Web/tech

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Donald Trump's mysterious appeal to the 'evangelical' voter niche

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When it became clear that normal venues were too small, Donald Trump met his Mobile, Ala., flock in the ultimate Deep South sanctuary -- a football stadium.

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Unbelievable. Unbelievable," shouted the candidate that polls keep calling the early Republican frontrunner. "That's so beautiful. You know, now I know how the great Billy Graham felt, because this is the same feeling. We all love Billy Graham. We love Billy Graham."

The thrice-married New York billionaire didn't elaborate, but apparently thought he was channeling what the world's most famous preacher would feel facing a Bible Belt crowd. Participants in evangelistic crusades, however, don't bounce up and down screaming while wearing licensed merchandise and waving single-name banners.

Adjusting his red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap, Trump quoted Rush Limbaugh, mocked Jeb Bush, prophesized the demise of Hillary Clinton and shared sordid details of crimes by an illegal immigrant. He offered -- in the rain -- to prove that his legendary hair was indeed his own.

One photo went viral, showing the candidate greeting supporters in front of a homemade sign that proclaimed, "Thank you, Lord Jesus, for President Trump."

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Why do so many religious believers keep falling for faux news reports?

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It was a story guaranteed to inspire a blitz of mouse-clicks in social media in the days just after the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision proclaiming that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage.

"Gay man sues publishers over Bible verses," said a USA Today headline. A Michigan man was seeking $70 million from two Christian giants, claiming they -- by publishing editions of the Bible referring to homosexuality as sin -- caused "me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence ... including murder."

But there was a problem. The vast majority of those who recently read this story, commented on it or clicked "forward" and sent it to others failed to notice a crucial fact -- it was published in 2008. (Confession: I fell for it, because the version I received didn't contain the date in the actual text.)

In religious circles, the abuse of partial facts and anonymous anecdotes is as old as preachers searching for Saturday night inspiration. However, the Internet age has encouraged global distribution, making it easier for flawed or exaggerated information to go viral in microseconds.

Once these stories lodge in memory banks -- human or digital -- they live on and on. This problem is especially bad among many religious believers who tend to distrust mainstream sources of news.

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New battle in the old media-bias wars? #LoveWins #ReligiousLiberty

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When the U.S. Supreme Court announced its 5-4 decision backing same-sex marriage, gay and straight journalists at The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., were in a celebratory mood, sharing hugs, laughter and tears.

Then online reader comments began arriving -- some calm, but others angry.

Opinion editor John Micek responded with this policy statement: "As a result of Friday's ruling, PennLive/The Patriot-News will no longer accept, nor will it print, op-eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage." His Twitter take, complete with a typo, added: "We would not print racist, sexist or anti-Semitc letters. To that, we add homophobic ones. Pretty simple."

Welcome to the latest battle over media bias, one linked to decades of debate about whether journalists do a fair and accurate job when covering news about religion, morality and culture.

The Patriot-News policy ignited another online firestorm and Micek soon tweaked it to say the newspaper will "very strictly limit op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage" and "for a limited time, accept letters and op-Eds on the high court's decision and its legal merits."

The problem is that while some livid readers rushed to call Micek and his colleagues "fascists," others argued that the Obergefell v. Hodges decision would soon clash with the First Amendment's right to the "free exercise" of religious convictions.

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Ignore religion's role in real news in the real world? That can be dangerous

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For more than a century, Western diplomats and scholars were sure of one thing -- that religion's role in world affairs would decline as humanity evolved toward a future rooted in logic and science.

 Those who didn't accept this vision were considered naive, irrational or perhaps even dangerous.

 The problem? There is little evidence that this secularization theory is true. In fact, it has become increasingly obvious that journalists and diplomats must pay more attention to religious traditions and practices if they want to understand many of the conflicts shaping and shaking our world, argued historian John Wolffe of the Open University in England.

 "Precisely because mainstream Western society is predominantly secular, a positive effort needs to be made to enable those who do not have a religious faith to have a better understanding both of the significant minorities in the West itself who have a religious commitment and of a continuing, and arguably growing, influence of religion in much of the rest of the world," he said, during the recent "Getting Religion" conference in Westminster, England, led by the Open University and Lapido Media.

 To be blunt, he said, confusion about the role that religion plays in the real world is dangerous. But how will religious believers and unbelievers learn to understand each other if journalists don't learn to cover religion accurately and fairly?

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Technology shapes content: High Holidays with the online flock

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The idea was really simple, in terms of technology: Since many Jews could not attend High Holiday rites, why not put microphones in key locations and let them listen on their telephones? 

It wasn't as good as being there, but -- for shut-ins -- it was better than nothing.

Decades later, some Jewish leaders mounted cameras in their packed sanctuaries and let people watch High Holidays rites on video. Again, it wasn't the same as being there, but it was better than nothing and, certainly, better than listening on a telephone.

