WWROD: Why do Episcopalians get so much ink?

January 30, 2013 By

That “religion guy” — Richard Ostling, formerly of Time and AP — has a post up right now that will be of interest to anyone who has ever followed mainstream religion-news coverage in North America for, oh, more than a week. Here’s the link to the full post over at “Religion Q&A: The Ridgewood Religion Guy answers your questions.”

The question, from a reader named Mark, is pretty blunt and a bit snarky:

Why do so many journalists seem to think that the small (and dwindling) Episcopal Church is the most important of the “mainline” churches?

Well now, I have heard lots of theories on that one myself through the decades — including the viewpoint that the only place The Episcopal Church’s quiet “Decade of Evangelism” was a success, back in the 1990s, was in elite newsrooms. I think there is more to this phenomenon than that, and once wrote an essay on the topic myself. More on that in a moment.

The former leader of the Diocese of Colorado, the charismatic and Charismatic Bishop William C. Frey (a former media professional), kept hearing variations on the same question and he could never understand where it was coming from. Those who envied most of the coverage visited on the combatants in the Episcopal/Anglican wars were like “men who envied another man because of his frequent root canals.”

Nevertheless, Ostling offered his reader some solid insights. Here’s a sample:

Small? In the current “Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches” the Episcopal Church reports annual proceeds of $2 billion and an “inclusive” membership of 1,951,907, or #14 in size among U.S. religious bodies. Dwindling? For sure. It boasted 3,647,297 members in the peak year of 1966 (using a somewhat inflated headcount method). After decline, average Sunday attendance bottomed out in the 1990s through 2002 at around 850,000, but has fallen to 658,000 after the 2003 installation of its first partnered gay bishop, followed by schism and turmoil.

The headquarters research director asserted that through 2002 the Episcopal Church was the “healthiest” of the so-called mainline churches (defined as long-established, Protestant, predominantly white, ecumenical, and rather pluralistic in doctrine). All such groups have experienced ongoing net membership losses since the mid-1960s, including the American Baptist Churches, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Church of the Brethren, Presbyterian Church (USA), Reformed Church in America, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, and lately the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Many think fuzziness or liberalism in belief explain this unprecedented mainline slide, considering that most biblically conservative groups continued to grow (though these may also face a troublesome future). But it’s more complicated. Mainline statistics are affected by lowering birth and marriage rates, increasing death rates and average ages, and losses of youngsters raised in these churches.

Important? In journalists’ defense, Mark has gotta admit the Episcopal Church makes news.

By all means, read it all. Ostling also thinks this ongoing news phenomenon may have something to do with (wait for it) the American fascination with the royal family.

By the way, the scribe also included this:

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Academia, Godbeat, Journalism, Mainline, Politics, Worship Tagged With: , ,

WWROD: Faith and those news stories about civil rights

January 17, 2013 By

It’s been a few weeks — with Christmas season travel and all — since your GetReligionistas checked in with veteran religion-beat writer Richard Ostling and his new Patheos weblog, Religion Q&A: The Ridgewood Religion Guy answers your questions.”

Time to fix that.

Our goal here is to feature at least one post from over there, especially when Ostling — with his years and years of experience at Time and the Associated Press — deals with religion questions that are directly related to religion news and/or coverage of the same.

Well, we’ve gone another one of those posts to spotlight.

In this case, a reader named Joshua — no mention of a home base for this person — asked this question:

What would you say is the biggest political theology story that has gone relatively untold in the last few decades?

That’s an interesting choice of words there — “political theology.” As opposed to “dogmatic theology” or “moral theology”?

Anyway, Ostling decided to focus his answer on religious life in the United States, as opposing to taking on all of Planet Earth.

Nobody missed the rise of the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition etc. Media analysts have expressed continual fascination or dismay over “religious right” activism, often missing the obvious fact that these conservatives merely imitated prior mobilizations by religious liberals.

Which brings to mind the great civil rights movement that began in the mid-1950s.

The Guy proposes that one of the big untold stories if not the biggest was the response by white southern evangelicals. The well-known courage of African-American Protestants in ridding the South of repellent racial bigotry is enshrined in the magnificent “Parting the Waters” by Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster, 1988). There’s also memorable treatment by University of Arkansas historian David Chappell in “A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow” (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

But what about whites?

On that, Chappell, an atheist, has added fresh, sophisticated analysis. Alas, we can assume some few Klan-style terrorists were churchgoers. But consider the main body of southern evangelical Protestants. Their performance certainly fell short of northern white liberals’ valor and is open to considerable criticism. And yet, as a reviewer in “The Atlantic” summarized, Chappell has shown that “nearly every important southern white conservative clergyman and theologian averred that there was no biblical sanction for segregation or for white supremacy.” This lack of moral grounding is what finally doomed Jim Crow in that notably pious and theologically conservative region – despite seemingly all-powerful racial traditions backed by many of South’s Democratic Party titans.

