Promiscuity with an "evangelical" face

January 12, 2005 By

david berg.jpgAll right, time for another friendly straw poll: If an article mentions David “Moses” Berg or his movement known as the Children of God (later The Family), what words would you expect to see?

Sex? Yes, of course, what with Berg’s enthusiasms for promiscuity and “flirty fishing” among his followers.

“[Onetime] Jesus freaks”? Fair enough, considering that Berg originally attracted many hippie converts who answered to that nickname.

Cult, sect, alternative religion? Check, check, check.

Evangelical? Whoa, mama.

Now, the disclaimers:

• Don Lattin of the San Francisco Chronicle is a highly respected veteran on the religion beat, and he’s written many fine stories about characters in the Bay Area and beyond.

• Randall Balmer mentions Berg in his Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, perhaps owing to Berg’s starting his ministry in a coffeehouse formerly run by Teen Challenge.

Nevertheless, calling Berg’s movement a “desert evangelical sex cult,” as the Chronicle does in its headline and as Lattin does without elaborating on “evangelical,” takes theological shorthand toward incoherence.

The details in Berg’s story, as provided by Lattin, suggest that Berg shed whatever remained of an evangelical background about as easily as some Children of God shed their clothes:

Berg died in 1994, but his movement lives on today as “The Family.”

Other survivors of the Children of God include hundreds — perhaps thousands — of “Jesus babies” born in the 1970s and ’80s. Their mothers were young missionaries who followed Berg’s call to share sexual favors in order to bring young men to Christ.

They called it “flirty fishing.”

Steve Kent, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta, said the highly sexual climate at Children of God communes “did real damage to that second generation.”

Under such usage, Berg’s followers can join a select group of people who retain the evangelical label despite their anti-evangelical theology and practice. I think of Chris Brain, leader of the Nine O’Clock Service/Rave Mass movement that came to San Francisco in 1994. When it became clear that Brain was persuading many women into his bed by promising “sexual healing,” the archdeacon of his diocese in the Church of England blamed this sexual abuse on Brain’s charismatic and evangelical background rather than on the neopagan message Brain was preaching. (Roland Howard tells the story in heartbreaking detail in his Rise and Fall of the Nine O’Clock Service: A Cult Within the Church?)

Any preacher without accountability can be lured into heresy or megalomania, but mention Jesus at any point in your career and you too might forever lay claim to the adjective of evangelical. One contributor to Daily Kos, for instance, refers to mass murderer Jim Jones as a “notable evangelical Christian leader.”

Evangelicals do not answer to the same rich history and tradition as Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox believers. But their primary voice, the National Association of Evangelicals, does require member churches to affirm its statement of faith, and the same statement is a common feature in evangelicalism’s parachurch ministries. Evangelicals affirm specific beliefs — the very same beliefs that, without fail, are rejected by charlatans who proclaim themselves either the Messiah or a special messenger to whom the usual moral and theological standards do not apply.

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Filed Under: Godbeat

Playing Hookie in Iraq

January 11, 2005 By

KidReaders who feel like ruining their day should type Iraq into the Google News search. Just this morning, we have:

Witnesses tell of Iraq prison abuse

Ukrainian parliament calls for immediate withdrawal of peacekeepers from Iraq

Iraq insurgent attacks kill 17

As vote approaches, attacks taking toll on Iraq authorities

Deadly attacks pockmark Iraq

Bush painted himself into corner on Iraq elections

Britain to send additional 400 troops to Iraq

One gets the idea. And this snapshot doesn’t take get the bombings of churches or mosques into the frame, or the ongoing exit of native Christians from Iraq over fears of violence, a shift in ethnic governance, or a blatantly Islamic government.

That last point, right now, is the U.S. government’s biggest gamble. Bush has said he will accept an explicitly Muslim government and an Iraq constitution that nods to Allah’s law as long as these are arrived at democratically and they acknowledge minority (that is, Sunni and Kurdish) rights.

After reading my nominee for best political essay of last year, I think the president has made the right call on this one, but it could break either way.

The essay (forwarded to the GetReligion crew by Phillip E. Johnson), titled “An Islamic Democracy for Iraq,” is by one Ian Buruma and ran in the December 5 New York Times Magazine.

