Getting Religion

A glance at the morning paper, a perusal of the evening news, a click on The Huffington Post will tell you the same thing: Religion’s big news.

Religious fervor has been suggested as a motive in the Boston Marathon bombing attack. Sectarian violence between Muslim Sunnis and Shiites is escalating in Iraq. The murder trial of Kermit Gosnell (the doctor who allegedly did some pretty horrific things in his Philadelphia abortion practice) is drawing belated national attention—a welcome sight for many Christians for whom abortion is a huge issue. A couple that relies on faith healing have now watched two of their children die from maladies that, ostensibly, modern medicine could've helped.

Yeah, faith has made headlines lately. But then again, it always does.

Like it or not, religion is a factor—often a huge factor—in today’s and every day’s news cycle. Religion filters into healthcare debates and budget battles. It informs how we react and respond to tragedy. Faith impacts how people think and vote and spend. The biggest questions of life (Why are we here? How did we get here? Why do we hurt? What’s after this?) are inherently questions of faith. And even if we choose to reject faith, we still must grapple with the concept. And how we answer those big questions can’t help but influence how we deal with the issues of our day.

Seven out of 10 Americans say they’re either “very” or “moderately” religious, according to Gallup. And the other three? Well, they gotta try to understand—and deal with—the rest of us. Religion in the news? I can’t think of a major news story that wouldn’t have a faith angle to explore.

And yet, some pundits believe that many reporters get religion all wrong.

I ran across a column by Carl M. Cannon of Real Clear Politics that bemoaned the lack of religious awareness in news organizations. He mentioned a New York Times piece that declared, "Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus" (instead of His resurrection from the dead; his ascension took place 40 days later), and a CBS Sunday Morning story that reported John the Baptist as having been at Jesus' crucifixion (when he had been beheaded sometime before). Obviously, the reporters weren’t trying to demean religion: They were honest mistakes. But really, shouldn’t any reporter writing about religion have at least a rudimentary understanding of the faith they’re covering? Writes Cannon:

Although the number fluctuates, some 40 percent of the American people describe themselves as evangelical Christians. Yet in traditional U.S. news organizations, print or broadcast, such believers are a rarity. The news coverage tends to reflect this disconnect. Evangelicals are often dismissed, particularly in political reporting, as exotic; or, worse, as a menace to civil society. Traditionally, the people covering religion knew what they were talking about, at least. And presumably, they exerted a leavening influence inside their newsrooms. But Biblical literacy isn’t necessarily a requirement for that beat anymore; meanwhile, newsroom budget cuts have decimated the ranks of the nation’s religion writers.

This bums me out. Not just because I'm a Christian and would like to see my faith represented fairly and accurately. Not just because I'm a former religion reporter who sees so many great stories that journalists rarely touch. It saddens me because religion is important. We can't hope to understand the stories of the day without some understanding of the spiritual and religious motivations behind them.

But there's an irony here—one pointed out, indirectly, by ReligionDispatches' Diane Winston in a written rebuttal to Cannon:

The real issue is not the lack of trained religion reporters, but rather Americans’ widespread ignorance about religion. Religion is absent from many high school curricula and university classrooms, and many of us barely know the religious history of our own country much less the role of religion worldwide. Religion is too important to be left to a few experts. … The historical, sociological, and theological basics of world religions need to be part of the American educational system. Once they are, coverage not just of religion but also of politics, culture, international affairs, and probably even sports, is bound to improve.

Most Americans claim to be religious. And yet most Americans don’t have a good understanding of their own faith, much less their neighbors’. And I’d agree that that’s a problem, too. I’d love to see religion taught in schools: Even for non-Christians, a working knowledge of Christianity is important to understand much of Western Civilization’s art, history and literature. A better understanding of other faiths will be increasingly important in our ever-growing multicultural society. Sure, it’d be tricky. But you can teach without evangelizing. In my time as a religion reporter, I learned a great deal about other faiths without anyone ever trying to convert me.

Yeah, religion is a big deal—not just spiritually, but pragmatically and empirically. It’s very often news. And we ignore it at our own peril.

Running on Faith: Terror

I thought about the runners in Boston this morning.

Long before I heard about exploding bombs or injuries or death, I thought about the people running today—the 27,000 people fast enough and disciplined enough to qualify for the United States’ most prestigious race.

It’s a big deal to run in the Boston Marathon—out of reach for a plodder like me. Those who were finishing up when the bomb went off were slower, by Boston’s lofty standards: For many of them, merely lining up at the start would’ve been the pinnacle of their running careers. To finish—well, after being on their feet for more than 26 miles, the elation (weary as they might’ve been) would’ve gone beyond description.

And then for some, it was all torn away.

I’ve written about my marathon training a time or two on this blog—drawing a few tenuous parallels between running and a life of faith. Both require discipline. Both can be incredibly hard and even painful. But both offer rewards, both tangible and transcendent.

But I didn’t think that a marathon would run headlong into that sort of unexplainable horror we sometimes suffer in life—the kind of cataclysm that can make some question the mercy of God.

“Where was God?” Goes the question. “Where was He in …” and then the blank is filled with pain. In Aurora? In Sandy Hook? In Boston?

If you’re Christian, it’s a hard question to answer. If God is who He says He is, then He was there—there in some capacity. But why, then, did He seem to do nothing? And there’s no answer, none at all, that can satisfy.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,” Paul writes in Romans 8:28. And yet he died at the hands of a Roman executioner.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care,” Jesus says in Matthew 10:29. And yet the blood of Jesus fell to the ground as He was crucified.

But then, I think to the prayer that same Jesus taught us to pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, you kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

That line suggests, to me, that God’s will is not always done here on earth. Sometimes, people with evil in their hearts and weapons in their hands get in the way. We were given free will—to love and obey or go our own way. And sometimes, we use that will badly.

We don’t have to like all that happens in this world. We should hate it, in fact. That free will, so destructive at times, is the very thing that can spur us on to correct and curb such destruction. We can pursue evil. We can care for the wounded. We can be the hands and feet of God.

“If you are losing faith in human nature today, watch what happens in the aftermath of an attack on the Boston Marathon,” writes The New York Times’ Ezra Klein. “The flood of donations crashed the Red Cross’s Web site. The organization tweeted that its blood supplies are already full. People are lining up outside of Tufts Medical Center to try and help. Runners are already vowing to be at marathons in the coming weeks and months. This won’t be the last time the squeakers run Boston. This won’t be the last time we gather at the finish line to marvel how much more we can take than anyone ever thought possible.”

Distance running is, in some ways, an exercise in dealing with pain. It requires those who participate to push through fatigue and hurt and boredom. Yes, the tragedy in Boston makes those standard-issue running trials feel pretty lame. And yet, the principles are still in place: When it seems outlandish to imagine going on, we do.

And so it is with faith sometimes. Sometimes, God’s will is not done on earth. Sometimes, evil walks with us. Runs with us. It hurts us and threatens to break us—and at the most heartbreaking times. And yet we go on. We go on.

A few hours after I heard the news, I drove to the local Y. I laced up my shoes, the soles still crusted with dust and mud from the previous weekend’s long run. I filled up my water bottle, flipped on my iPod and listened to Philip Yancey’s book, Prayer.

And then I began to run. I’ve got a marathon to do in a month. And I plan to do it.