GetReligion

A few facts about Obama’s faith

The big news about the recent Newsweek “Finding His Faith” cover story about Sen. Barack Obama is that it was not written by Jon Meacham, the news magazine’s theologian in chief.

So if you are in the mood for more theological reflection and speculation, click here and head right over to the editor’s essay entitled “More a Matter of Mystery than Magic — It seems that, for Obama, faith is about enduring questions.” The operative word, as in most of Meacham’s writing, is “seems.”

However, if you are interested in some solid quotes, a few symbolic facts and quite a bit of on-the-record expert analysis, then you’ll want to focus on the main article by Lisa Miller and Richard Wolffe. It offers quite a bit of information about why Obama believes what he believes. It also offers a few hints about why he does not believe some of things that he clearly does not believe.

For example, remember that exchange between Obama and the Rev. Franklin Graham, during that famous closed-door chat and prayer meeting with religious leaders in Chicago? Here’s a piece of the Scripps Howard column I wrote about that:

After the Chicago meeting, online reports . . . said the leaders discussed a wide variety of issues, from the Iraq war to same-sex marriage, from genocide in Darfur to religious liberty issues here at home. A spokesman for the Rev. Franklin Graham said that the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association asked if Obama “thought Jesus was the way to God, or merely a way” — but did not report the response. There were conflicting reports about whether Graham and Obama exchanged a hug or a handshake.

Newsweek followup up on that and the “OK, here’s what I said” quote from Obama is sure to be quoted often in many news. GetReligion readers will note that this exchange — which Obama links to the life and death of his “spiritual seeker” mother — focuses on one of those “tmatt trio” questions:

When Franklin Graham asked Obama recently how, as a Christian, he could reconcile New Testament claims that salvation was attainable only through Christ with a campaign that embraces pluralism and diversity, Obama tells NEWSWEEK he said: “It is a precept of my Christian faith that my redemption comes through Christ, but I am also a big believer in the Golden Rule, which I think is an essential pillar not only of my faith but of my values and my ideals and my experience here on Earth. I’ve said this before, and I know this raises questions in the minds of some evangelicals. I do not believe that my mother, who never formally embraced Christianity as far as I know . . . I do not believe she went to hell.” Graham, he said, was very gracious in reply. Should Obama beat John McCain, he has history on his side. Presidents such as Lincoln and Jefferson were unorthodox Christians; and, according to a Pew Forum survey, 70 percent of Americans agree with the statement that “many religions can lead to eternal life.” “My particular set of beliefs,” Obama says, “may not be perfectly consistent with the beliefs of other Christians.”

One of the challenges facing the writers was this: How do you capture such a complex man in a few paragraphs? The answer is blunt, but not easy — with symbolic facts.

Here are two prime examples, I think, from this cover package. The first concerns his years as a spiritually motivated, but unconventional, student at Columbia University:

For company, he had books. There was Saint Augustine, the fourth-century North African bishop who wrote the West’s first spiritual memoir and built the theological foundations of the Christian Church. There was Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher and father of existentialism. There was Graham Greene, the Roman Catholic Englishman whose short novels are full of compromise, ambivalence and pain. Obama meditated on these men and argued with them in his mind.

And consider this collection of facts and influences:

Obama’s religious biography is unconventional and politically problematic. Born to a Christian-turned-secular mother and a Muslim-turned-atheist African father, Obama grew up living all across the world with plenty of spiritual influences, but without any particular religion. He is now a Christian, having been baptized in the early 1990s at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. . . .

The story of Obama’s faith begins with his mother, Ann. Raised in the Midwest by two lapsed Christians, she lived and traveled throughout the world appreciating all religions but confessing to none. One of Ann’s favorite spiritual texts was “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” a set of PBS interviews with Bill Moyers that traces the common themes of religion and mythology, Obama’s half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, tells NEWSWEEK. When the family lived in Indonesia, Ann, on occasion, would take the children to Catholic mass; after returning to Hawaii, they would celebrate Easter and Christmas at United Church of Christ congregations. Ann later went back to Indonesia with Maya, and when Obama visited, they would take him to Borobudur, one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world. Later, while working in India, Ann lived for a time in a Buddhist monastery.

The story also contains a few facts about the role of faith in his marriage (wife Michelle also grew up outside the church) and in his home (no Sunday school for the daughters).

Over in the Q&A, we learn that Obama’s use of evangelical-friendly language extends all the way over to another touchy issue in the Nicene Creed and in biblical prophecy:

What do you think about the Kingdom of God? Is it attainable on Earth by humans?

I am a big believer in not just words, but deeds and works. I don’t believe that the Kingdom of God is achievable on Earth without God’s intervention, and without God’s return through Jesus Christ, but I do believe in improvement.

