Pulpits, pews and CEOs

Anybody who knows anything about religion knows that people in pulpits have a different view of the world than people in pews.

Years of data and front-line reports have yielded two clich? The first is that most ministers in the old mainline Protestant churches are more liberal on matters of doctrine and morality than their people. And the second is that most evangelical and fundamentalist pastors are more conservative than their people.

"There's actually a lot of truth in both of those, especially if you fine-tune the second one," said Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research (www.ellisonresearch.com) in Phoenix. "It's probably more accurate to say that most evangelical pastors are more conservative than the lives their people are living. ...

"But any way you look at it, there is a gap between the pulpits and the pews. What fewer people seem to realize is that there is an even bigger gap between pastors and the people who are leading their national churches."

Thus, Sellers and his team recently raised eyebrows with data reporting that 40 percent of Protestant pastors say some of their beliefs clash with official positions taken by their national denominations or conventions. Theologically, 19 percent say they are more liberal and 23 percent say they are more conservative, while 59 percent mesh with their leaders.Politically, 16 percent of the pastors say they are more liberal and 27 percent more conservative than their national churches.

This 50-state survey was not large enough, said Sellers, to provide individual results for all of America's Protestant flocks.

But there were glimpses of life in some of the trenches. For example, United Methodist pastors were the most likely to clash with their leaders. Only 33 percent felt their theological positions matched the hierarchy, with 25 percent saying they are more liberal than the denomination and 42 percent saying they are more conservative. A mere 29 percent felt their political beliefs matched stances taken by the national church.

The survey raised far more questions than it answered. One reason is that most of the labels that have defined Protestantism in America are becoming increasingly blurry. Clergy simply do not know what "conservative," "liberal," "evangelical," "charismatic," "traditional" and even the newer term "seeker-friendly" mean anymore.

"Things are too complex out there," said Sellers. "Even when you try to define the basics words like 'evangelical' or 'mainline' – everything breaks down. Just to give one example, there are many conservative, evangelical pastors out there in the Episcopal Church, even though that seems to make no sense whatsoever when you look at the national church."

The bottom line: A sign in a church's front yard is no longer a dependable indicator of what is happening inside the doors.

Listening to a few sermons may not even do the trick, since many pastors seem to be using highly personal dictionaries. The survey found "seeker-friendly" Lutherans, "charismatic" mainline Presbyterians, a few Southern Baptists who do gay union rites and many other examples of clergy and their churches that refuse to fit into familiar boxes.

Nevertheless, many clich?did ring true. Conservatives preach longer than liberals. Older, smaller congregations are more devoted to traditional hymnody than younger, larger congregations. Bible Belt pastors like religious television more than their Frost Belt counterparts. Clergy in the National Association of Evangelicals are twice as likely to vote Republican as clergy in the National Council of Churches.

But the overall impression left by the data, said Sellers, is one of diversity. This is especially true among mainline Protestants, where hot issues – most linked to marriage and sex – are dividing clergy into warring camps of painfully similar sizes. This is making life brutal for national-church leaders.

"It's like in a large corporation, where the CEO is surrounded by people who share that vision," said Sellers. "Then the further you go down the food scale the more diversity you're going to find. By the time you reach the mailroom, people are going to have all kinds of opinions about what the CEO is saying.

"Precisely the same thing is happening today in all of these national denominations. No one is sure what the vision is and what all the words mean."

Years on the God Beat, part 2

The Korean businessman had answered all of Aly Colon's questions.

Still, a good journalist often senses when something is missing. So Colon went back, probing to learn why this man was so anxious to heal the rift between Koreans and their black customers. Yes, the bloody Los Angeles riots had left him shaken. Was there anything else?

"I want you to know that I've been telling you the truth," the man said, back in 1996. "But there is one thing I haven't told you."

He hadn't talked about his faith. He hadn't confessed his own racial prejudices. And after the riots he was haunted by St. Paul's words to the Galatians: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male for female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." This Korean businessman prayed to see that truth at his shopping mall.

After opening up, he said the dreaded words: "Don't print that." If he failed, it would just inspire more news about hypocritical Christians.

Colon argued that the faith element was essential to this story. Ever since, he has been mulling over the lessons he learned doing that Seattle Times feature. The results are shaping new seminars on faith and the news at the Poynter Institute (www.poynter.org), where he leads programs on diversity and ethics in journalism.

