on July 31 as part of a program called Roman Catholic Womenpriests. There are actually a number of groups with historic or current roots in Rome that have ordained women or advocate for it. The history of the Old Catholic Church is particularly interesting for more on this.

The piece is frustratingly low on proper nouns and other specifics, but Vo sums up the church’s opposition in an abbreviated, easy-to-understand way:

The church says the movement is built on a falsehood: Women can’t be priests, so whatever ceremonies they hold are moot.

The women say they’re reforming the church by defying it, hoping to bring about a more inclusive institution that welcomes women, married men and gays in all of its ranks.

Vo says that the program to ordain women gained notoriety when a sympathetic bishop ordained seven women in 2002. She doesn’t mention it but the bishop, Romulo Braschi of Argentina, was not Roman Catholic at the time he ordained the women. She mentions that the women were excommunicated. This is important, so bear with me:

Still, some bishops went on to illicitly ordain two of those women as bishops, and they in turn have ordained other women. Local dioceses say those ordinations are hollow, citing canon law and the Vatican’s actions against the original seven.

Both sides turn to historical precedent and theology to support their views.

The group claims that because the women were initially ordained by bishops in good standing, their own ordinations are valid. Supporters say their stance has precedent in the early church, citing artifacts showing women at the Eucharist table and references to presbytera or episcopa — feminizations for priest and bishop.

Valid ordination is such an important issue in the Roman Catholic church that Vo’s line that “some bishops went on to illicitly ordain two of those women” needs to be parsed. Only bishops can validly administer the sacrament of holy orders. To this day, no one knows who ordained these excommunicated women or whether it even happened. There are no public witnesses. Since she is just taking the women’s ordination people at their word, she should note that. Not that it really matters from a Roman Catholic view, which she just presents as one of two sides in the ordination debate.

Now, as to the line about the women being ordained by bishops in good standing . . . Braschi was ordained in 1966 but left Rome to work with the Charismatic Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. He then, he says, received another ordination from Bishop Roberto Padin, who left the church but whose roots trace back to the 15th century. Braschi says he was ordained again by Jeronimo Podesta, an Argentinian bishop who served a few years in the 1960s before being removed as bishop. He continued to serve as priest until he married in 1972. Braschi also married. But the organizers say he’s a bona fide bishop since he can validly claim apostolic succession — even though the Vatican doesn’t recognize him.

Braschi, for his part, says he never presented himself as a Roman Catholic bishop. Again, not like this matters since Rome doesn’t consider ordinations of women to be valid. Back to Vo:

Polls show that a majority of American Catholics support women’s ordination, he said, but it’s unclear if they would support a maverick movement to bring it about.

What polls are these? I looked a bit and couldn’t find any. Which is why the reporter should specifically name the multiple polls she is summarizing.

Again, though, the presentation of this story fails to educate readers about how little renegade ordination activity really changes the church. As a result, the story reads a bit like a Womenpriests press release.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Godbeat, Journalism, Religion

Looking beyond big conferences and grand pronouncements

May 30, 2006 By dpulliam

Reporters searching for the rise of the “religious left” don’t have to look hard to find people to talk about the surge or growth in the movement. Never mind that no one has really defined exactly what this movement stands for politically, let alone theologically.

Conferences, Bible verse-dropping and citing the history of progressive religious movements (civil-rights, social gospel) are all nice and good for a quick-hit story. But as the Democrats look to rally a religious movement on their own to compete with the religious right, reporters should note the last three paragraphs of this excellent Economist article titled “American Theocracy.” Reporters covering the intersection and politics should remember these poignant insights as they explore the movement:

But is this truly a sea-change in American religious politics? Or is it a brief “hallelujah moment” — born of Bush fatigue and political opportunism — that will bring no lasting change? The betting is on the latter. The religious left suffers from two long-term problems. The first is that it is building its house on sand. The groups that make up the heart of the religious left — mainline Protestants, liberal Catholics and reform Jews — are all experiencing long-term decline. Most of the growth in American religion is occurring among conservative churches. And the constituent parts of the religious left are also at odds over important issues. Middle-of-the-road Catholics are happy to march hand-in-hand with mainline Protestants over immigration and inequality. But they often disagree over abortion and gay rights.