This is a solid piece, although anyone who takes these subjects seriously would want to know more. As I said the other day, Obama is literally trying to reach out to believers in traditional, conservative Christian pews while also being honest (careful, but honest) about his own liberal beliefs.

So, that’s my major criticism of this cover story. Try to forget Obama’s former church home, in terms of the congregation itself and its controversial former pastor who must not be named. Instead, focus on its leadership role in the United Church of Christ — the most openly and proudly left-wing oldline Christian denomination in American life. That’s the negative way of stating the issue. Frankly, Obama’s church deserves even more press attention because of its courage in openly stating and defending its unique take on Christian doctrines.

So try to forget, for a moment, the pews and pulpit of the local church he once called home. I think that Newsweek should have given us more concrete information that explains Obama’s choice of his national church — meaning his denomination.

But we all know that there’s lots more ink that will be poured out on all of these topics in the near future. Hang on.

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The pope as political activist

Is Pope Benedict XVI a political activist, an agitator for left-wing or right-wing issues? Rohan Sullivan of The Associated Press seems to think so.

In his story about the Pope’s opening address at World Youth Day, Sullivan portrayed Benedict in strictly political terms, focusing primarily on his remarks about the importance of protecting the environment:

The world’s natural resources are being squandered in the pursuit of “insatiable consumption,” Pope Benedict XVI said Thursday in a speech urging followers to care more for the environment and reconnect with the principle of peace.

Benedict, speaking to more than 200,000 pilgrims gathered for the Roman Catholic church’s youth festival, expanded on a theme that has led him to be dubbed “the green pope.”

The crowd, massed on a disused wharf in Australia’s largest city, regularly erupted in cheers that gave the event the feel of a sporting event.

“Some of you come from island nations whose very existence is threatened by rising water levels; others from nations suffering the effects of devastating drought,” the pope said, referring to global warming.

He noted that during his more than 20-hour flight from Rome to Sydney he had a bird’s eye view of a vast swath of the world that inspired awe and introspection.

“Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption,” he said.

It is true that Benedict stressed the importance of protecting the environment. It is also true that the Pope hit the environmental theme more in this address than any speeches he gave, say, during his visit this spring to the United States. So it’s natural and right for Sullivan to play up this angle.

Yet like Padraig Collin’s story for Irish Times, the rest of the AP story leaves a misleading impression: the Pope’s address was primarily about the environment or his praise for the Australian government’s apology to aborigines. It wasn’t.

Of the speech’s 24 paragraphs, 22 had little or nothing to do with the environment. These paragraphs were primarily theological and spiritual. Benedict warned of the dangers of relativism and secularism and extolled the virtues of Christian witness and charity. This should be no surprise. He is, after all, called His Holiness and Holy Father.

Not all of the stories about Benedict’s opening address were off the mark. Ed Johnson of Bloomberg News focused on the spiritual and religious nature of the pope’s remarks:

Pope Benedict XVI greeted tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered in Sydney for the largest youth festival in the world and declared the five-day celebration of faith a sign of the Catholic Church’s vitality.

“Standing before me I see a vibrant image of the universal church,” the 81-year-old pontiff told 140,000 pilgrims at Sydney Harbour’s Barangaroo wharf today. “The variety of nations and cultures from which you hail shows that indeed Christ’s good news is for everyone.”

This post is not meant to be too scolding. I understand why Sullivan latched on to the environmental theme: it was news in a way that Benedict’s remarks about relativism and secularism were not. But when reporters focus only on politics, as they did with Fr. Michael Pfleger, they make a categorical error.

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Am I my brother’s keeper?

Are you familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan? The passage from the tenth chapter of Luke begins with a lawyer testing Jesus by asking him what he may do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asks him what the Law says. The lawyer says, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus says that he is correct. The lawyer, wanting to justify himself, then asks, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus tells this parable:

Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’ So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?’

Now, consider the opening to this provocative and interesting story in the Washington Post yesterday:

A woman sits alone on a gray chair in a psychiatric ward in a Brooklyn hospital. When we first see her, we do not know how long she has been sitting there. Suddenly, the woman collapses on her face onto the dirty floor.

We watch through a surveillance camera as she lies there, her blue gown above her knees, her legs convulsing. We watch as a guard comes into the room, puts his hand on his hip, looks at the woman, then looks up at the television hanging from the ceiling. Then the guard walks away.

We watch as two other patients sit across the room as the woman lies there. We watch them watch her.

The video, released recently on the Internet, documents the minutes the woman twists on the floor. She stops moving at 6:07 a.m. At 6:35 a.m. a hospital staff member comes in, nudges the patient with her foot. We hope the staffer will do something. But she walks away.

In the time that passes between action and indifference, between life and death, we wait before someone finally rolls in a blue gurney and oxygen tank, puts the woman on the gurney and rolls her away. Later we learn that Esmin Elizabeth Green, 49, an immigrant from Jamaica who moved to New York to make money to send to her children back home, is dead.