Yes, there is more to read. Go check it out.

But, most of all, get on the digital stick and ask The Answer Guy some good news-based questions.

He’s out there. What Would Richard Ostling Do? Use him, folks.

Filed Under: Godbeat, Journalism, Religion, Web/Tech, World Religions Tagged With: , ,

WWROD: When reporters fail to get religion ….

December 31, 2012 By

A quick online confession: Yes, I am “Terry in D.C.”

You see, while I am not in D.C. at the moment, I was inside the only Beltway that really matters at the time that I fired off a quick question to veteran religion-beat writer Richard Ostling at his weblog, Religion Q&A: The Ridgewood Religion Guy answers your questions” (for more info click here).

In his format, readers send him basic religion questions and, well, he gives brief, journalism-driven responses. As you would expect, issues linked to religion news and events are going to be common and, once a week, we’ll be pointing readers over to his site for material with strong GetReligion-esque content.

I this case, I rather blatantly primed the pump for Ostling:

TERRY IN D.C. ASKS:

What are the five mistakes that mainstream reporters make most often when covering religion? Let’s assume these reporters are NOT religion-beat specialists.

And the Ridgewood Religion Guy answered:

Good one, especially when a secular milieu in many newsrooms (and classrooms) can foster slant and error. Some Journalism 101 pointers:

Mistake 1 is to suspect religious believers in general tend to be stupid or at least ill-informed (particularly a problem if the reporter has no close friends who are devout).

Mistake 2 is to assume this reporter could not possibly be so ill-informed as to misunderstand the belief or believers being written about. Even those of us who’ve spent decades covering this field know religious topics are usually quite complex. Always check with experts if you’re unclear or uncertain about something.

Mistake 3 is the related tendency to over-simplify. (Do all American Evangelicals subscribe to the colorful End Times scenario in those “Left Behind” novels? Are they all Tea Party enthusiasts?)

Wait a minute (I hear many readers thinking), what about plain old laziness? That has to be in the list somewhere!

By all means, click on over to the Ostling site for the for rest of that post. And please leave some religion-beat questions of your own for the master of the house to answer.

PHOTO: The cover of a rather obvious book related to all of this, which you can buy (hint, hint) with a click right here.

Filed Under: Announcements, Books, Godbeat, Journalism, Religion Tagged With: , ,

WWROD: Which denominations do what well?

December 22, 2012 By

So, GetReligion readers, have you submitted a religion-rooted question yet to veteran scribe Richard Ostling, over at his new weblog? That would be the one called “Religion Q&A: The Ridgewood Religion Guy answers your questions” (click here for some background).

Anyway, this week’s Ostling offering here at GetReligion focuses on a question that is sure to raise hackles in a few corners of the world of organized religion.

The provocative question, from one Judy in Pennsylvania:

The various Christian denominations seemingly have particular strengths in the theology, practice, outreach, and church polity of their forms of Christian faith. How would you see these strengths being shared among individual churches and Christians across the USA and around the globe in an effort to strengthen the Christian faith?

This is the time of year, Ostling noted, when media folks are inclined to assemble lists of various kinds.

This particular list, however, is by its nature rooted in opinion and, thus, is a bit perilous. Nevertheless, based on his decades of experience on the religion beat, he offered some of his views. The list starts like this:

Salvation Army — Taking Jesus seriously, and not just at Thanksgiving or Christmas (“as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren you did it to me.”)

Eastern Orthodox — Worship that conveys awe and mystery. Unwavering devotion to the faith that “was once for all delivered to the saints.”

Roman Catholics — Doctrinal clarity. Rich intellectual tradition. Parochial schools. Hospitals. Charities. And much, much else. But could benefit by learning from:

Presbyterian; Reformed churches — Skill with sermons (usually). Classic Protestant governance balancing regional oversight with local iniitiative, plus responsibility, voice, vote, and sense of vocation for lay members (concepts that helped create secular republics).

Lutherans — Choirs. Parish architecture and other visuals (often). Wise handling of schism to honor conscience and limit strife.

Anglicans; Episcopalians — Liturgy. Hymnody. But could learn much from the Lutherans on schism.

You get the idea.

Head on over to his site to read the rest and, by all means, leave a few questions that will force this religion-beat patriarch into hard-news terrain.

Just do it. Make our day.