Jewish leaders who tiptoed into these technologies "didn't change what they were doing, they just put a telephone near it," said Rabbi Robert Barr, founder of Congregation Beth Adam, a 30-year-old independent congregation in Cincinnati, Ohio. "When cameras came along, they just aimed cameras at what they were already doing. They didn't change anything."

That isn't what this self-proclaimed "humanistic" congregation is trying to do with it's global OurJewishCommunity.org congregation, which began with High Holidays services in 2008 and has been meeting in cyberspace ever since.

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Rosary prayers and the hellish death of journalist James Foley

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When a believer is immersed in the rosary, the familiar phrases of the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Doxology find a soft rhythm, as clicking beads mix with steady breaths and the human heart. 

While meditating on each great mystery of the faith, the final words of the Hail Mary prayers are particularly sobering: "Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen." 

The prayers are "like a pulse that sinks deep inside and goes on and on as you meditate on how these mysteries are connected to your life," said writer Elizabeth Scalia, known as "The Anchoress" among Catholic bloggers. 

"I think all the mysteries would have offered inspiration and consolation to James Foley" while in captivity, she said, as he "faced the fact that his life was truly in danger." 

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Clergy, temptation, sex abuse and the law

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Surely one of our world's most endangered species -- right up there with the Mountain Gorilla or the Sumatran Tiger -- is the church "ministerius youthii."

That was the conviction of the late Louis McBurney, a Mayo Clinic-trained psychiatrist who spent decades at his Colorado retreat center helping ministers crushed by the demands and temptations of their jobs. Youth ministers, for example, face stunning parental expectations, low pay, the loss of privacy and a nagging sense of powerlessness.

Plus, it's hard to work with adolescents in a sex-soaked culture. Many older teens think they are more mature than they really are, noted McBurney, in his 1986 volume "Counseling Christian Workers." Consider the case of "Joe," a newly married seminary graduate who was energetic, talented and driven. Then, there was this one girl.

"She was a beautiful 17-year-old who was more mature than her peers," wrote the psychiatrist. "They began to play tennis together, and she was frequently the last to leave group activities. Joe couldn't remember who made the first move to sexual intimacy, but once that happened it snowballed."

Many were hurt in the train wreck that followed, an all-to-common scenario that in the past often played out behind closed doors with parents and church leaders hiding the damage. Times have changed, to some degree, after years of public debate about the sexual abuse of minors by clergy, teachers, coaches and other trusted adults.

The respected evangelical publication Leadership Journal recently unleashed a firestorm of criticism by publishing an anonymous piece -- since taken offline -- entitled "My Easy Trip from Youth Minister to Felon." One passage was particularly galling to Twitter critics who used #TakeDownThatPost and #HowOldWereYou as hashtags.

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Year 26: Frustrated Catholics playing 'Name that pope'

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Soon after Pope Francis skyrocketed into media superstardom, some frustrated Catholics started playing an online game that could be called "Name that pope." Most of them were not upset with what their charismatic shepherd from Argentina was actually saying and doing. Instead, they were frustrated with the media storm portraying him as radically different -- in substance -- from his predecessors.

Frankly, this is one of the strangest stories I have seen during the many years -- 26 as of last week -- I have been writing this "On Religion" syndicated column.

Want to try this game? Start with this quotation: "The reservation of the priesthood to males, as a sign of Christ the Spouse who gives himself in the Eucharist, is not a question open to discussion."

Name that pope: That's Pope Francis, believe it or not.

Round two: "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs."

Name that pope: That's Pope Benedict XVI.

Round three: "If we refuse to share what we have with the hungry and the poor, we make of our possessions a false god. How many voices in our materialist society tell us that happiness is to be found by acquiring as many possessions and luxuries as we can! ... Instead of bringing life, they bring death."

Name that pope: Benedict, again.

Round four: "Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. ... Frequently, as a way of ridiculing the Church's effort to defend their lives, attempts are made to present her position as ideological, obscurantist and conservative. ... It is not 'progressive' to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life."

Name that pope: Francis, of course.

What's going on? Many progressives now shouting praises at Francis don't seem familiar with the doctrines he is supposedly modernizing, according to Rep. Rebecca Hamilton, a Catholic Republican in the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

"This old wine of the Gospel has become new again in Pope Francis' way of expressing and living it. 'Bombshell' is the word that pundits attach to comments he makes that are nothing more nor less than what the Church has taught from the beginning," she wrote, at the Public Catholic website.

Another religion-beat veteran, someone who has read daily Vatican dispatches for 20 years, thinks it's "nonsense" to say that Francis has suddenly shifted Rome's concerns away from contraception, abortion and homosexuality to poverty, peace and environmentalism. If there has been a dominant theme under recent popes, it has been human rights.