The camera goes black, leaving its viewers with the question: What might you have done?

The author, DeNeen Brown, gives another example and then this:

Now, you look on with all the brilliance of hindsight and say you would have done it differently. You would have called for help the moment the woman collapsed on the hospital floor. You would have pulled the man out of the street after the car hit him and other cars just passed him by.

Or would you?

Are you really as good as you think you are? Deep down inside, is there a hero waiting there or an apathetic little soul soaked in indifference?

The Washington Post story immediately gripped me. It reminded me of how my pastor begins his sermons. Like most good Lutheran preachers, he’s fond of pointing out our utter sinfulness before he gives us a full dose of the Gospel.

So I was earnestly surprised while reading the remainder of the piece. Other than that fleeting use of the word “soul,” there’s no discussion of the condition of man in a religious sense. Instead, Brown gets quotes from sociologists and psychologists. She introduces a phenomenon called “bystander phenomenon.”

Which is all fine and good. But hard as this may be for some in secular media to believe, religious folks have been discussing the sinful condition of man for even longer than sociologists have been trying to understand why people don’t behave virtuously at all times. Religious folks even have interesting things to say. Just the simple fact that this parable of Jesus wasn’t invoked in Brown’s story strikes me as weird.

I recently came across an interview of Margaret Sanger conducted by Mike Wallace. A transcript and link to the interview are over at Dawn Eden’s blog. It’s fascinating on all sorts of levels — if eugenics, birth control, 60s-era news media, etc. interest you. But what really got me were the questions Wallace asked.

WALLACE: Do you believe in sin — When I say believe I don’t mean believe in committing sin do you believe there is such a thing as a sin?

He asks her multiple such questions. He inquires about her religious views, her views of the Divine, her views on whether infidelity or murder is sinful, and so on. Her responses are fascinating.

To compare the Mike Wallace interview with the DeNeen Brown piece (which I enjoyed apart from the criticism herein) is almost to experience culture shock. Somehow we went from a culture where media personalities knew enough about religion to ask interesting and provocative questions of a theological nature to one where we avoid spiritual discussions at all costs.

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Now, it’ll be harder to find Pinsky

Let me say, as a follow-up on the Divine Ms. MZ’s post about Neela Banerjee of the New York Times getting caught in the newsroom downsizing wave (click here), that your GetReligionistas have also heard the news out of Orlando.

For years now, we’ve been moaning that it is hard — in the online editions of some well-known newspapers — to navigate their websites and find the work of the religion-beat specialists. The Orlando Sentinel was a perfect example, especially since the newspaper staff included one of the best veterans out there — Mark I. Pinsky of “The Gospel According to the Simpsons” fame.

Now, it’s going to be even harder to find Pinsky on the Sentinel site, since he will not be there. A friend of this weblog passed along the news — care of “amazingshrinkingsentinel” — that Pinsky was caught in the latest round of cuts in O town.

Now that news has been confirmed by the online team at Christianity Today, along with another depressing development. Here’s the basics on Pinsky:

. . . (As) of August 1, his byline will be missed by religion reporters around the world. Over his 13 years on the religion beat, first at the Los Angeles Times then at the Sentinel, Pinsky established a reputation for being one of the best reporters on the beat. His beat was broad, but in the hometown of Campus Crusade for Christ, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and Strang Communications, Pinsky developed a particular expertise in evangelical Christianity. He recounted his experience and reporting in a book, A Jew Among Evangelicals. . . .

Pinsky also established himself as must-read reporter on the nexus of faith and entertainment culture. Westminster John Knox recently published an expanded version of his 2001 The Gospel According to The Simpsons, and in 2004 published his similar book, The Gospel According to Disney.

And that other bad news:

Last month, Reed Business Information announced that it was laying off another great religion journalist, Publishers Weekly senior religion editor Lynn Garrett, whose coverage of religion publishing was second to none. Regardless of whether we’re starting to see a trend of cuts in religion journalism, it’s sad to see that two indispensable bylines on religion and culture have been dispensed with.

I think several things are happening at once, during this downsizing era (while the entire world of journalism awaits the creation of an advertising form more compelling than a pop-up ad).

I remain convinced that religion is a topic that makes the palms of many editors sweat in an unnatural way. They just don’t get it. They don’t get why religion is so important to so many people. Thus, it is hard to value the work of professionals who are driven — for a variety of reasons — to focus on this topic in mainstream journalism. The religion beat remains, in way to many newsrooms, a marginal affair.

At the same time, editors are trying to make their staffs smaller and younger. This tends to hit veteran reporters, often the kinds of reporters who — through years of experience and often graduate school — have climbed into jobs as specialty reporters. That’s the harsh reality of economics, right now.

