Tag Archives: The New York Times

Breaking News: The New York Times Has Discovered Evangelical Christians living in New York City.

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We interrupt our sporadic string of “Circuit Reader” blog posts to report that the New York Times has come across an amazing discovery: there are evangelical Christians —a lot of them –living within the very borders of the Big Apple.

The Times, with its modest motto, “All the news that is fit to print,” regularly reports on topics that it deems essential for human flourishing, including politics, education, business, sports, arts, automobiles, health, food and (what is so obviously central to the meaning of life), fashion.   It has devoted regular sections to each of these.

Religion does not have its own section because, unlike fashion, nobody finds it important. Plus it is fading away as the United States becomes more secular and it will soon be irrelevant. Particularly virulent and oppressive forms of religion, like evangelicalism, are only practiced by close-minded or rather unstable white people in the Midwest and the South.

These people live in New York City?

These people live in New York City?

But this entire view of the world may be undermined by this new discovery. The Times reported today, shockingly, that there is “An Evangelical Revival in the Heart of New York.” Using painstakingly dogged investigative journalism unseen by a Times reporter since Billy Graham drew 2.4 million people to his NYC crusade in 1957, the newspaper has discovered that this Saturday there will be a festival in Central Park that is expected to draw 60,000 people. The evangelist Luis Palau, who is actually well-known by people in exotic places like Rio de Janeiro, Guatemala City, Wheaton, Dallas, Santiago, and Pasadena, will be preaching.

900 of the 1700 churches supporting the festival are Hispanic, an ethnic link which may have led the Times to this fascinating discovery. Even more surprising, the newspaper has found that immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa find comfort in the lively atmosphere of New York City AND pentecostalism. In another breakthrough, akin to the accidental discovery of penicillium mold by Alexander Fleming in 1928, research has revealed that there are between 1.2 million and 1.6 million evangelicals living in New York City,

What's this? Evangelicals read books?

What’s this? Evangelicals read books?

“The size of the festival belies the city’s secular reputation and speaks to the vibrant evangelical movement in New York,” the newspaper reported in a rather puzzled tone.

No word yet on whether or not this means the Times will pay attention to religion in the future.

 

 

Ebola, the Media and Christianity

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A little analysis from our favorite media giant with the Big Religious Blind Spot, The New York Times, from an article on October 10:

“The first to respond to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, Doctors Without Borders remains the primary international medical aid group battling the disease there.  As local health systems have all but collapsed and most outside institutions, including the United States military, have yet to fulfill all their pledges of help, the charity has erected six treatment centers in West Africa, with plans for more.”

So, Doctors Without Borders was the first organization to respond the Ebola crisis.

Uh, not quite.  When Doctors Without Borders arrived in Liberia to battle Ebola they collaborated with Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical missionary agency.  Samaritan’s Purse has had medical care in Liberia since 2010, so they were right there when Ebola first broke out.  They were, in fact, trying to alert the world to the Ebola problem before it became a big news item in the West.  In July, an official of Samaritan’s Purse declared:

“We need them all to help us in the fight against this dreadful disease…I call on the international community and the donor governments of the world, particularly in Europe and the United States, to step in and recognize the very limited capacities of the ministries of health in West Africa and to help them contain this disease.”

And where does one find this declaration from Samaritan’s Purse, an organization fighting Ebola in Liberia along with Doctor’s Without Borders?

A New York Times blog.

Don’t these reporters read their own paper?

A picture from the Times in July, showing Kent Brantly treating Ebola patients in Liberia. Any further comments I would make at this point about this would be way too snarky and disrespectful.

A picture from the Times in July, showing Kent Brantly treating Ebola patients in Liberia. Any further comments I would make at this point about this would be way too snarky and disrespectful.

That article even carried a picture of Kent Brantly working on Ebola patients.  Brantly, as you may know, is the doctor from Samaritan’s Purse who later made international news as the first American to contract Ebola.

So why does The New York Times say that Doctors Without Borders (which is an excellent organization, by the way) was pretty much the only organization in West Africa working on this?  Why do they fail to mention the work of an organization like Samaritan’s Purse?

Another blind spot.  And it is a blind spot connected to the reality that missionary organizations make some secular people uncomfortable.

You don’t have to take my word for it.  Slate writer, Brian Palmer, who declares himself to be an atheist, makes the very point that missionaries are overlooked in the whole Ebola crisis.  Palmer explains how he was recently at an international conference discussing Ebola and the control of infectious diseases and somebody made the point that Doctors Without Borders were the “only group on the ground” dealing with this problem.

Palmer, however, wrote in the Slate article (he doesn’t mention whether he said anything at the conference) that missionaries have long been on the ground dealing with these issues.  He also indicated that missionary doctors and nurses actually have long-term commitments, don’t just parachute in during a crisis, and do not profit economically from their work.

Of course, this is not news to any of us who are familiar with missionaries.

But it is news – uncomfortable news – for certain kinds of secular Americans. Palmer gives reasons why secular people are uncomfortable with missionaries — and why he himself, in fact, is uncomfortable with them.  (The subtitle of his article is  “Should we worry that so many of the doctors treating Ebola in Africa are missionaries?”)  There’s nothing new there — those arguments he gives have been around for more than a century, as Palmer points out himself.