Filed Under: Catholicism, Evangelicals, Mainline, Orthodoxy, Pentecostalism, Religion, Worship Tagged With: , ,

WWROD: What the heck is a ‘denomination’ anyway?

December 14, 2012 By

As I mentioned the other day, one of the best religion-beat professionals ever — that would be Richard Ostling of Time and the Associated Press — has opened up a weblog here in the Patheos online universe.

The name of the blog is “Religion Q&A: The Ridgewood Religion Guy answers your questions” and the goal is, quite simply, for Ostling to field questions from readers and then to try to answer them in a simple, journalism-driven fashion.

After years of trying to get Ostling to consider writing for GetReligion from time to time, I was overjoyed to hear him commit throwing his hat into the cyber-ring. I also promised him that your GetReligionistas would point our readers toward at least one of his posts a week that we think would be especially interesting to journalists interested in religion and to readers who are interested in the kinds of issues that make the religion-news beat so fascinating and, at times, prickly.

With Ostling handling this, I would imagine that there are weeks we might pass along more than one.

Anyway, one of the scribe’s readers just asked this question about life in what many call post-denominational America:

What do you think is the future of denominations? Do you see any trends in history that may be indicators? And what do you think is the purpose (if any) of denominational affiliation?

And “The Guy” begins his response this way:

The oddities surrounding religious denominations bring to mind that incomparably sinister American clergyman Jim Jones, who in 1978 lured 909 Peoples Temple followers at his Guyana compound into an orgy of murder and suicide, a third of whom were children. More on him below.

The United States invented the “free exercise of religion” and has never had a dominant or “established” church like those in Europe. Even the big Catholic Church is merely one “denomination” among many. The term applies essentially to hundreds of Christian bodies in the freewheeling U.S. religious market, though American Jews also speak of their several denominations or branches.

The American tendency toward individualism and localism produces increasing numbers of “non-denominational” congregations. When 1960s disruptions fostered general suspicion toward authority, tradition, and institutions, the chief religious victims turned out to be the older and relatively liberal “Mainline” Protestant denominations. Meanwhile, notable expansion continues among unaffiliated congregations of Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Pentecostal and Charismatic persuasion.

Since World War Two especially, much dynamism in Protestant outreach has come from Evangelical entrepreneurs and their “parachurch” organizations instead of denominational agencies. This is sometimes a mixed blessing.

There’s more, of course. So click right here and get over there and finish the article.

Feel free to leave journalistic comments here. However, I would assume that Ostling would like to hear from our readers on his own site. And leave him a few journalistic questions that bug you. I can’t think of anyone I would prefer to take them on in a constructive manner.

Filed Under: Announcements, Catholicism, Evangelicals, Godbeat, Judaism, Mainline, Religion, Web/Tech Tagged With: , ,

Richard Ostling — finally! — sets up an online camp

November 29, 2012 By

Anyone who has followed GetReligion for very long knows what the letters WWROD stand for. I mean, the first reference of this kind showed up only a few weeks into the blog’s existence, way back in 2004.

WWROD? We’re asking, What Would Richard Ostling Do?

Ostling, of course, is the former religion-beat pro at Time, back in the days when that weekly magazine was a force in hard news, and then with the Associated Press. For those of us who arrived on the Godbeat in last quarter of the 20th Century, it would be hard to name someone we respected more or whose work carried more professional authority (with Russ Chandler of the great Los Angeles Times religion team joining him in the top ranks).

Thus, I am happy to pass along the following email from Ostling, which followed several chats on this topic during the recent Religion Newswriters Association meetings here in Beltway territory:

Forsaking lazy retirement mode I am about to launch a new “Religion Q and A” blog for patheos.com, probably the most important interfaith site on the Internet.

Most features on Patheos are opinionated, faith-specific (Buddhist, Catholic, Pagan) … whereas mine will be non-partisan and journalistic in approach and cover wide-ranging topics.

We’ll be asking folks in cyberspace to send in questions regarding any and all faiths, any Scriptures, current church-state and religion-politics issues, moral quandaries and other such puzzlements and curiosities. If I’m able, I’ll post an answer with others then welcome others to add comments.

To get this thing launched I need savvy folks to start providing some interesting questions for me to try to answer. If willing, would you, and contacts in your circle of friends who’d be interested in this, send in questions that I’ll consider for the first postings on the site? Simply go to http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionqanda/

On the right-hand side type in your question and click “Send” which transmits it to me to consider for a posted answer.