When I first heard the rumor, I sent Mark a note. With his permission, I offer GetReligion readers a chunk of that:

I’ve been a religion writer long enough to accept that there is a greater plan at work here (apologies to atheist friends). . . . So, beginning Aug. 1, I’ll be a full-time author. The severance package (which includes my L.A. Times service) will carry us for about a year. (thanks, local friends but no casseroles necessary) During that time I hope to complete my non-fiction North Carolina book, “Unfinished Business: A Murder in the Mountains” (working title) and to begin the Rwanda book, “Walking Across Africa: A Story of Faith, Love, and Devotion.”

During this time I’ll also be trying to secure a university post (including visiting professorships), or senior fellowships, beginning Sept. ‘09. . . . As for the religion beat, I’ve said for a long time, despite some of your generous compliments, that no one is indispensable. It’s been a very gratifying 13 years. I’ve learned an incredible amount from some wonderful people (as well as a few scoundrels; I assume the folks at Trinity Broadcasting Network are rejoicing at their answered prayers). Please make my Sentinel successor welcome.

And there is the issue. Will editors even attempt to replace veteran religion reporters?

Alas, we must all watch and wait. The whole industry is being reshaped and cut into new forms. There is no painless way to cut a shrinking pie, of course, but it’s hard to look at the world around us today and not see the need for trained, experienced, talented religion-beat reporters.

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A ‘carefully’ secular public education

Religion and public education have never been completely divorced in the United States. Considering religion’s historic involvement in education in Western societies, I doubt religion will ever be completely removed from public education systems in the United States. In fact, religion may be finding new ways to be involved in American public education.

Consider the recent development in Toledo, Ohio, where a new publicly funded charter school, serving boys in the sixth and seventh and ultimately eighth grades tuition-free, is affiliated with a Catholic high school. The school will be located in a former synagogue building purchased for $1.1 million, but it’s charter will not include a religious mission of any kind.

Here is how the local newspaper, The Blade, covered the religious aspects of this story:

Father Extejt said that the academy’s focus would be to groom under-prepared students for the rigors of a college preparatory high school.

The school uniform would be dress pants and collared shirts with ties, and the school day would be extended to 5 p.m.

“This age group [of] boys are underserved in the Toledo community,” Father Extejt said. “We find that to be true for many of our incoming freshmen in their inability to meet academic requirements. We fully expect to have students come to [Knight Academy] who may not be reading, writing, or able to do their arithmetic on their grade level.”

Academy supporters also said that while the charter school’s graduates would be welcome to attend St. Francis for high school, they would have no obligation to do so.

The article mentions that the charter school will be operated “without any religious mission.” What that means is hard to say at this point and the article doesn’t give us much information. At the minimum, it apparently means covering up the building’s religious symbols during a $1.5 million renovation:

Mr. Tooman said that Knight Academy’s renovation plans involve concealing religious symbols and writings that presently cover the building’s exterior. The most prominent inscription above the entrance beckons visitors to “Seek Ye The Lord And Ye Shall Live.”

The school seems set up as a sort of feeder school for the Catholic high school, but the charter school’s backers maintain that students have no obligation to go onto a Catholic high school and could chose any high school they desire.

More information is needed to determine the significance of the establishment of this school, but it could open up some interesting doors in Ohio’s educational system. Are there Muslim communities in Ohio that are interested in starting charter schools could be affiliated with the local Mosques?

Howard Friedman’s Religion Clause blog phrased it nicely: “Ohio Charter School Plans Carefully To Remain Secular.” How carefully secular does the school need to be to remain within the bounds of the law? What happens when other religious organizations, whether they be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu, asks for public funds to establish a “secular” education institution that will be affiliated with a mosque, synagogue, or church?

As for other jurisdictions, I know of charter schools in Indianapolis with loose religious affiliations. Christian churches, or people closely associated with Christian churches, have established non-religious organizations that have established publicly-funded charter schools that in name secular. Whether or not this is legally appropriate is certainly an issue for journalists to explore, but another worthwhile issue is why religious institutes are pursuing public funding models for their education institutions. What is the proper role of religion in America’s education systems?

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Once again, where do Anglicans rank?

Once again,the Rt. Rev. Douglas LeBlanc has spotted another reference to the Anglican Communion as one of the world’s largest and most diverse organizations.

Which it is, of course.

The issue is where it ranks — especially among religious bodies around the world. Here’s the latest strange reference, care of the WalesOnline.co.uk newsroom. The reference that interests us is this one, in a piece under the headline “Challenge of a lifetime for Archbishop striving for unity” (which is an interesting headline, since Anglican leaders on left and right are striving for unity, only they are are using clashing doctrinal standards to define what “unity” means):

The Archbishop of Canterbury will come face-to-face with Anglican bishops from across the 80 million-wide communion.