I give Palmer a great deal of credit, however, for bringing to light the good work done by a group with which he has serious disagreements.  That is a difficult step to take.  It is so difficult that The New York Times can’t seem to pull it off.

Now before I end up out of line in my snarky comments about the Times, (I might already have crossed that line, actually) I better point out that I am often not able to pull that off, either.  We Christians, who ought to know something about humility, respect, and loving those with whom we disagree, ought to be able to regularly point out good work done by people with whom we have serious disagreements.

Do we?

 

(My thanks to my friend and colleague, Scott Waalkes, who brought the Slate article to my attention and understands evangelicals and missionaries, even though he grew up amidst Calvinists in Grand Rapids.)

 

NPR Has Discovered Christians in Hong Kong, and Boy, Are They Surprised

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Maybe there is a little progress being made on the religion in the news media thing.  NPR, which in my estimation has had something of a blind spot for religion, has reported that the Christian faith is an important part of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong — as well as some Christians who are voicing criticism.

NPRNPR is surprised by this, but I’m not surprised they are surprised.

Will The New York Times finally start to see what others are seeing?  There is still no sign that the light is dawning there.  They did mention the Catholic church and other “non-governmental organizations” like Amnesty International in a story about groups that Chinese officials are worried about.  The Chinese government is worried about Catholics?  Hmm.  Why would that be?  (Hint.  Hint.)

(My thanks go out to my daughter Brenna, who tipped me off to the NPR story.  You might might be interested in reading her blog — she’s a better writer than I am — about her work in Egypt.  She is serving in a one-year program established by the Mennonite Central Committee that places Christians in service work with other Christians around the world.  She’s working at a retreat center run by the Coptic Church.)

 

 

Is this News to You? The New York Times has a Blind Spot with Religion.

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In the last couple of weeks, pro-democracy protests have been surging through Hong Kong.  Evangelical Christians are playing a significant role in the organization and leadership of the Umbrella Movement leading the protests.

Yet, in its extensive coverage of these developments, the New York Times doesn’t  discuss religion.

Are you surprised by this?

I am not.

An example:  The Times ran a front page story last week (October 2) about Joshua Wong, who is leading the pro-democracy student protests.  The paper ran the headline, “At 17, Leading Protests That Rattle Hong Kong.”  Several pages later the story continued with a second headline, “Student at Forefront of Hong Kong Democracy Movement is Unlikely Agitator.”

Joshua Wong

Joshua Wong

What makes him unlikely?  Well, he is young.  We find out that Wong started protests of government curriculum in his school three years ago.  And we learn that he represents an idealistic culture of protest.  We also learn that his university entrance exam scores were middling.

What else is unlikely?  It would be unlikely for the Times to recognize that Joshua Wong has been shaped by evangelical Christianity.  The article did mention that Wong’s parents were “Protestants who kindled a concern for social justice,” but that is the only mention of religion in any of the articles the Times reported.

It is not just Wong.  A disproportionate number of protesters in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement are Christian.  The same goes for the Scholarism movement that Wong founded several years ago.  Two of the three leaders of the Occupy Central with Love and Peace movement are Christian.   And interestingly, some of the criticism of the movement, as well, comes from Christian leaders.  One of the most vocal critics in Hong Kong is an Anglican bishop.  The Times does not mention any of this.

I’m not surprised because, as I mentioned in my last post, the Times has a blind spot when it comes to religion.  Now, I should mention that I subscribe to The New York Times.  It’s a good way for me to get relatively deep coverage of world events.  That is, the coverage is good unless religion (particularly Christianity) is a significant factor in the story.  It appears to me that the people in power at that newspaper just don’t understand religion or have a good sense for how it could motivate modern people, particularly in public ways.

The Times is not alone in that regard.  A lot of the news media has a blind spot when it comes to religion, Christianity and evangelicalism.  Much of the rest of our news media is just like the Times in this regard.  That is one reason why many American Christians argue that there is a liberal bias in the media.

But the problem of blind spots is not just with “liberal media.”  The “conservative media” has its own blind spots.  (See Bill O’Reilly on race, for instance).

The problem with blind spots is us.  By “us” I mean those individuals who breathe and think and have desires, a demographic that covers a remarkably high percentage of people.

I have blind spots.  So do you.  We don’t know what they are, because we are “blind” to them.  Get it?

Every now and then, our eyes are opened, at least a little bit.  That was the point of my embarrassing story about my exchange with the post-modern feminist on my dissertation committee.  You might recall that she asked rather pointedly how I could claim to provide a solid analysis of the evangelical missionary movement and not consider women, since women made up a majority of missionaries.

I wonder, then, what would happen if were able to ask the editors of The New York Times how they could claim to be investigating the causes of this pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and not consider the role Christianity plays, since Christians make up a good deal of the leadership?  Of course, people like me don’t have the ear of the Times editors.  And even when our blind spots are pointed out, we often don’t truly believe that they exist.  So we don’t see them.  I doubt I could convince the Times editors that they have a blind spot.