The key, he wrote recently, is that "matters of faith manifest themselves in all kinds of places, among all kinds of people." This is true in news stories both large and small. Reporters who ignore this reality will find that they can "tell the story, just not the whole story," he said.

After 20 years on the God beat, I can only say, "Amen." That's why I was thrilled to speak at a Poynter seminar on this topic. Here are some of the questions I raised.

* If the goal is to improve coverage, does this mean covering more religion stories that intrigue people in newsrooms, or more stories that intrigue people in sanctuaries?

* Is religion news best covered by trained, committed specialists or by newcomers with a fresh, blank-slate approach? This is not a new question. In 1994, Washington Post editors tacked up a notice for a religion reporter. The "ideal candidate," it said, is "not necessarily religious nor an expert in religion."

Would editors take this approach with the Supreme Court? Or sports? Or the arts? Try to imagine a notice for an opera critic stating that the "ideal candidate does not necessarily like opera or know anything about opera." Maybe we should treat religion like opera or, better yet, a fusion of opera and politics.

* Should newsrooms be more diverse when it comes to religious faith and practice? I am constantly asked if, in particular, it would help if there were more traditional, "devout," practicing members of major faith groups.

By all means, yes. But this is not because only "believers" can cover religion. What we need in newsrooms are more people who bring knowledge, experience and sensitivity into the news process. The goal is to miss fewer obvious stories and mess up fewer obvious facts.

* Focus groups and polling drive the hyper-competitive world of television news. If this is true, then where are the religion specialists in broadcast news or the 24/7 niches of cable news?

"Even the agnostic cannot fail to notice that the headlines and airwaves are full of religion," commentator Bill Moyers once said at Harvard Divinity School. Yet newscasts are so full of the "confused and condescending commentary of the religiously tone-deaf that there is little room for the authentic voices of religiously engaged people to be heard. So our ears are not trained to hear."

* While teaching at Denver Seminary, I used three simple questions to help pastors study the power of mass media over their flocks. I urged them to ask: How do my people spend their time? How do they spend their money? How do they make their decisions?

What would happen if newspaper editors and television producers asked these questions about their readers and viewers? If they did, I believe it would quickly affect the time and resources dedicated to religion news.

20 years on the God beat, part one

Lou Grant had a problem.

Actually, the city editor on this classic TV comedy had two problems.

First of all, the Los Angeles Tribune had lost its religion editor and nobody wanted the job. Second, Grant needed to ditch the lazy, tipsy, no-good reporter Mal Cavanaugh.

Then Grant saw the light. He summoned Cavanaugh and told him he was the new religion editor. He could look forward to years of talking theology with clergy over lunch.

"That stinks! Before you stick me with a lousy job like that, I'd quit," roared the reporter.

Grant played it straight: "Quit? You haven't even given it a chance. You can't quit."

"The hell I can't," said Cavanaugh. "Just watch me."

Grant's staff beamed. The religion beat was still vacant, but who cared?

That TV plot rang true to editors and religion reporters I interviewed during my graduate work at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, researching a project that reached The Quill magazine's cover in January, 1983. Religion-beat veterans were proud of their work, but felt like Rodney Dangerfield. Editors kept saying that they knew religion was news, but that most religion-beat stories seemed too boring, or too controversial.

That's the ticket - too boring and too controversial.

"The role religion plays in America and the world has been a well-kept secret in most of the nation's newsrooms," I wrote. "While reporters chase the latest stories in politics, sports, business, education and other subjects, the billions of dollars and hours Americans invest in religious activities receive minimal attention. ... When news events escape the church page they are often covered by reporters with little interest in religion and little education in the style and language of religious leaders and organizations. Religion has almost been ignored by radio and television."

Much has changed in 20 years. Editors have been bombarded by research showing that religion ranks high in the interests of readers. Year after year, numerous events rooted in religion have appeared in the Associated Press list of top news stories.

Meanwhile, the Religion Newswriters Association says the number of reporters covering religion in the mainstream press has risen sharply in the past 10 to 15 years.

