evangelicals

Lingering Supreme Court mystery: Justice Anthony Kennedy and religious liberty

Lingering Supreme Court mystery: Justice Anthony Kennedy and religious liberty

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018, but religious-liberty activists still want to know where he hoped to draw a bright line between religious freedom and the Sexual Revolution.

Kennedy knew that the First Amendment's declaration that government "shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise of religion" was creating warfare in modern American law and politics. But he didn't know how to end the strife.

In his majority opinion in the court's 5-4 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalizing same-sex marriage, Kennedy stressed that many Americans opposed this change because of "decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises," and he denied that "their beliefs are disparaged" in the ruling.

"It must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned," he wrote, in 2015. "The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths."

Since then, the Supreme Court has issued important rulings clarifying the rights of churches, denominations and ministries with clearly stated doctrines on sex, gender and marriage, noted Stanley Carlson-Thies, who recently retired as head of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, which he founded in 2008 as part of the nonpartisan Center for Public Justice. He also assisted the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations with issues linking faith and public life.

"The court knows that the freedom of religious expression is more than worship, alone," said Carlson-Thies, reached by telephone. "But where will the court draw the line, especially with religious individuals who own businesses that deal with the general public? …

"That's the mystery. Everyone knows the court needs to do something. These issues are not going away. … But it isn't clear the everyone thinks the Supreme Court should have the last word on everything. You hear that argued on the left and the right -- depending on who controls the White House."

Summer beats, dashes of theology and the growing glowing power of hip-hop

Summer beats, dashes of theology and the growing glowing power of hip-hop

In the first centuries of Christian life, bishops wrestled with the Greek in this puzzle -- whether God the Father and Jesus were "homoiousios (of similar substance)" or "homoousios (of one substance), with "one substance" winning the day.

This "hypostatic union" is a complex, mysterious subject, but hip-hop artist Shai Linne has demonstrated that modern believers can dance to it.

"Two natures united in one glorious person / Jesus, the God-Man, official Soul Reaper / The hypostatic union, it gets no deeper," rapped Linne, on his "Lyrical Theology" disc. "I know it's deep but when you peep, you'll find it's dense / Jesus both God and man, two hundred percents / Fully divine, fully human / Introducing: the hypostatic union."

Nayanna Holley and Steve Zank even found a way, with rap commentary, to use the whole Apostles Creed. Both of these tracks made it into "Good Theology, Good Beats" -- a 100-song summer online playlist created by the Gospel Coalition.

“The purpose of a playlist is simply to bring mixtapes into the 21st century. … You can put lists on social media platforms and hundreds and thousands of people can share them," said Brett McCraken, director of communications for the group and creator of the playlist. "We used to make mix tapes for our friends. Now, there's no limit. … You can literally make an online playlist with just about any song that has ever existed."

Playlists are, for some, an art form -- with creators choosing specific songs and placing them in sequences to address specific issues, said McCracken, reached by telephone.

Playlists also build online networks. With this list, the Gospel Coalition team wanted to reach younger listeners, stressing that musicians around the world are using rap, hip-hop, Afrobeats, Gospel and other forms of music to build more ties between believers in Black, white and Latino cultures. In the no-borders world of Spotify, Instagram and TikTok, this reality is affecting music in many churches, as well as the mainstream media.

Quiet crisis: Who will lead those small churches all over the United States?

Quiet crisis: Who will lead those small churches all over the United States?

One of the crucial services the Rev. Tony Marr provides as leader of the Higher Ministries consulting firm is to connect young pastors -- fresh out of seminaries and Bible colleges -- with churches that need new leaders.

But there's a problem. Most of these churches seeking pastors have fewer than 150 members and are considered "small churches" in the Protestant marketplace. Many of them have around 50 active members or less. It takes about 80 to 90 active members, in most church traditions, to pay a full-time pastor's salary.

"This is a conversation I have almost every week," said Marr, who is based in Johnson City, Tennessee. "At any given time, we have three or four small churches looking for pastors. … It seems like nobody wants to go to those small churches. Nobody wants to serve God there."