The piece (and I really encourage GR faithful to read it rather than rely upon my slim reed of a summary) tackles the idea that what we would want, ideally, in Iraq is a resolutely secular government, and finds it lacking. Specifically, he looks at some of the secular governing movements of the 19th and 20th centuries:

Ataturk said in 1917 that he would change Turkish social life in one blow. And that, in 1923, is what he proceeded to do. Women were stripped of their veils, Islamic schools were closed and dervish brotherhoods were banned. Even wearing the Turkish fez was forbidden in the new society ruled by “science, knowledge and civilization.”

Similar revolutions happened or were tried elsewhere. After the Meiji Restoration in Japan in the 1860s, Buddhist temples were razed in the name of civilization and enlightenment. The May 4, 1919, students’ revolt in China was an attempt to replace Confucian tradition and religious “superstition” with “Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy.” In Persia, during the 1920s, Reza Shah Pahlevi tried to modernize his nation, later to be called Iran, by leveling mosques, murdering or arresting clerics and banning the chador.

What came of this “secularizing zeal,” writes Buruma, was not democracy but “militarism, absolute monarchy, fascism and variations of Stalinism.” In fact, “The religious revolution that now stalks the Muslim world has come as a reaction, in part, to the failure of modern secular politics.” Further down, he elaborates on this last point, and spells out the reason for the failure:

[A]nti-clericalism, much more than a history of religious zeal, formed the basis for many of the Middle East’s bloodiest political failures: Nasserism in Egypt, Baathism in Syria and Iraq, the shah in Iran. These regimes were led by secular elites who saw religion as something that held their countries back or in a state of colonial dependence. The fact that a number of iron-fisted reformers, like Nasser himself, were routinely the objects of assassination attempts by religious zealots showed the gap between the secular “progressive” elites and the people they ruled. When organized religion is destroyed, something worse often takes its place, usually a quasi religion or personality cult exploited by dictators. When it is marginalized, as happened in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, it provokes a religious rebellion.

Buruma is by no means calling for a monolithic Islamic state in Iraq. Rather, he argues that “the voices of religious people should be heard.” The “most important condition” in a democracy is that “people take part” and “If religious affiliations provide the necessary consensus to play by common rules, then they should be recognized.”

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Filed Under: Islam

Fundamentalism with a human face

January 11, 2005 By

grim preacher.jpgLaurie Goodstein of The New York Times has written a 1,400-word article that uses the word fundamentalism 15 times–and never in a way that qualifies her report for GetReligion’s Creeping Fundamentalism file of hysterical or misleading stories.

Goodstein has achieved something that really shouldn’t be so difficult for reporters who set their mind to it: Remembering one of the wisest sentences in The Associated Press Stylebook (“In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself”).

These paragraphs by Goodstein are the best summary I’ve seen in a very long time in the major media of how fundamentalist is used too loosely in American discourse:

After the American presidential election in November, some liberal commentators warned that the nation was on the verge of a takeover by Christian “fundamentalists.”

But in the United States today, most of the Protestants who make up what some call the Christian right are not fundamentalists, who are more prone to create separatist enclaves, but evangelicals, who engage the culture and share their faith. Professor [Martin] Marty defines fundamentalism as essentially a backlash against secularism and modernity.

For example, at the fundamentalist Bob Jones University, in Greenville, S.C., students are not allowed to listen to contemporary music of any kind, even Christian rock or rap. But at Wheaton College in Illinois, a leading evangelical school, contemporary Christian music is regular fare for many students.

Christian fundamentalism emerged in the United States in the 1920′s, but was already in decline by the 1960′s. By then, it had been superceded by evangelicalism, with its Billy Graham-style revival meetings, radio stations and seminaries.

The word “fundamentalist” itself has fallen out of favor among conservative Christians in the United States, not least because it has come to be associated with extremism and violence overseas.

To be sure, Americans sometimes apply the word too loosely to Muslims or Hindus, and it would be a huge mistake to insist that fundamentalism inevitably leads to violence. Maybe someday journalists will find as clear a definition of fundamentalism as seems to prevail in some academic circles. For today, thank God for Laurie Goodstein’s clear example of how good work can be done.

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Filed Under: Godbeat

Waves of coverage

January 10, 2005 By

Rob Moll is back with another special edition of the CT weblog dedicated to the tsunami and its aftermath. The key is that the story is now developing on hard news fronts, from trafficking of children to terrorist infiltration, to feature stories about the “Where was God?” question and the positions taken by various leaders within various world religions. It’s an educational moment, while heroes and villains continue to work on the front lines. And what are some of the true fundamentalists saying? You don’t want to know.