"We have more than 400 members and subscribers, about 250 of those who write about religion full-time," said Debra Mason, the RNA's executive director. "More than a dozen newspapers have two or more religion reporters. Nearly every newspaper with a circulation of over 100,000 has at least one person who specializes in religion, and the vast majority of these folks do it full-time or nearly full-time."

Yet troubling questions remain. I remain convinced that issues related to religion, faith and morals remain at the heart of many clashes between the press and its public. Many journalists still get sweaty palms when dealing with religion.

But anyone paying attention in recent years would have to concede that coverage has improved, especially on sweeping stories such as Sept. 11, 2001, and its aftermath, said University of Colorado researcher Stewart Hoover, author of "Religion in the News: Faith and Journalism in American Public Discourse." Only a generation ago, even this staggeringly complex story might have been covered as yet another example of "power and politics dressed up in the clothes of religion," he said.

But events have forced journalists to face their ignorance of history, doctrine and tradition. Now, some are beginning to wonder if those other believers they have ignored or offended for years might be just as complex and fascinating as world religions – such as Islam – that are now growing in America. If it's wrong to stereotype Muslims, maybe it's wrong to stereotype conservative and liberal Protestants, Catholics, Jews and everybody else.

Maybe picky facts and nuances do matter. Maybe there really are pro-life atheists, Wiccan homeschoolers, left-wing Baptists, Muslim comics and Pentecostal philosophers.

"For many journalists," said Hoover, "Sept. 11 has become the object lesson, the ultimate wake-up call, that demonstrates just how complex, and powerful, and multifaceted the whole world of religion really is. ... Once only a few journalists knew that, but now everybody does. People can't close their eyes now and pretend religion is fading away."

Bleeping Baptists pray for bleeping Ozzy

British tabloid veteran Dan Wooding knows a good headline when he hears one. Here a good one for grocery checkout racks: "Churches pray for the Osbournes." Or even better: "Bleeping Baptists asked to pray for the Bleeping Osbournes."

That second headline is true, minus the "bleeping" parts.

The media juggernaut led by Ozzy "The Prince of Darkness" Osbourne and his wife Sharon is back in the news, with mom and dad renewing their marriage vows before a flock of family, friends and the 1970s disco group "Village People." The 20th anniversary rites were delayed several months by Sharon Osbourne's life-and-death struggle with colon cancer.

All of this is, of course, fodder for the hit "reality TV" series about life in the family's Beverly Hills mansion.

"I was watching their show and I thought to myself: we should have Ozzy Osbourne day in churches across America," said Wooding, now a California-based writer for Christian radio and news. "I mean, these are some people who truly need our prayers."

So Wooding wrote a commentary for the Baptist Press wire service and others asking why Christians don't try praying for distressed entertainers, instead of just cursing them.

Wooding wasn't joking, in large part because his own life once veered into the media wonderland occupied by MTV's First Dysfunctional Family. He was born into a missionary family in Nigeria, but raised in Birmingham, England. As a young man, Wooding worked on the warped side of journalism, serving as London correspondent for the National Enquirer, the Sunday Mirror and the Fleet Street tabloids. He chased the Beatles, Monty Python, gangsters, movie stars and everybody else.

It was in 1980 that Wooding – drunk in London's "Stab in the Back" pub – hit bottom and vowed to return to the faith. He changed gigs, but also retained his intense interest in entertainment.

"Christians are so QUICK to judge and write people off as lost causes," he said. "The end result is that the only image of Christianity that someone like Ozzy may ever have is angry protestors marching around outside his shows. ... Christians need some option other than pointing a finger at people and yelling."

There is evidence, said Wooding, that Ozzy Osbourne is aware of his own "spiritual desperation," which is symbolized by the myriad crosses in his wardrobe and home Dr. Ozzy has had private talks about faith with superstar keyboardist Rick Wakeman of Yes, who is also one of Wooding's close friends.

And, as Sharon Osbourne told journalists when their MTV series first hit cable: "The best neighbor we've ever had is Pat Boone. We miss him terribly." Of course, that meant the born-again Boone was on one side and cleaned-up rocker Meat Loaf was on the other, daughter Kelly reminded her mother.

"It was," quipped Ozzy, "sort of like a Satan sandwich."

That's funny and so is the family's show. But there is also an undercurrent of unhappiness and pain – with the children trashing each other, Ozzy living in a daze and Sharon waging war against the "next door neighbors from hell," said Wooding.