When Marr asks young pastors to describe their ideal "first job," most say that they want to serve as an associate pastor on the staff of a truly large church -- one with 1,000 members or more. In other words, they want to prepare to lead churches of that size, or larger.

"They have no intention of taking a church with 45 or 50 or 60 active members," he said, reached by telephone. "Many of these young pastors would rather work in coffee shops than lead that kind of church, even if these jobs would let them preach several times a week while ministering to real people and real families. They would rather work part-time, or be volunteers, at the large churches that they see in their futures."

This is a crisis that denominational leaders will have to face, he explained, for a simple reason. A recent survey from Faith Communities Today (.pdf) found that seven out of 10 American congregations have fewer than 100 people attending their main worship services. The average church has 65 members in the pews on Sunday. Digging deeper, in some denominations -- especially shrinking mainline bodies -- most congregations struggle to pay full-time salaries.

Backing that up, a Baptist Press report stressed that the "most recent National Congregations Study (NCS) found the median congregation in the U.S. welcomes 70 regular participants, including adults and children, and has an annual budget of $100,000."

A bridge between Ash Wednesday and Easter: Most Americans do not 'get' Lent

A bridge between Ash Wednesday and Easter: Most Americans do not 'get' Lent

When it comes to pulling Catholics into pews, Christmas rites top the list -- followed by a tie between Easter, the Christian calendar's most joyous day, and Ash Wednesday, which is the most sobering.

Last year, 51% of U.S. Catholics attended Mass on Easter, the same percentage as Ash Wednesday, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Christmas drew 68%.

The bridge between Ash Wednesday and Easter is the penitential season of Lent.

"Participating in Ash Wednesday which leaves a black cross on the forehead is one way for Catholics to identify themselves publicly and to express pride in their religious tradition," noted Father James J. Bacik, writing for the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. "It is also a way of indicating an intention to take Lent seriously."

Ash Wednesday services have, in recent decades, become common in some Protestant denominations. But what about Lent?

Lent is "not on the radar" for most Americans, according to a new Lifeway Research study focusing on Catholics, Protestants and the unchurched. One in four participants in the survey (26%) say they observe Lent, to one degree or another. That's lower than the 31% of Americans who claim to attend worship services weekly or almost weekly, according to 2023 polling by Gallup.

Most believers who observe Lent find their own ways to mark the season, with some form of the "give up one thing for Lent" pattern as the norm. It's hard to find evidence of ancient Christian patterns of fasting and abstinence in the survey results.

"Fasting is on the Christian liturgical calendar not unlike the Jewish Yom Kippur and Muslim Ramadan," noted Lifeway executive director Scott McConnell, in the organization's summary of the study. "For Christians attending non-liturgical churches, they may not even notice the season of Lent has arrived. It is not that they look down on the practices of fasting, prayer and charity. But if they participate, they may be exchanging additional time with God for other forms of self-denial."

Sideline sermons are evolving during this tense age in American life

Sideline sermons are evolving during this tense age in American life

Moments after the Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LIX, quarterback Jalen Hurts offered a familiar word of testimony: "God is good. He is greater than all of the highs and lows."

If those words sounded familiar, it's because Hurts -- the MVP -- shared them earlier on press day, along with several other moments in the spotlight: "My faith has always been a part of me. I've always wanted to root myself in that and keep (God) in the center of my life. … So, through the highs and the lows, He's greater than all of them, and that's something that I can always acknowledge."

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni opened his post-victory remarks with: "God's blessed us very much. He gave us all the talents to be able to get here, so first and foremost, thanks to Him. … Thank God. Thank you, Jesus."

The coach and his quarterback were not alone, because Godtalk has become more common after championships than pledges to visit a theme park. But the language used during these testimonies has become more nuanced.

"What they said, and didn't say, was quite interesting," said Robert Benne of Roanoke College, who founded its Benne Center for Church and Society. Now 87, he has been writing about faith and sports for decades.

"Not one of them talked about God being on their side," he said, reached by telephone. "They avoided what many would consider evangelistic language, and no one suggested that they prayed to God to help them win. … They were careful not to suggest, in any way, that they had been manipulating the Deity."