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Filed Under: Godbeat, Journalism

Scribe moves up: Will Bush's God-talk change?

January 10, 2005 By

BushgersonWhite House speechwriter Michael Gerson told a funny but poignant personal story as he began his Dec. 6 presentation at an Ethics & Public Policy Center seminar in Key West, Fla.

While describing the pace and pressure of his job, Gerson said that he was really looking forward to an upcoming root-canal procedure — because it would mean having a few days off from work. He said he needed the rest, no matter what the medical cost.

Afterward, journalists standing around during a reception talked about the future of this high-profile scribe. The consensus was that no one would be surprised if Gerson moved up into a domestic policy post very early in the second Bush administration. That way, he would still be around to help shape some of the language and contents of the speeches, while no longer riding out the deadlines 24/7.

Thus, the following “web exclusive” in Newsweek is not a major surprise, especially considering that Gerson soon developed heart problems, as well as dental problems. Gerson is moving up into a new White House post and new writers are moving in.

Reporter Tamara Lipper writes:

Gerson is expected to move into the policy arena and be replaced as head speechwriter by Wall Street Journal editorial-page writer William McGurn. Gerson’s job change cements the breakup of Bush’s speechwriting team that included deputies John McConnell and Matthew Scully.

Gerson is one of the best-known presidential speechwriters, on par with Ronald Reagan’s Peggy Noonan or John Kennedy’s Theodore Sorenson. One sign that he was no ordinary speechwriter is the fact that instead of being housed, as speechwriters usually are, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Gerson shared an office suite with Bartlett on the second floor of the West Wing. A Christian evangelical and a former theology student, Gerson shares his boss’s brand of compassionate conservatism. His trademark has been the religious language and Biblical references that populate Bush’s speeches. To those who believe the president uses his speeches to send signals to conservative evangelicals, Gerson is the master of the code.

In the wake of the Gerson talk in Key West, several journalists (including me) wrote stories about his defense of the religious and moral themes in major Bush speeches. See also these columns by Kathleen Parker and Terry Eastland.

It seems clear that, to one degree or another, Gerson will remain in the mix when it comes to helping the president find the right words and images. As Lipper reported: “A source says White House officials have prepared Bush to adjust his expectations to the speechwriters’ changing of the guard, but on important occasions it is good to know Gerson will be just down the hall.” Bingo.

Journalists who are interested in this topic also need to know that the Ethics & Public Policy Center plans to post, in the near future, an edited transcript of Gerson’s presentation. This will also, I imagine, include large chunks of the more than two hours of questions he took from two dozen journalists from America and abroad. You can look for that transcript here in the very near future.

I will, in particular, be interested in reading the section in which Gerson says that, time after time, the key to debates in this White House is the tension between those advocating a more “Catholic” — with a large C — approach to public life and those taking a more Libertarian approach. Yes, it will also be interesting to see how that tension affects the speechwriting, with Gerson moving into a new office.

Update, Jan. 14: The transcript of Gerson’s speech, though not of the Q&A session, is availabe here.

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Filed Under: Politics

2004 in review (III): They lost it at the movies

January 10, 2005 By

Shrek2 “Do We Need More Christian Movie Critics?” was the first question on Slate‘s teaser for this year’s annual gabfest of the country’s top film critics about the films of the previous year. The question was raised by Armond White, a reviewer for the New York Press, in response to the near-unanimous condemnation of The Passion of the Christ by his fellow symposiasts:

[H]aving spent the year outnumbered — because it seems no mainstream publication will hire a Christian movie critic (and I’m not talking about me) — I have found the discussion [of The Passion] too oppressively lopsided, if not totalitarian. I can only “discuss” this movie on home turf.

White explained that this situation “enrages me, because I have not read a single mainstream review that sought to appreciate Gibson’s basic, powerful imagery on its own terms.” He wondered aloud, “Does atheism rule? Does blindness rule criticism? To have this movie reviewed only by nonbelievers and half-thinkers is tantamount to fascism.” Linking The Passion with Michael Moore’s anti-war pic, he said, “also avoids the film’s aesthetics,” which is pretty much what the critic is there for. Ah, I’ll let White tell it:

Many critics choose to do just that, but I can tell you there are millions of readers who, understandably, feel the lack. They aren’t getting from criticism what they want/need to know about art, mythology, spirituality. They’re only getting objections, recriminations, and remonstrations.

