On Religion
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A 'nothing in particular' believer captures millions of clicks in YouTube America

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A 'nothing in particular' believer captures millions of clicks in YouTube America

Oliver Anthony counted about 20 listeners when he performed earlier this summer at a produce market in coastal North Carolina.

That was before August 8, when radiowv posted his "Rich Men North Of Richmond" video on YouTube. More than 45 million views later (when this was posted), the unknown country singer from Farmville, Virginia, has become a culture-wars lightning rod.

When he returned to the Morris Farm Market, near Currituck, he faced the massive August 13 crowd and read from Psalm 37: "The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright. But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken."

Anthony then sang his blunt NSFW (not safe for worship) hit about suicide, depression, hunger, drugs, politics, child sex trafficking and dead-end jobs.

"I've been sellin' my soul, workin' all day / Overtime hours for bulls*** pay / So I can sit out here and waste my life away / Drag back home and drown my troubles away," he sang, with the crowd shouting along. The chorus began: "Lord, it's a damn shame what the world's gotten to / For people like me and people like you / Wish I could just wake up and it not be true / But it is, oh, it is / Livin' in the new world / With an old soul."

"Rich Men North Of Richmond" debuted at No. 1 in Billboard's Top 100, the first time ever for a new artist without a recording contract and mainstream radio support.

"The song was immediately politicized, even though there have always been country songs with singers lamenting the state of their lives and the state of America," said David Watson, a theologian and country-music fan. He is academic dean of United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, near a Rust Belt poverty zone with historic ties to Appalachia.

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Big questions religious leaders need to be asking about autism statistics and ministry

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Big questions religious leaders need to be asking about autism statistics and ministry

Many modern churches may be weak when it comes to architecture and sacred art, but they almost always have concert-level lighting, sound and multi-media technology.

But in a few sanctuaries linked to ancient traditions, worship leaders are trying something different. In some Eucharistic services, they are offering autistic worshippers an atmosphere that is more calm and less intense.

"If you look at many church services from the point of view of highly sensitive people – especially autistic children – there is too much noise, too many lights," said Father Matthew Schneider, known to online Catholics as @AutisticPriest. "We can turn down the lights. We can turn down the volume. We can do a few things to accept these families and let them feel more comfortable."

For neurodivergent people, it actually helps that ancient rites are built on repeated gestures, prayers and music that become familiar. Schneider experienced this phenomenon in seminary, but grasped its importance when he was diagnosed as autistic several years after his ordination.

"If you do something over and over, then I know what's coming. I have time to take that in. I know what is happening and why," said Schneider, who currently teaches theology at Belmont Abbey College near Charlotte, North Carolina.

"If you throw me a curve ball, it may take me some time to get over the shock. That's just a reality for autistic people. ... If I'm familiar with a service – stand up, kneel down, look right, look left – that can become comfortable."

Religious leaders will have to face these issues after seeing waves of stunning statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups studying neurodiversity trends. For example, in 2000, 1 in 150 children were somewhere on the autism spectrum. That number was 1 in 36, in recent CDC data. And 26.7% of autistic children now display "profound" symptoms.

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Life in troubled times: Conservative Catholic archbishop faces conservative Lutherans

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Life in troubled times: Conservative Catholic archbishop faces conservative Lutherans

Serious fasting is hard, even for a Catholic archbishop, especially when the aroma of spaghetti sauce is wafting through a church during an Italian community dinner.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone learned that lesson during California's bitter battles over the meaning of "marriage," "family" and other common terms that had become controversial. But he had promised to join in 100 days of prayer, and 40 days of fasting, as part of an ecumenical coalition's efforts to defend centuries of teachings on sexuality.

It was evangelical Protestants who proposed the fast, even though traditional Catholics have practiced that discipline for centuries.

"They meant serious fasting — like not eating, or eating very little, just one meal a day. So, not just giving up dessert, you know?", said Cordileone, during this summer's "Issues, Etc." conference at Concordia University in Chicago, sponsored by Lutheran Public Radio. (This independent online network also produces my GetReligion.org podcast.)

The inside joke about Catholics "giving up dessert" hit home, even though he was speaking to Missouri Synod Lutherans.

There was a time when Lutherans would not have invited a Catholic archbishop to this kind of event, said Cordileone. There was a time when it was rare for Catholics to cooperate with evangelicals and other believers seeking common ground on moral and social issues.

"To tell you the truth, I actually long for the good old days when we used to have the luxury to fight with each other over doctrinal issues," said Cordileone, drawing laughter. "But right now, the ship is going down. … The crew cannot afford to stand on the bridge and discuss the best kind of navigation equipment to use — when the ship is going down."

The "ship," he stressed, is not the church — "It's our civilization."

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2023: A 'Barbie' Odyssey does raise (wink, wink) moral, cultural and theological issues

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2023: A 'Barbie' Odyssey does raise (wink, wink) moral, cultural and theological issues

Hollywood worships big movie franchises, so fans can expect "Barbie" sequels.

One plot proposal quickly emerged from an unlikely source – Sister Mary Joseph Calore of the Society Devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in St. Cresson, Pennsylvania.

"'Barbie becomes a nun' would be a great sequel," she wrote, on the X platform. Her post contained this pitch to Warner Bros. executives: "Dissatisfied by endless parties and user friends, an eating disorder, spending addictions with clothes and shoes, and cohabitating with the shallow & unemployed playboy Ken, Barbie's sportscar has been parked more and more at an adoration chapel. She is seriously giving thought to draining the pool, putting her condo on the market, cutting her hair and donning the religious habit."

That would be a twist, after a cinematic manifesto arguing that life as a real woman is painful and complicated, but it's better than being an iconic plastic doll.

"This movie should have been silly and fun, but it ended up being preachy and earnest," said Barbara Nicolosi Harrington, a former Catholic nun who became a screenwriter and Hollywood script doctor. "I mean, how far can you go with a story about Barbie?"

Writer-director Greta Gerwig's previous work has been impressive, stressed Harrington, who teaches at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. With "Little Women," Gerwig showed the ability to offer a fresh take on a familiar story. Now, "Barbie" will draw intense scrutiny, since she will direct at least one movie in the upcoming Netflix take on "The Chronicles of Narnia" novels by the Christian apologist C.S. Lewis.

"Barbie" contains ambitious attempts to mix serious, even if tongue in cheek, social commentary with pop-culture mythology – such as a shot-for-shot homage to Stanley Kubrick's legendary dawn-of-consciousness scene in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

The big "Barbie" question, noted Other Feminisms writer Leah Libresco Sargeant, is stated in a soundtrack ballad -- "What Was I Made For?"