"It was the media, some advocacy groups on both sides and perhaps some individual bishops -- but not the popes -- who were fixated on what is so wrongly mischaracterized as 'pelvic issues,' " said Ann Rodgers, who recently became communications director for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh after several decades covering religion in the mainstream press.

So why is Pope Francis a media star and "Teflon" when it comes to criticism? Speaking at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Rodgers said the key is that famous Marshall McLuhan statement: "The medium is the message."

After his election, Francis declined a limo and rode a bus to dinner with other cardinals. The next day he famously paid his own bill at the international residence house, where he had often stayed in the past and knew the staff by name.

"The medium is the message," said Rodgers.

The list goes on and on. Last fall, the pope publicly embraced a man with a horribly disfigured face. He warned Mafiosi to repent or face hell. On his first Maundy Thursday, he washed the feet of inmates, including women and non-Christians.

"When he is washing the feet of a Muslim girl, he is not making a claim that she is a Christian or that Islam and Christianity are in any way interchangeable," said Rodgers. "He is saying, 'You are a Muslim girl. You are a prisoner and I love you, in the name of Jesus. I am here to serve you, in the name of Jesus.' ...

"He takes away her sense of shame, but in a way that may help her aspire to holiness. He's not just talking about mercy. He's not just talking about loving the stranger who is our neighbor. The medium is the message."

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Faith and the Millennials -- it's complicated

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LOS ANGELES -- When pollster David Kinnaman went to college two decades ago, his Generation X life was surrounded by electronic screens and all the gadgets that connected to them. There were TV screens, movie screens and new computers, some of which even had speakers. There were VCRs, CD players, cassette recorders, video cameras and other cool devices. The hottest trend was "email" that allowed students to do something Baby Boomers could only dream about -- send private, instant messages to friends in nearby dorms or around the world.

Pop culture was huge. Technology was powerful. But today, all those devices have evolved into one life-changing screen carried by millions of so-called Millennials -- the smartphone. And through these screens stream the myriad channels, icons, brands, apps and voices that are shaping a generation.

But what religious leaders and educators must understand is that this updated "screen culture" has created the opposite of a unified youth culture, said Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, a faith-centered research firm. While it's accurate, for example, to say pop culture is in "some ways the new religion," that doesn't mean all digital consumers raised during past quarter century share one faith -- quite the opposite.

"Pop culture is becoming a new religious grid, it's becoming the filter through which they examine and interpret their reality," he said, speaking at a national conference in Los Angeles held by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (the global network in which I teach, through the Washington Journalism Center).

The smartphone "screen age is dictating this new 20-something reality," which should affect everything from how churches address sexuality to how colleges teach the Bible, he added. "How it is that we will disciple in this ... digital Babylon is terribly important for us to consider."

The bottom line: The pieces in the puzzles that complicate so many of young lives have been radically individualized. Thus, the Millennials mantra: "It's complicated."

This includes faith. Over the past decade, Kinnaman noted, Barna researchers have conducted 27,000 interviews with Millennials (ages 18-31) and found that more than half of those with a Christian background have, at some point, stopped going to church.

In his book, "You Lost Me," Kinnaman noted that 10 percent of these straying Millennials are "Prodigals" who have lost the faith -- period. Another 30 percent are "Exiles," who to some degree remain inside a church, but feel lost and cannot find a comfortable niche. The largest segment -- 40 percent -- are "Nomads" who have left the institutional church, but still claim the label "Christian."

The hard truth that many religious leaders have never accepted, he added, is that Millennials are merely walking the do-it-yourself spirituality path used by many of their parents. Nomad faith is now the American way.

"What we learn in our research," he said, "is that a majority of Americans are Christian nomads -- adults of whatever generation. Right? We see that most adults in the country are Christian, and yet very few of them are very active as Christians. They have accepted the IDEA of being Christians."

This reality is now affecting how young Americans make decisions about sex, marriage, family life and careers, with more and more Millennials delaying the burdens, commitments and uncertainties of adulthood.

In the 1960s, he noted, 77 percent of women and 66 percent of men had -- by age 30 -- completed the major transitions of life, such as leaving home, finishing school, achieving financial independence, getting married and having children. In 2014 these numbers were quite different, with 46 percent of women and a mere 31 percent of men having made these steps into adulthood by age 30.

Will it be a challenge for older adults to offer spiritual guidance as young Americans struggle with these issues? Obviously, said Kinnaman, because adults are adults and peers are peers.

"This is a generation that wants ... be engaged with people, with diversity, with friends from around the world, with different points of view, with different religions, with different perspectives," he warned the educators in attendance.

"If you tell them that you have to choose between being friends with somebody and their faith, they will choose being friends. They will choose relational connection over what you think they need to believe in terms of orthodoxy. ... We are finding that with Millennials their peers are their moral and spiritual compass."