The name, in other words, is “Religion Q and A: The Ridgewood Religion Guy Answers Your Questions.” I had lobbied hard for “The Religion Answer Man.” Whatever. This is great news no matter what it’s called. I’ve been bugging this man for years about getting involved in a blog, whether writing for GetReligion every now and then or pursuing some other online option.

Once this is up and running, Ostling will be in the Patheos “News and Politics” channel, which is also the home of GetReligion. Obviously, Ostling expects to get his share of questions about the role of religion in the news and public life and, thus, GetReligion plans to feature at least one of his posts each week. It’s the kind of cooperation we hope to see more of around these cyber-parts (hint, hint former GetReligionista Jeremy Lott and Deacon Greg Kandra, the former CBS News scribe).

Those seeking a quick introduction to Ostling, via audio, can check out this interview conducted at the Calvin Institute of Worship.

For a sample of Ostling’s print work — one that is highly relevant to his new blogging format — click here for a 2005 GetReligion post focusing on a short Associated Press analysis piece in which he tried to explain the unexplainable, as in the very divergent schools of sexual ethics found in the global Anglican Communion. That full AP report can be found stashed away right here.

Here’s a large chunk of that AP text, focusing on the four camps that Ostling calls “dismissal, perplexity, renovation and traditionalism.”

Dismissal is the left-fringe attitude personified by Bishop John Shelby Spong, former head of the Newark, N.J., diocese. In “The Sins of Scripture” (HarperSanFrancisco), he says calling the Bible “the Word of God” (a belief he himself affirmed at ordination) is “perhaps the strangest claim ever made” for a document. Spong finds the Old Testament’s homosexual prohibitions ignorant and “morally incompetent” expressions of “popular prejudices.” With the New Testament, he disdains Paul’s condemnations as “ill-informed” ravings from a zealot who, he hypothesizes, was a “deeply repressed, self-loathing” homosexual.

“The contending positions are mutually exclusive,” he concludes, and “there can be no compromise.” He dismisses conservative views as “frail, fragile and pitiful.”

The other three approaches were displayed at a … hearing before the international Anglican Consultative Council. …

Perplexity was the outlook of Anglican Church of Canada representatives. Their denomination affirmed the “integrity and sanctity” of homosexual relationships and tolerated a diocese’s blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. The Canadians said they are “seeking discernment” but face “deep divisions” and lack consensus.

Renovation was the policy of the U.S. Episcopal Church in its report “To Set Our Hope on Christ,” written by seven theologians. It was the denomination’s first official rationale for recognition of the unhindered same-sex blessings in its ranks and for toleration of openly gay clergy, including a bishop.

Traditionalists answered that argument with “A True Hearing,” a paper by writers from nine nations that the Anglican Mainstream group gave to delegates to explain the stance endorsed in 1998 by 82 percent of the world’s Anglican bishops.

And so forth and so on. In other words, Ostling is going to help point readers and, I would imagine, some journalists toward information and resources on complex religion-news questions. I would be hard-pressed to name a better scribe to take on that task.

Stay tuned.

Filed Under: Academia, Anglicanism, Announcements, Godbeat, Journalism, Religion, Web/Tech

WWROD: Four kinds of Anglican Bibles

July 14, 2005 By

Godbeat veteran Richard Ostling of the Associated Press — he of this blog’s WWROD tribute — is best known for his hard-news, brass-tacks approach. You want clear, fair writing about complex stories? This is your man.

But Ostling does do analysis pieces, too. Here is an example in which he sets out to do the impossible, as in explaining — in about 666 words — the four basic approaches to the Bible being used in the worldwide Anglican wars over sexuality.

And what, you ask, are those approaches? Ostling lists them this way — dismissal, perplexity, renovation and
traditionalism. The big two turn out to be “renovation” and “traditionalism.” Here is the summary of two papers at the latest Anglican academic showdown (but you really need to see the essay to see the Bishop Spong section, etc.):

The two papers typified debates within many mainline Protestant groups.

The Episcopal Church’s report compared full inclusiveness for gays with the New Testament church’s opening to Gentiles. It cited Acts 10, where Peter receives a vision allowing nonkosher foods and then commends baptism for Gentile converts; and Acts 15, where a council sets policy toward Gentiles.

The traditionalist paper said that in Acts 15 the church eliminated Jewish strictures on diet and circumcision for Gentiles, “but there was to be continuity in the moral sphere,” since the council upheld Jewish sexual morals by warning Gentiles against “unchastity.”

The Episcopal report said ancient Jewish prohibitions in Leviticus were part of a “holiness code” written to sustain Israel’s distinctiveness and national survival. It said the code “makes no distinction between ritual and moral regulations,” implying the gay ban is as outmoded as, say, rules against blending textiles.