But the point here is not to tweak the noses of The New York Times.  (Well, OK, I have to confess that I do actually want to tweak the noses of The New York Times.)

My point is that we need to realize that all of us have blind spots and we need to be aware that they exist, even if we don’t know what, exactly, they are.

The Pope, The New York Times, and the Painful Reality of Being Outnumbered

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Back in 2005, just after Pope Benedict XVI took over leadership of the Catholic Church, my local newspaper came out with the following headline:

“Centuries of Catholicism and Still No American Pope”

From a historical perspective, this is a rather curious headline.  What, the Catholic Church has slighted Americans for more than two millennia now?   I guess that back in the 7th  or 11th or 15th centuries, if the Catholic Church had just tried hard enough, it could have figured out how to make a Navajo or a Cherokee or a Shawnee a pope.  Instead, those cardinals just kept picking some Italian guy.

The non-American Pope Benedict XVI

OK, that curious headline could just be the result of a local editor who was in a hurry and wasn’t thinking clearly.  But it reflects a very real way of thinking:  many Americans, whether they are Catholic or not, assume that the Catholic Church really ought to put a priority on listening to American Catholics.

Really?  Why should Americans be top dog in this fight?  Why should we think that the Catholic Church ought to choose an American as pope in the first place?  Consider this:  American Catholics make up 6% of the Catholics in the world.  Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines have more Catholics in their nation than the United States does.  If anyone deserves to make an argument based on national identity it would be one of these other nations.  (Actually, it is problematic to try to define Catholicism, or any branch of Christianity for that matter, by national identity, but that’s a discussion for another time).

I don’t know who will be the next pope.  (I am intrigued that a Nigerian, Francis Arinze, has been discussed as a candidate.  That would be an interesting selection.)  And I don’t know what the conclave thinks about these issues of national identity.  As a Protestant, I will leave that for the Catholics to work out among themselves.  (I’m sure the Vatican is relieved).  However, it is worth pointing out how our identity as Americans can sometimes lead us to take a rather self-centered view of things.

For instance, one might think that The New York Times, a cosmopolitan paper of some sophistication, with very good international news coverage, would take a global view of the Catholic Church.  But one would be wrong.  With the upcoming selection of a new pope on

All the News that Is Fit for Americans to Print

its mind, The New York Times released the results of a poll on Wednesday morning of this week.  The Times polled American Catholics, asking what they thought of the Church and the pope.  The tenor of the story was that many American Catholics want a younger pope who is more open to what the Times calls “modern” ideas – and that the church hierarchy today is out of touch with the people.  Being good journalists, the Times story included quotes from ordinary Catholics in ordinary places like Des Moines, Iowa.  They quoted a Catholic woman from Fort Wayne, Indiana who said the cardinals are not in touch with their lives.  “I don’t think they are in the trenches with the people,” she said.

Now, this is a helpful article and poll, in some ways.  We learn what American Catholics think.  We have a problem, though:  the article never mentioned Catholics outside of the U.S.  The Times never mentioned that American Catholics only make up 6% of the global Catholic population.  The underlying assumption of the article?   The Catholic Church ought to listen to Americans.

If we really wanted to know what ordinary Catholics believe, we don’t go to Fort Wayne and Des Moines.  We go to Sao Paulo and Manila and Nairobi.  And what do the Catholics in Brazil and the Philippines and Kenya want?  Do they agree with American Catholics, or do they want something else?  Do these people agree that they want a younger, more modern pope?  Do they think that cardinals are out of touch with the people in the trenches?  Maybe, maybe not.  What do they want in a new pope?   We don’t know.   I wish we did.

The New York Times doesn’t get it. (It gets some things, but religion is usually not one of them).  Assuming that American Catholics ought to have top priority in shaping the Catholic Church is like assuming that the state of Georgia ought to have top priority in shaping the policies of the federal government in Washington D.C.

We need to recognize that world Christianity challenges Americans and Europeans just by its very existence.  We misread the world if we continue to assume that Christianity is primarily a western religion.  Africa now has more Christians (380 million) than the United States has people (300 million).  Asia has 320 million Christians and Latin America has 480 million.  The center of gravity of Christianity, ladies and gentlemen, has shifted from North America and Europe to Africa, Latin America and Asia.

You know what that means for American Christians?  We are outnumbered. We are a minority in our own faith.

Quite frankly, this is a painful reality for us to digest.  We Americans, especially if we are white, are not used to thinking about being outnumbered.  We tend to view the world through the political, economic and cultural power of the United States.  Sometimes we think that the whole world revolves around us.  Yes, the Christian virtue of humility is a really, really difficult thing to attain.  I have a very difficult time with humility, personally.  (Hmm.  Perhaps my snarkiness in this very blog is evidence of this.)  America, as a culture, has a very difficult time with humility, as well.  It will take quite a bit to get us to shed these forms of self-centeredness.

My litmus test:  we will have made a huge step forward when my local newspaper comes out with a headline that says, “Centuries of Catholicism and Still No Filipino pope.”