What is clear to even the most casual viewer is that whatever peace and stability the clan enjoys is rooted in Ozzy and Sharon's marriage and, especially, in her commitment to support him during his legendary struggles with alcohol, aging, depression and the other forms of madness that accompany heavy-metal superstardom.

"If she goes, I can't even imagine what happens to that man and those children," said Wooding. "So right there, that is something people can pray about. This mother is holding this family together and she has cancer. Pray for her."

In a way, the Osbourne family can serve as a wake-up call for church people who tend to focus only on life in their own sacred circles, he said.

"The Osbournes are not, believe it or not, the most dysfunctional family in America," he concluded. "Millions of families are just as messed up as they are. The Osbournes at least have the courage to admit how messed up they are. The point is that we need to be praying for messed-up families in general and maybe praying for the Osbournes would help some people realize that."

Layers of Catholic denial

Every day the headlines and cartoons seem to get worse.

Every night stand-up comics crank out more nasty one-liners.

So it's sad, but not shocking, that a Catholic priest told the Boston Globe about a partygoer who dressed up as a pedophile priest at Halloween.

It's open season. Even though priests know they shouldn't take it personally, it's hard not to, said Father Donald Cozzens, a veteran Catholic educator who led a graduate seminary in Ohio.

"It's hard to imagine how this can end any time soon," he said. "It's incomprehensible to me that some people continue to believe that we have to be careful about talking about this crisis. There are people who are still afraid that honesty will do more damage than silence."

Back in 2000, Cozzens published a book called "The Changing Face of the Priesthood" that openly discussed trends – such as the thriving gay subculture in some seminaries – that reached mainstream news reports during 2002. Now he has written a sequel entitled "Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church."

Once again, it is tempting to focus on the sexual details in this ongoing scandal, which actually began in mid-1980s. But Cozzens said recent headlines must be read in a larger context.

News reports are "unmasking a systemic or structural crisis that threatens the lines of power that have gone unchallenged for centuries," he said. "This in itself is enough to make some prelates and clergy afraid, very afraid. Another is the Catholic anger rising from conservatives, moderates and progressives alike against the duplicitous arrogance of some prominent archbishops and other church authorities."

Underneath the fear and anger are deep concerns about changing times and statistics.

For example, one or two generations ago middle-class or poor Catholic parents were proud when one of their sons and daughters decided to become a priest or a nun. Today's suburban Catholic reality is radically different. The numbers just don't add up.

"We have known for some time now that the birth rate for Catholic families in the U.S. is less than two children (1.85), the same rate for families in general," he noted. "It is likely, then, that many Catholic parents will have but one daughter. Parental support, let alone encouragement, for a daughter considering the religious life is likely to be weak."

And the same is true for Catholic sons. As the former vicar for clergy in Cleveland, Cozzens knows all of the statistics about the falling number of American priests and the rising number of Catholics in their pews. He also knows that some dioceses are faring better than others and that, at the global level, vocations may actually be up.

Nevertheless, 6 percent of U.S. priests are 35 years old or younger. The age of the average priest is creeping closer to 60 and Cozzens believes the number of priests 90 years of age and older may soon be larger than the number under 35.

Anyone who studies modern Catholics must face other stark realities, said Cozzens. The number of single-parent Catholic homes is rising, with the rest of the culture, and approximately "half of the young men and women making vocational ... decisions are doing so in an environment that has been marked by separation, divorce or death."

Meanwhile, worship patterns are changing. A generation ago, 70 percent of U.S. Catholics attended mass each week. Today, about a third do so.

Is there a link between the size and shape of suburban Catholic families and the drop in the number of candidates for holy orders? Can these trends be reversed?

This leads Cozzens to other tough questions: Will the clergy sexual abuse crisis start a "domino effect" that combines with other trends to cause sweeping changes in the church? If so, what should those changes be? Perhaps married priests?

Two years ago, a Vatican archbishop told Cozzens that his work was raising eyebrows. Vatican insiders were convinced he was attacking mandatory celibacy.

"We cannot avoid that issue," said Cozzens. "Truth is, we already have a married priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church, just not in the west. We may need to draw on the traditions of the Eastern Rite Catholics and the Orthodox, as well.

"But most of all, we can't be afraid to talk about what is actually going on."