The traditionalists responded that while early Christianity eliminated ritual rules, Jewish teachings against “immoral behavior” remained in force. For instance, the Leviticus passage condemns incest. And New Testament verses endorse Jewish sexual standards.

And so forth. Next up, Romans 1:26-27.

I did have one question, however. Anglicanism maintains that it is a blending, a compromise, of both the ancient church (read Catholic and Orthodox) and the Protestant Reformation. When Ostling says that “traditionalists” looked to “early Christianity” for input on how to read these controversial Bible passages, does that mean they actual quoted the early Church Fathers? I assume someone there played the trump card of 2,000 years of unbroken Christian tradition on marriage and sex?

This is a minor, minor complaint, and it probably has more to do with the competing Anglican teams than with Ostling. As always, Ostling has jammed mucho info into this piece.

Filed Under: Anglicanism, Godbeat

What would Richard Ostling do?

March 11, 2004 By

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That would be Richard Ostling, the veteran religion writer for the Associated Press. This is the same Richard Ostling who did such high-quality God-beat work for Time in the days before cover stories on the agony of dog overbreeding and the like.

So we are facing months or even years of escalating coverage of political and religious issues linked to same-sex marriage. There is no way around this. Ink will be spilt.

So, WWROD? First of all, he would remember the roots of the story. This is one of the advantages of being a veteran reporter. He would also read books, reports and articles that very few other reporters read. He would, for example, read the work of truly edgy writers on the religious left and the right. The goal is to find on-the-record ideas that have not been reported to death elsewhere, on-the-record statements that illuminate the current debate and, perhaps, show where events might be headed.

Take, for example, Dr. Marvin Ellison, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) clergyman who teaches ethics at the United Church of Christ’s Bangor (Maine) Theological Seminary.

Ostling wrote a column about this openly-gay theologian’s new work, “Same-Sex Marriage? A Christian Ethical Analysis,” published by Pilgrim Press. Ellison is more than willing to peer into the looking glass, so Ostling served up a bracing list of these observations. Ellison, for example, thinks:

“… a lively debate is needed,” for instance, on whether marriage should now be redefined to recognize “polyamorous” people, those involved with “multiple partners.” He wonders, “How exactly does the number of partners affect the moral quality of a relationship? … Could it be that limiting intimate partnerships to only two people at a time is no guarantee of avoiding exploitation?”

Besides pondering marriage for bisexuals, he protests that the narrowly “bipolar” definition of marriage excludes “intersexuality, transgenderism, transsexuality and other sexualities.”

And what about the forthcoming national debate on same-sex marriage? This, it appears, is old news. Perhaps the goal of the self-labeled “queer theologians” should be for the state to abolish marriage, not redefine it.

Ellison notes that some Christian liberals who advocate gay marriage hope to stem “gay male cruising and experimentation with multiple anonymous sex partners” and to foster monogamous commitment. … In his view, strong defense of gay sexuality “requires critiquing the notion that the only moral (and legal) sex is marital sex,” because old sexual categories and moral norms should be reconsidered.

In particular, marriage is based on monogamy, which is “limiting and does not reflect the different ways in which couples structure their partnerships.”

These are not viewpoints that make it into daily newspapers on a regular basis. But fierce debates about the meaning of words such as “monogamy” and “fidelity” are not new. For at least a generation, gay and lesbian theologians have debated whether marriage should be abolished or merely changed.

Once again, Ostling knows this because veteran reporters who are committed to a beat never throw away their notes or their telephone numbers. This is one reason the editors who run newspapers may want to consider hiring God-beat specialists who have graduate studies in this field and resumes that show signs of experience.

While this Ellison book may seem edgy, Ostling already knew this theologian’s name. Why? Long ago, Ellison was one of the authors of a controversial 1991 PCUSA report on sexuality, which made some ripples in the mainstream press by saying:

“Rather than inquiring whether sexual activity is premarital, marital or post marital, we should be asking whether the relation is responsible, the dynamics genuinely mutual and the loving full of joyful caring.”

Meanwhile, Ellison and other members of the committee defined fidelity as “an open-ended process of learning” how to “renegotiate” the character of any given sexual relationship “as needs and desires change.” After all, “a reformed Christian ethic of sexuality will not condemn, out of hand, any sexual relations in which there is genuine equality and mutual respect.”

Large choirs of Presbyterians raised their voices to denounce this report. It was, perhaps, ahead of its time. But it was a sign of where the world of edgy, progressive mainline religious leaders wanted to go then and want to go today.

In the meantime, colleagues, we can keep asking: WWROD?

Filed Under: Godbeat

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