These church leaders have gathered for the Lambeth Conference. Many of the men and women are angry with each other and baffled by his leadership. But the task facing the Welshman is to convince the radical liberals and alarmed traditionalists that their unity is worth striving for — that they should remain part of this sprawling and chaotic family of churches. He meets them not as a Pope who must be obeyed, or the ultimate patriarch, but as a first among equals. He cannot dictate decisions but must strive for consensus.

The diversity of Anglicans is only matched by giant international organizations like the United Nations. But the Archbishop lacks the financial riches and physical might which world leaders can marshal to cajole and coerce their rivals.

Now that is not as bad as the reference that we saw the other day, when The Morning Call in Allentown, Pa., ran an essay by Bethlehem (Pa.) Bishop Paul V. Marshall that, as the Lambeth Conference loomed on the horizon, stated flat out:

Next to the United Nations and the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion is the world’s third largest linkage of human persons, cultures and geography. While the American branch of the Communion is the relatively tiny Episcopal Church, Anglicanism is the major expression of Christianity in much of Africa.

The Wales entry in this confusing derby is not statistically wrong, since it is so amazingly vague. But this “Anglican Communion resembles the United Nations” image could get out of control. And note that terrible phrase “linkage of human persons,” etc. What in the world does that mean? Does Islam merely “link” persons” How about “Pentecostalism”? How about the doctrines written on Starbuck’s cups?

Meanwhile, on the issue of the various Communions, GetReligion will gladly admit that almost all of the statistics are inflated and almost impossible to reference with a straight face. Still, when you look at the mainstream reference books, here is what you find: There are about 1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide, about 250 million or so Orthodox Christians and roughly 55 to 70 million Anglicans, depending on who is doing the counting.

By the way, GetReligion is not sitting out the Lambeth Conference, which is poised to get under way. We arejust trying to be patient.

Please remember that we are not a news site about religion. We are a blog that tries to critique the good and the bad in the mainstream presses news coverage of religious events and trends. We are very interested in errors of fact. When the Anglicans get rolling, help us look for the reporters — not opinion writers — who “get” the facts down in as accurate and fair a manner while covering a numbingly complex story with local, regional, national and global angles. Please look, especially, for stories that cover the Anglican left in a manner that is inaccurate or simply simplistic.

Photo: Anglican primates in 2005 meeting, care of the Anglican Communion news office.

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Discerning the call

A few days ago, Daniel wrote a post about media coverage of Josh Hamilton — the Texas Ranger who speaks openly and frequently about his faith. Some of the comments to that post wondered why we look at the intersection of sports and religion at all. An interesting discussion ensued.

But I came across a fantastic sports and religion story that definitely deserves a look. The Associated Press wrote about professional soccer player Chase Hilgenbrinck who left the New England Revolution this week to enter a seminary:

“I felt called to something greater,” Hilgenbrinck said. “At one time I thought that call might be professional soccer. In the past few years, I found my soul is hungry for something else.

“I discerned, through prayer, that it was calling me to the Catholic Church. I do not want this call to pass me by.”

Hilgenbrinck accepted the calling on Monday when he left the New England Revolution and retired from professional soccer to enter a seminary, where he will spend the next six years studying theology and philosophy so he can be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest.

“It’s not that I’m ready to leave soccer. I still have a great passion for the game,” he said in a telephone interview. “I wouldn’t leave the game for just any other job. I’m moving on for the Lord. I want to do the will of the Lord, I want to do what he wants for me, not what I want to do for myself.”

It’s so weird to read a story where the reporter just permits the source to explain himself. This story could have been spun into a cheesy, sensational tale. Instead the reporter tells us the genuinely compelling story of a 26-year-old who will attend Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md. The ESPN reporter spoke with team representatives about how they feel:

“He said it was time for him, that he had been thinking long and hard,” New England vice president of player personnel Michael Burns said. “Purely from a Revs standpoint, it’s too bad. But a lot of players leave the game not on their own terms. He’s clearly left on his own terms, which is great for him.”

The reporter explains the process of discernment that Hilgenbrinck went through, getting some great quotes. He also explores why the soccer player didn’t just wait to enter seminary until after his soccer career:

With a short window in which he will be able to play professional sports, he considered postponing the priesthood until after his career was over. But he decided with the same certainty that he could not allow himself to wait.

“Trust me, I thought of that,” said Hilgenbrinck, who in his studies came across the saying, “Delayed obedience is disobedience.”

The entire article, though brief, is chock-full of great quotes. I’m glad the reporter asked the right questions to get those quotes and then just put them nicely in the story. He also explains helpful details about the rigorous application process for seminary.

The article is thoughtful, informative and interesting — traits that are unfortunately rare. I also love that it looks at religion in a non-political context. More, please!

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Banerjee off to greener pastures

I’m sorry to report that the New York Times’ Neela Banerjee has left the paper. All national reporters who cover thematic beats were asked to return to New York by September 1. Such an arrangement was problematic for Banerjee, who lives in DC with her family.