These comments came after fellow critics had damned The Passion as “anti-Semitic shit” and quarreled over who received the most (or best) death threats over their negative reviews of the movie. New York Times critic A.O. Scott explained that the problem was not “a lack of Christian film critics (though I grant that the underrepresentation you cite constricts the debate), but the status of criticism as a secular activity, one that of necessity touches only indirectly on ultimate matters.”

I read (more or less) the entire run of the comments of this year’s movie symposium and I have to say, whatever the problems in the wider world of movie criticism, a less New York, less liberal, less secular, less loopy mix for next year’s critics sure would make it more readable. (Christopher Kelly argued that Shrek 2 was a pro-gay marriage blockbuster. Uh, OK, but if we accept that line of argument, it was also pro-bestiality.)

As far as I can tell, all of the contributors this time were political liberals. To the extent that any had religious ties, they were either lapsed or badly frayed. Armond White came off as the token conservative only because he works at an alt-weekly that used to value contrarianism in its writers, and because the other contributors bristled so easily at the slightest non-anti-bourgeoisie provocation.

If Slate needs to get hold of some conservative and/or Christian critics who aren’t aesthetic Philistines, they might draft Terry Teachout (Crisis‘ critic) or have a look at Christianity Today‘s movie site. If they really want to spice things up, they could draft James “I hate everything” Bowman or the American Conservative‘s controversial film critic Steve Sailer.

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Filed Under: Film

Oliver Stone's tirade at moralists (Incredibles III)

January 9, 2005 By

Colin_farrell1OK, the British news story wasn’t that long to begin with. But people keep sending it to me and, after days of the barrage, I have decided to (a) relent and (b) link it to another subject we have been dealing with for some time now.

So with that said, it is time to listen to Oliver Stone vent his wrath at all of the stupid people in red zip codes in America who did not have the courage or taste to purchase tickets to see “Alexander.” Consider this my follow-up on Doug’s earlier look at Stone.

The stunning part of this little story is that he did not out-and-out accuse anyone of censoring him, through some sort of back-door religious right plot to hurt his career. Wait! That conspiracy theory might provide a great plot for a new Oliver Stone movie!

So here we go again, from the Guardian, with the urgent headline, “Stone blames ‘moral fundamentalism’ for US box office flop.”

“Sexuality is a large issue in America right now, but it isn’t so much in other countries,” the Oscar-winning director explained yesterday. “There’s a raging fundamentalism in morality in the United States. From day one audiences didn’t show up. They didn’t even read the reviews in the [American] south because the media was using the words: ‘Alex is Gay’.” . . .

The £80m epic has so far cashed in around £18m at the US box office. The Platoon director previously defended his epic of the Macedonian conqueror, saying that it was too complex for “conventional minds”. “The script was just too ambiguous, too questioning about an action-hero who was masculine/feminine. These are tough qualities in Hollywood,” the Platoon director said last month. “It’s just too big a life. It doesn’t fit in into the Hollywood formula.”

On second glance, there is a valid news story hiding in this funny little item. This is the flip side of “Incredibles” paranoia.

Meanwhile, it does seem that well-made movies that have decent, even thrilling, plots and are not buried in sex and profanity — think “Pirates” or “National Treasures” — do tend to sell lots of tickets out there in normal America. The money is not blue or red. It’s green.

But let’s face it, in the current climate — gay cartoon sharks? — all kinds of questions are going to be asked about popular culture as well as politics. All kinds of people are going to read between all kinds of lines.

The bottom line is the bottom line: People do not have to shell out money for movies that they do not want to see. In the age of the Internet, word-of-mouth reviews turn into waves of digital feedback — for better or for worse. It really helps to make solid, broad-appeal movies. Here’s Charles Taylor in Salon:

The movies that have been great communal experiences — as opposed to merely big moneymakers — are the ones that try to reach a wide audience through a combination of instinct, smarts, showmanship and luck, the opposite of the market-researched, test-driven, focus-grouped process by which most movies are now made and sold. Today, most of the big hits feel like a triumph of marketing rather than moviemaking. It’s the difference between entering into a partnership with an audience and pulling it by the ring in its collective nose.