The secular left usually wins

Serious doubts also persist about how much the Democratic Party is willing to change to embrace religion. Some influential Democrats want real change. Others think that all they need to do is drop a few platitudes to religious voters and the God-gap will disappear. Mr Dean’s performance on Pat Robertson’s television programme was as telling as it was laughable. He not only chose to talk to a man who plays a much bigger role in the liberal imagination than among evangelicals; he also let slip that Democrats “have an enormous amount in common with the Christian community.”

The biggest problem for the religious left is that it is badly outgunned by the secular left. The Democratic Party’s elites — from interest-groups to funders to activists — are determinedly secular. So are many of its most loyal voters. John Kerry won 62% of the vote of people who never go to church; and that group is the fastest-growing single “religious” group in the country. These secular voters don’t just feel indifferent to religion. They are positively hostile to it, regarding it as a embodiment of irrationality and a threat to liberal values such as the right to choose. These crusading secularists are in a particularly militant mood at the moment, as the sales of Kevin Phillips’s Bush-bashing book, “American Theocracy”, testify. The last thing they want is a religious left to counterbalance the religious right.

So two thoughts that should be seriously considered in the debate over the alleged rise of the “religious left”:

Groups that compose the “religious left” are on the decline.
Secularists in the Democrat Party don’t like religion.

It’s up to reporters to discover whether or not there is merit to these arguments — or, better yet, to disprove these arguments. The answers are out there, but it will take some serious digging and going beyond official spokesmen and announcements.

Filed Under: Evangelicals, Journalism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues

Covering intolerance in the Middle East

May 26, 2006 By dpulliam

Major U.S. media outlets are all over a report [PDF] released Tuesday by Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom, which found that Saudi Arabian schools are teaching their students things the U.S. government told them not to teach after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

After the Washington Post‘s Outlook section ran commentary by Nina Shea, the report’s primary author and director of the CRF, I was worried that The New York Times would take a competitive we-don’-like-to-get-scooped pass on the all-important story.

But the Times came out swinging Wednesday morning with an emotionally charged headline reading “Don’t be Friends with Christians or Jews, Saudi Texts Say.” National Public Radio was a bit more measured, using the headline “Saudi Textbooks Still Teach Hate, Group Says.”

NPR played it straight through the entire story. Once the Times was done playing up the more dramatic claims of the report, it got to the heart of the story: Why in the world is the United States government friendly with another government that teaches its children to not be friends with Jews and Christians?

Saudi reformers note that if the latest textbooks are wanting, they are still a far cry from what they were five years ago. The Saudi public, said Muhammad al-Zulfa, a member of the consultative Shura council, say they are generally in favor of reforming textbooks and curriculum, but religious conservatives have stymied the effort.

“It is an uphill battle to revise the curriculum because the resistance by well-established conservative pockets is so fierce,” Mr. Zulfa said.

One Saudi official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, also cited religious conservatives. “We know what needs to be taken out,” he said. “But it’s not that easy to do it.”

The missing element in both of these stories is why the Saudi texts teach this type of religious extremism. There is obviously a religious context rooted in the country’s Wahhabi teaching, but neither story attempts to explain that theology.

Another question is why the news in this report is news to anyone. How hard is it to grab a few textbooks, translate them and report on what they said? Is the problem gaining access to the textbooks, or the translating?

I would also like to commend NPR for providing a link to the full report, Shea’s Post article, the State Department’s religious freedom report on Saudi Arabai, translated experts of the textbooks, an image of a textbook cover, the Freedom House news release on the report, the official response to the report from the Saudi amabssador, the Saudi government’s statement on its campaign against extremism and a transcript of a Saudi Embassy news conference on extremism. Talk about being exhaustively helpful.