At the same time, the paper was asking employees to consider taking a buyout. Famed Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse took one. So did Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston.

And, sadly, Banerjee took one as well.

Banerjee’s stories first appeared in the paper in 1999. She moved to the religion beat in 2004, I believe.

We’ve covered dozens and dozens of her stories. I remember, in particular, her 2006 piece on the trend toward online confession in Evangelical churches. Quite a few reporters followed that story over the next year but I think she was the one to break it. Her original piece also inspired me to write an analysis of the phenomenon. I also loved her story on custody battles involving religion. You could tell how hard she worked to be fair to the various parties.

Tim Townsend, religion reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, interviewed Banerjee for his story in the Columbia Journalism Review on the travails of the religion beat. I loved her quote:

Reporters who cover the fractured, volatile, weighty world of religion have a responsibility to be equally respectful of all beliefs. Whether someone is a Roman Catholic, a Jew, or a Raelian, we are privileged to ask such people personal questions about their most profound thoughts and hopes. “As corny as this sounds,” says the Times’s Neela Banerjee, “I think I grow by talking to folks whose worldviews are deeply different from mine. My job is not to grab the quote that makes them sound silly, but the one that sheds light, perhaps new light, on what they believe.”

If only more reporters felt the same way. Hopefully Banerjee will continue to write about religion in other venues. Another GetReligion frequent flyer — Laurie Goodstein — remains on the religion beat at the Times.

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Define “New Age.” Give three examples

Here’s a question for GetReligion readers who live far from the D.C. Beltway.

Do you remember Chandra Levy?

Levy was, of course, the intern who went missing in the post-Clintonian atmosphere of Washington, D.C., circa 2001. The case drew the kind of cable-TV news frenzy that is so common today, especially since this particular attractive white female was — the rumors turned out to be true — having an affair with a Harrison Ford lookalike in the U.S. House of Representatives. Then her face vanished from the media, lost in the crush of 9/11 news.

This very high-profile case remains unsolved and there were all kinds of sad and puzzling delays that stalled the very flawed investigation, before and after her remains were found in the District’s scenic Rock Creek Park. After a year-long investigation, the Washington Post has turned back the pages of time — in terms of journalism style — and is publishing a massive project about Levy’s death in a series of short, dramatic articles backed with videos and blogging. In other words, this is a kind of a tabloid serial project for the digital, multi-platform age.

All of this is interesting material for classes here at the Washington Journalism Center, and I have been reading the first four installments while wearing my journalism professor hat.

But, this morning, I hit a passage that raised a GetReligion flag. This particular story by Sari Horwitz, Scott Higham and Sylvia Moreno focuses on the grief, confusion and anger of the young woman’s parents, Robert and Susan Levy. Each chunk of this ongoing story is told in a series of short, punch flashes of information and color. Here is the part that raised faith-based questions for me:

The crisis forced the Levys to draw on a spiritual foundation they had spent a lifetime cultivating. With bushy eyebrows, receding salt-and-pepper hair and a kind smile, Robert Levy was a gentle soul, an oncologist grounded in science but captivated by New Age philosophy and various religious beliefs. His wife, Susan, was his muse — a tall, outdoorsy woman with high cheekbones and a hearty laugh who loved to ride horses, paint and sing.

The couple met at a mixer in 1968 while they were both students at Ohio State University. Robert Levy was an ROTC graduate and microbiologist who would go on to medical school. Susan Katz was an art education major. When he started his practice, Robert could choose among several cities that needed oncologists: Zanesville, Ohio; Council Bluffs, Iowa; Las Cruces, N.M.; Richmond, Va.; and Modesto, Calif. They picked Modesto out of a baseball cap.

By the time they moved, Chandra was 4. Soon, the family added a son, Adam. Robert Levy slowly built his practice and became known as “Last Chance Bob” for his aggressive yet holistic approach to treating cancer. Sometimes, he would come home after losing a patient and cry.

As Chandra and Adam grew up, the family traveled the world: Africa and Costa Rica, Israel, Jamaica and the Galapagos Islands. The parents delved deeply into spirituality, exploring their Judaism and blending in Buddhism, Pentecostalism and Hinduism.

With Chandra gone, none of it seemed to be helping.

And all the people said, “Pentecostalism?”

I do not, of course, know what kind of background information will be added in future articles about the family’s religious beliefs and practices. That’s one of the weaknesses of serial journalism. I know that the Associated Press Stylebook does not contain an entry that offers any insight into what is and what is not “New Age philosophy.” That’s the kind of vague religious term that cries out for specific information that lets the readers decide whether the label is appropriate. Or did the Levys use the term to define their beliefs? We do not know.

I am also aware that there are more than a few people blending Judaism and Buddhism — since entire books have been written on the topic. There really are sincere believers who call themselves “JUBUs,” short for “Jewish Buddhists.” However, once again, I am not sure this is a label that the Levys would accept.