The best popular movies, the ones that become legitimate phenomenons — pictures like “Gone With the Wind,” “From Here to Eternity,” “On the Waterfront,” the first two “Godfather” films, “Jaws,” “E.T.” and perhaps “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy — cut across audience barriers. That may be why, in contrast to the cut-and-dried approach that leaves no meaning, no potential audience reaction to chance, the meanings of good popular movies are often contradictory, maybe even ambiguous. “The Incredibles,” an example of a big popular hit that trusts in the brains of its audience, is one such paradox.

Here is another good story hiding in this red theater, blue theater showdown.

When are the people who call themselves cultural conservatives going to learn how to make their share of decent movies? How many Christian colleges and universities, for example, operate solid programs in screenwriting? Answer that question and you have another good news story.

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Filed Under: Film

Brother Ned, say a little prayer for us

January 8, 2005 By

flanders greets.jpgIn one of the most illuminating passages in his autobiography, Here I Stand, retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong recalls the strict environment of his childhood:

But the religion of our home was quire clearly the religion of my Presbyterian mother. Sunday was called the “Sabbath” and one did not work or cause others to work on that day. The Lord’s name was never to be taken in vain, not even by saying “My goodness,” for that was a clear reference to God, and the phrase “For crying out loud” was said to be a direct reference to the cross. I can recall having my mouth washed out with soap for saying “gosh” and “darn.”

After reading this, I find it easier to understand why Spong is so fond of using the word fundamentalism to describe what he hates. In Spong’s childhood home, apparently even Ned Flanders would have been the regular subject of mouth-washings.

From the other end of the spectrum: In my childhood home, a frequent source of entertainment was hearing my father bellow into the phone, after his Cajun temper had been ignited, that someone could kiss his ass. From my mother I inherited the habit of saying “God!” to express surprise — something to which I didn’t give a second thought until my early 20s, when a friend from Moody Bible Institute suggested I probably could find a less glib way of invoking the Almighty.

All this comes to mind because of Jeffrey Weiss’ report — under the copyeditor’s dream headline of “What the *^&%$#@!” — in today’s Dallas Morning News. Weiss’ balance is masterful, combining funny anecdotes with insights from scholars.

Weiss explores the strangest territory in explaining the standards of TV and movies:

Broadcast TV remains more cautious than many other cultural outlets. While “Oh my God!” can be heard virtually anywhere in prime time, ads are still a blasphemy-free zone. For instance, a candy bar ad not long ago had an angry guy shouting “Great oogly moogly!”

Cable, from The Sopranos to Bill Maher, bars few if any words. Comedy Channel’s taboo-shredding South Park started as an Internet-distributed short that featured a wrestling match between Jesus and Santa Claus.

Movie ratings also indicate a softening of attitudes said Jim Wall, the former editor of Christian Century, who is a longtime advisor to the appeals board of the Motion Picture Association of America.

“The ratings are designed to reflect what the rating board feels the average American parent would expect to find,” he said.

So even one f-word used in a sexual context is still pretty much an automatic path to an R rating, he said. But a bunch of religious expletives aren’t likely to move a movie beyond PG-13.

In fact, the official explanation of the ratings on the MPAA Web site mentions violence, profanity, drug abuse and sexual content as factors in determining ratings — but nothing about religious language.

I do not yearn for the return of blasphemy laws, or the Hays Code, for that matter. Nor do I yearn to hear 8-year-olds hollering “Jesus Christ” during what friends of mine once called a grand mal hissy fit. Weiss’ story includes one segment that helps explain the taboo thrill of certain language:

The sacred and profane are an odd pairing in most contexts, but stand comfortably together in foul language in most cultures. That’s partly because they both pull concepts where polite society says they don’t belong, said Geoffrey Nunberg, author of Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times and a researcher at Stanford University’s Center for the Study of Language and Information.

Obscenity takes bedroom and bathroom activities and drags them out into the living room, he said. Blasphemy, on the other hand, hauls heaven down into the common world.

Both feel satisfyingly “wrong” when we want to vent our frustrations.

That reminds me of an angle worth some column inches. From screen-talking galoots at the theater to chattering gossips during a church service, mass culture seems to be losing any distinction between public and private space, or between the sidewalk and the sanctuary. Why is this?

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Filed Under: Anglicanism, Creeping Fundamentalism, Journalism