The Times, on the other hand, was meager in its offerings. It merely provided a link to a forum on the Middle East. I guess it’s small peanuts, but why can’t the Times provide these types of links?

Filed Under: Islam, Journalism, Judaism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, World

Noticing faith

May 24, 2006 By dpulliam

The snark is gone, for now.

Kudos to Newsweek for its thoughtful new weekly feature, Beliefwatch, written by Beliefnet editor in chief Steven Waldman. This week’s column, on the topic of immigration and what the Bible teaches about it, is particularly noteworthy.

With all the posturing recently from politicians attempting to get God on their side in the immigration debate, it’s refreshing to see a magazine take an honest and straightforward look at what the Bible actually teaches:

Opposition to the Iraq war energized the “religious left.” Now immigration is extending the life of the coalition. The most vocal have been Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Rabbis David Saperstein and Arthur Waskow, Christian ministers Bob Edgar and Jim Wallis and — to stretch the definition a bit — Methodist lay leader Hillary Clinton, who said that some anti-immigrant measures would “criminalize the good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself.” There are divides, of course: almost half of Roman Catholics say “immigrants are a burden because they take jobs, housing and health care,” according to a Pew Religion Forum survey last month. But the study also showed that those who attend church more often are warmer to immigrants. As with any issue, dueling Bible verses are never far behind.

The column links to a Beliefnet piece that lays out the various passages in the Old Testament, New Testament, Qur’an and Hadith that deal with immigration.

I might have missed previous Beliefwatch articles, but as far as I can tell, last week’s was the first. The topic was not as straightforward — books on Jesus that tell a story other than what is traditionally taught — but adequately handled. I’ll be keeping an eye out for this feature, because it will be interesting to see what type of material Waldman finds.

Photo: day of protest #6 by Kris Kros.

Filed Under: Evangelicals, Godbeat, Journalism, Politics, Religion, Social Issues

Harpo America

May 23, 2006 By dpulliam

Forgive my snarkiness, but stories about baby names are just dumb. I have particular disdain for stories on those unusual names that suddenly become popular. First, it ruins the offbeat quality of those names, and second, who cares? Anybody with an Internet connection can look up the popularity of a name.

So the cynical writers here at GetReligion were especially appalled to see The New York Times write about the historic boom in the number of babies named “Nevaeh,” which is, for those clever enough to figure it out, Heaven spelled backward. Whoop-de-do (the story’s headline is, well, lame, despite my own use of the technique):

The spectacular rise of Nevaeh (commonly pronounced nah-VAY-uh) has little precedent, name experts say. They watched it break into the top 1,000 of girls’ names in 2001 at No. 266, the third-highest debut ever. Four years later it cracked the top 100 with 4,457 newborn Nevaehs, having made the fastest climb among all names in more than a century, the entire period for which the Social Security Administration has such records.

Nevaeh is not in the Bible or any religious text. It is not from a foreign language. It is not the name of a celebrity, real or fictional.

Nevaeh is Heaven spelled backward.

The name has hit a cultural nerve with its religious overtones, creative twist and fashionable final “ah” sound. It has risen most quickly among blacks but is also popular with evangelical Christians, who have helped propel other religious names like Grace (ranked 14th) up the charts, experts say. By contrast, the name Heaven is ranked 245th.

Spectacular indeed is how the Jennifer 8. Lee got this puff piece in the pages of the Gray Lady. Stories on baby names are much more appropriate for things like magazines. This simply isn’t news.

Much to my amazement, as the gossip blog Gawker pointed out, not only is a piece on an “insignificant trend” in the Times, it was also on the front page. I kid you not. Perhaps it is Miss Jennifer 8.’s interesting middle name that makes this story front-page material? Go figure.

One can only imagine our disgust when the article dipped into the realm of the religious. We blame this on Oprah. It’s all her fault. Anything can be religious these days. Even generic religious words spelled backwards. Welcome to Oprah America.