Then there is the issue of Pentecostalism — by definition, a Christian movement — showing up in this list. What spiritual activities or beliefs led to the inclusion of this loaded term in the seemingly grab-bag list of faiths attributed to this grieving couple? The reporters need to show us why these words are accurate, in the case of the Levy family.

GetReligion has some regular readers who are practicing pagans or neo-pagans, which are two other terms that journalists tend to toss about from time to time. How do you feel about the term “New Age”? Do you think it has any actual content and, if so, what are the specifics? What are the essential beliefs and rites that reporters should investigate?

The bottom line: If you were putting a “New Age” entry in the stylebook, what would you write?

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No hope for poor blacks?

The late 1980s and early 1990s were a golden age for stories about poor urban blacks. Besides great movies such as Boyz N the Hood and Hoop Dreams, there were great articles in major publications: Nicholas Lemann’s series on the black migration in The Atlantic Monthly (here is one early story); Darcy Frey’s profile of a high school basketball team for Harper’s; and Leon Dash’s profile of an elderly black woman and her family for The Washington Post.

Now come two new fresh stories: George Dohrmann’s story about black teenage athletes in California’s East Bay and Hanna Rosin’s story about rising crime rates in Memphis. Both are similar to their predecessors in many ways — thorough and detailed reporting, the use of novelistic techniques, and a general air of hopelessness and even despair. Although the two new stories are fresh and original, they also share a weakness of their older counterparts.

In Sports Illustrated, Dohrmann diagnoses the problem of the East Bay’s culture of violence this way:

[I]n the past few years, those who work with young boys in Richmond and Oakland have noticed a decline in kids’ commitment to sports. And the youngsters who do play speak grimly of their chances of emerging from their darkened surroundings. It is as if each generation believes less and less in the saving power of Little League or youth basketball or Pop Warner football. “It used to be that if you played sports, everyone protected you,” says Fredrick Pugh, the president of the East Bay Warriors Pop Warner football program, which includes 295 boys ages five to 15. “Now it is open season on everybody. The neighborhoods are that devastated.”

Even more haunting: A number of well-intentioned athletes, those who did everything they could to stay away from trouble, have been killed or severely wounded in street violence in recent years. No one can say exactly how many of those murdered in and around Oakland played sports, but it is undeniable that many of the most promising youngsters—serious athletic aspirants—have died. More than one youth coach laments that he attends more funerals than games these days.

In The Atlantic, Rosin casts the problem in broader relief. While conceding that crime rates in New York and Los Angeles has plummeted, she documents a disturbing counter-trend:

Lately, though, a new and unexpected pattern has emerged, taking criminologists by surprise. While crime rates in large cities stayed flat, homicide rates in many midsize cities (with populations of between 500,000 and 1 million) began increasing, sometimes by as much as 20percent a year. In 2006, the Police Executive Research Forum, a national police group surveying cities from coast to coast, concluded in a report called “A Gathering Storm” that this might represent “the front end . . . of an epidemic of violence not seen for years.” The leaders of the group, which is made up of police chiefs and sheriffs, theorized about what might be spurring the latest crime wave: the spread of gangs, the masses of offenders coming out of prison, methamphetamines. But mostly they puzzled over the bleak new landscape. According to FBI data, America’s most dangerous spots are now places where Martin Scorsese would never think of staging a shoot-out—Florence, South Carolina; Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Reading, Pennsylvania; Orlando, Florida; Memphis, Tennessee.

In the early 1990s, reporters cast an unsparing eye at institutions and governmental programs — the NCAA, prisons and rehabilitation programs, welfare and high-rise housing projects. Today Dohrmann and Rosin exposed the failure of public and private programs.

In SI, Dohrmann focused on the life of Alfred Lewis, a former football star who was shot repeatedly after venturing one night into the wrong neighborhood. Lewis’s downfall began when he joined a gang. As Dohrmann shows, no other programs could help him ultimately:

[Local Pop Warner president Frederick] Pugh was ready to give up on Fred but relatives persuaded him not to, and Fred was sent to Sierra Ridge Academy, an ROP facility near San Andreas, in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Athletics are a big part of ROP’s curriculum. In addition to regular academic classes and once-a-week meetings with a case manager/counselor, Fred played on the ROP baseball team and traveled with a group of kids to Colorado to compete in a triathlonlike event among all ROP schools. Fred felt safe and directed at ROP, and it was amazing how quickly sports worked its magic. He pleaded with ROP administrators to release him early so he could be back at Berkeley High for football season. “You should see me play football. That is my sport,” he told other ROP students.