This is significant since boastful behavior has become the norm in sports entertainment, Benne recently noted in a Roanoke Times column.

"This is the era of the expressive self," he wrote, under a "Why it's now hard to watch big time football" headline. "Dancing, prancing, running wildly, pounding one's chest with a primal scream. How wonderful, according to the legion of cameras that record every gaping mouth. … The expressive self quickly turns into the aggrandizing self."

Any fusion of proud, pushy behavior and fervent faith would, in "this highly divided country that we have right now," lead to cheers among some viewers and just as many jeers from others, said Benne. Even worse, many commentators immediately interpret statements of public faith as political declarations.

Chaplains: Helping the suffering journey from the "Why?" to the "When?"

Chaplains: Helping the suffering journey from the "Why?" to the "When?"

The chaplain's prayer is posted near the chapel of Baptist Hospital in Beaumont, Texas, a space shared by patients, families, visitors, doctors and the whole staff.

"Dear God, who makest thyself known in deeds rather than in mere words, deepen within us respect and appreciation for opportunities to serve. Thou has promised aid and blessing where men deal justly, show mercy, and serve humbly. Give us a faithfulness to our task, a patience in anxiety, added skill in work done. Add to our wills a readiness to follow thy guidance; to our hearts a compassion like unto the Great Physician who ministered in love and without favor."

The prayer was written by the Rev. Weldon Langley, the hospital's chaplain from 1960 to 1985. Langley continued part-time until 1993, completing four decades of chaplaincy work with Baptist institutions on the Texas Gulf Coast. He died in 2013 at the age of 96.

Langley's prayer has retained its strategic location as the hospital complex expanded into new, updated facilities.

"Weldon was a chaplain to the patients and their families, but he was also a pastor -- year after year -- to the doctors, nurses and everybody else," said the Rev. David Cross, who followed Langley at Baptist Hospital. While Langley focused on the needs of patients, "his insights into what makes life worth living made him a shepherd for everyone. He was a chaplain's chaplain."

Every year, the Global Chaplains Alliance dedicates the first Saturday of February to honoring chaplains. For me, it's impossible to discuss the ministry of chaplains without mentioning my "Uncle Weldon" Langley, who was very close to my father, the Rev. Bert Mattingly, who also had experience as a chaplain. My father died in 1999.

Chaplains work with hospitals, hospices, military units, legislatures, schools, sports teams, corporations, prisons and police and fire departments. Many, but not all, are ordained ministers. For most Americans, the chaplains they know best serve in the nation's 6,000 or more hospitals.

Pastors visit the sick and dying from their own congregations, noted Cross. For hospital chaplains, this is the heart of their work -- every day.

How the Babylon Bee helped topple digital dominos in the media marketplace

How the Babylon Bee helped topple digital dominos in the media marketplace

On March 15, 2022, Babylon Bee editors ran a blunt joke about a powerful American leader -- proclaiming the assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services as the website's "Man of the Year."

The joke caused controversy because Admiral Rachel L. Levine had, more than a decade earlier, transitioned to become a transgender woman and, two days before the Bee jab, was named one of the "Women of the Year" by USA Today.

At that point, the Twitter management cancelled the Babylon Bee's account, cutting a vital link between the Christian satire website and the online readers that were its lifeblood.

"Many people said trans people are already subject to so much ridicule, and posts like this just fan the flames against a minority group," noted Bari Weiss, editor of The Free Press, in a recent podcast with Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon. "How do you respond to that criticism?"

That's a "fair question," noted Dillon, but one built on the "concept that comedy should be something that only punches up at the power structure. That the oppressors can do no right, the oppressed can do no wrong. They're marginalized, and they need to be protected and insulated, and the powerful can be the subject of scorn and ridicule."

In this scenario, an evangelical humor website far from the entertainment-industry mainstream was the powerful "oppressor." Meanwhile, noted Dillon: "Admiral Rachel Levine is a transgender admiral in the Biden administration, a high-ranking government official. The narrative that's being imposed on the culture is … coming from the top down, imposed on people that really do in large numbers find it absurd and objectionable. So we were, in fact, punching up."