Private non-profit organizations have not helped Lewis’ contemporaries, either:

After Jaee’s murder, which remains unsolved, relatives and friends founded S.A.V.O.Y (Stop All Violence on Youth), which promotes awareness of violence against kids. The Terrance TK Kelly Youth Foundation, which his father runs, sponsors education programs for kids in Richmond and neighboring towns. Before that came the Khadafy Foundation for Non-Violence, formed by the mother of Khadafy Washington , a football player at McClymonds High in Oakland , who was shot and killed in 2000. That nonprofit helps families handle the aftermath of an untimely death, such as burial costs and grief counseling.

Young athletes die, foundations are formed, but nothing changes.

“We know we can’t stop the murders,” says Marilyn Washington Harris, Khadafy’s mother. “But we still have to try to help.”

So pervasive is the culture of violence that schools alone don’t guarantee that a poor black kid will make it out. As Dohrmann shows in a related story, the late Terrance Kelly graduated from De La Salle, my alma mater with arguably the best sports program in the nation. But Kelly’s status, as well as the fact that he defeated young Darren Pratcher in a basketball game, caused Pratcher to murder Kelly:

Kids from the neighborhood goaded Terrance regularly, provoking him into fights. They would accuse him of thinking he was better than they were because of the Catholic elementary school where his grandmother had enrolled him. When he was accepted to De La Salle High in Concord, and played for its heralded football program, the challenges intensified. “You think you are all that because you go to De La Salle,” kids would say, to which he would answer, “No, you think I am all that because I go to De La Salle.”

Similarly, Rosin details the shortcomings of the two main governmental efforts to diffuse ghetto poverty — expand Section 8-housing vouchers and tear down high-rise public housing. This “disperse-the-ghetto approach” didn’t reduce crime or lead its participants to happier lives. Instead, crime moved to new neighborhoods and residents were left feeling isolated:

In the most literal sense, the national effort to diffuse poverty has succeeded. Since 1990, the number of Americans living in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty—meaning that at least 40 percent of households are below the federal poverty level—has declined by 24percent. But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Recently, the housing expert George Galster, of Wayne State University, analyzed the shifts in urban poverty and published his results in a paper called “A Cautionary Tale.” While fewer Americans live in high-poverty neighborhoods, increasing numbers now live in places with “moderate” poverty rates, meaning rates of 20 to 40 percent. This pattern is not necessarily better, either for poor people trying to break away from bad neighborhoods or for cities, Galster explains. His paper compares two scenarios: a city split into high-poverty and low-poverty areas, and a city dominated by median-poverty ones. The latter arrangement is likely to produce more bad neighborhoods and more total crime, he concludes, based on a computer model of how social dysfunction spreads.

Studies show that recipients of Section 8 vouchers have tended to choose moderately poor neighborhoods that were already on the decline, not low-poverty neighborhoods. One recent study publicized by HUD warned that policy makers should lower their expectations, because voucher recipients seemed not to be spreading out, as they had hoped, but clustering together. Galster theorizes that every neighborhood has its tipping point—a threshold well below a 40 percent poverty rate—beyond which crime explodes and other severe social problems set in. Pushing a greater number of neighborhoods past that tipping point is likely to produce more total crime. In 2003, the Brookings Institution published a list of the 15 cities where the number of high-poverty neighborhoods had declined the most. In recent years, most of those cities have also shown up as among the most violent in the U.S., according to FBI data.

In a new twist in this genre, Dhormann shows the hollowness of self-help ideologies. The kicker in his main story is devastating:

Fred then slowly stood up and walked gingerly toward his bedroom. He had hung a sheet of crinkled white paper on his bedroom door, on which was printed the Pledge of Success. Seeming to notice it for the first time, he read the first three lines out loud:

Today is a new day, a new beginning.

It has been given to me as a gift.

I can either use it or throw it away.

He stopped abruptly. He saw no point in going on.

A reader must respect the unblinkered, thorough, and engaging narratives in these stories. But what none of them tackled were two key institutions in people’s lives: the two-parent family and church. Only Lemann’s stories touched on the importance of family structure and religion. By contrast, Rosin and Dhormann don’t mention the topics at all.

Dhormann’s story only tantalizes readers about the importance of rules:

If parents continue to violate a team policy, their kids are suspended for a week, same as if the players had broken a rule. “Kids want discipline, structure, and their parents or grandparents want help, so you’d be surprised how they follow the rules,” Pugh says. “They won’t [adhere] to a restraining order from the police, but they follow our rules because playing means so much to their kids.”

This passage raises lots of questions. Are there pastors, such as the one tmatt mentioned the other day, that tell kids to abandon the hedonism of the streets and give their lives to Christ? Do scholars believe that no-fault divorce laws have encouraged men to abandon their families?

Needless to say, reporters should not limit themselves to the roles of family and religion. Declining wages for unskilled men is also part of the problem. But examining these twin institutions in full would break new and welcome ground.

(Picture at right of Darren Pratcher; at left Terrance Kelly)

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