With the Bee locked in "Twitter jail," digital dominoes began falling -- a chain reaction that would help shape in news and journalism, which would affect debates during a tense, complicated White House race.

On March 24, the Bee team heard from a reader -- Elon Musk -- who was paying close attention to "cancel culture" trends. As an omnipresent Twitter user, the world's richest tech entrepreneur was already getting messages from people urging him to buy the social-media platform.

Musk wanted to know why Bee tweets had vanished.

Jimmy Carter -- a progressive, evolving Baptist in a changing Bible Belt

Jimmy Carter -- a progressive, evolving Baptist in a changing Bible Belt

The young Jimmy Carter was a political nobody the first time he ran for governor of Georgia.

That long-shot 1966 effort failed, leaving him wrestling with doubts about his future and his faith. But Carter rallied, including years of work with Billy Graham's 1973 Atlanta Crusade. He also joined a small circle of Southern Baptists who travelled to the central Pennsylvania hills to witness to the unchurched.

"We had a wonderful religious experience," Carter told the Historical Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "We had 18 people who accepted Christ that week, and we organized a church … before we left." The experience, he said, left him "the closest to Christ" that he had ever felt in his life.

That turning point, featured in the Baptist Press report marking the death of the 100-year-old former president, was a perfect example of the "born-again" faith that made Carter so mysterious to America's political establishment when he reached the White House in 1976. Carter's blend of Southern piety and stubborn political convictions would end up changing the role of American evangelicals in public life.

Truth is, Carter was part of two endangered groups -- populist Southern Democrats and progressive Southern Baptists. In 1976, he fared well with evangelical voters, for a Democrat, but exit polls basically showed a toss-up. In 1980, many evangelicals rejected him and helped create Ronald Reagan's landslide win.

Carter's attempts to state his personal convictions against abortion, while backing legalized abortion, confused and then angered many evangelicals. Meanwhile, Carter's opposition to public funding for abortion helped create a revolt among Democrats, with Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts attempting to unseat him as the nominee.

Over time, Christian progressives would stress that Carter, as a Baptist, consistently stressed that he would clearly state his own beliefs, while rejecting political actions that he thought would use government power to promote specific religious doctrines.

"The United States' most religious president in recent memory was also the most committed to the separation of church and state," noted Amanda Tyler, leader of the progressive Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

Were there any religion-news events in 2024? It rather hard to say ....

President Donald Trump is returning to the White House, convinced -- after a close encounter with an assassin's bullet -- that he had God on his side in the election.

While opinions differed on that theological question, Trump clearly drew strong support from voters that frequented pews. In Washington Post exit polls, he received 56% of the Catholic votes, while 41% backed Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2020, 52% of self-identified Catholics supported President Joe Biden, with 47% for Trump.

As always, Trump fared well with Protestants and "other Christians," with 62% supporting him, as opposed to 37% for Harris. She won 60% of the votes of non-Christian believers, while Trump had 33% -- up 4% from his showing in 2020.

Thus, members of Religion News Association selected the 2024 presidential election as the year's top national religion story. The 2024 poll of religion-news professionals was dominated by analysis of national and international news, as opposed to specific headlines and events, with a strong emphasis on trends among religious conservatives.

But Trump's wins among religious believers -- as well as gains among Latinos and Black men -- were only one side of this drama, stressed Jessica Grose of the New York Times opinion staff.

Democrats should note the "large and growing religious group that is already in their corner: the Nones," she noted, referring to religiously unaffiliated Americans. "According to new data from the Public Religion Research Institute … 72 percent of the religiously unaffiliated voted for Kamala Harris. Melissa Deckman, the chief executive of P.R.R.I., shared a more granular breakdown of unaffiliated voters with me over email: 82 percent of atheists, 80 percent of agnostics and 64 percent of those who said they had no particular faith voted for Harris."

However, key voters rejected Democratic Party stands on many cultural and moral issues, noted Ruy Teixeira, a veteran Democrat strategist. In a Blueprint2024 survey, the top reason "swing" voters gave for rejecting Harris was that she seemed "more focused on transgender issues" than middle-class needs. Thus, one Trump ad proclaimed: "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for YOU."