The Overview (Monday, April 26)
Trouble at a notable Christian university, the transformation of American civil religion, a Christian case for reparations, and more.
Lots to get to this week, so without any delay, here’s the Monday, April 26 edition of The Overview:
1) Per Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron, last week a large majority of faculty at Seattle Pacific University issued a vote of no confidence to the university’s board after it refused to change the university’s position on hiring LGBTQ people. From the article:
“The board recognizes that fellow Christians and other community members disagree in good faith on issues relating to human sexuality, and that these convictions are deeply and sincerely held,” the board chair, Cedric Davis, said in an April 12 statement. “We pray that as we live within the tension of this issue, we can be in dialogue with the SPU community.”
The board also indicated it was taking its stand because it wanted to continue to maintain its ties to the Free Methodist Church, a small denomination of about 70,000 in the United States and 1 million around the world. The Free Methodist Church has eight affiliated educational institutions, including Azusa Pacific, Spring Arbor and Greenville universities.
“Right now the board is the last remaining group that has not yet come to recognize that LGBTQ individuals can be faithful Christians, and as faculty and staff they would play positive roles on our campus, if we can hire them,” said Kevin Neuhouser, a professor of sociology at Seattle Pacific who is also the faculty adviser for Haven, the student club for LGBTQ students on campus.
This controversy is not the first involving LGBTQ issues and Christian higher education, nor will it be the last. Earlier this month the Religious Exemption Accountability Project filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of more than 30 students who alleged discrimination at Christian colleges and universities because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. As American society continues to become more supportive of the rights of LGBTQ people, colleges who affirm a traditional conception of sexuality and gender will have difficult decisions to make.
2) Kelsey Dallas at Deseret News continues her torrid pace of reporting on religion, law, and politics. First, she details religious freedom’s impressive winning streak at the nation’s highest court, reporting that it isn’t just conservatives responsible for recent wins:
Citing these and other recent decisions, [Notre Dame law professor Richard] Garnett argued that the Roberts court as a whole — not just its conservative members — should be seen as supportive of religion.
At the very least, Kagan and Breyer have earned that designation, since both fall in the top half of the study’s list of the most pro-religion justices to serve since 1953. Kagan is just a few spots behind her conservative colleagues.
“I think it’s a mistake to frame the religious liberty question in terms of present-day left and right labels,” Garnett said.
Second, Dallas highlights the latest report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She states that while the pandemic affected many aspects of religious freedom around the world, it tended to exacerbate existing divisions to the detriment of minority religious traditions. If you don’t want to read through the entire 108-page report, Dallas’s writing has you covered.
3) NPR’s Tom Gjelten reports on the state of civil religion in the United States. He helpfully defines what civil religion is (citing a score of experts in the sociology of religion), and then explains how the concept itself is undergoing transformation as the country goes through notable demographic and cultural changes. To wit:
Shadi Hamid, who is the son of immigrants from Egypt, nonetheless argues that the darker aspects of America's founding should not discredit the American idea.
"If we completely do away with key founding figures, and we start problematizing the founding documents, which are part of the American civic faith, then the American idea doesn't have a lot to go on," he says. "Foundations matter."
For Lynn Itagaki, who writes about what she calls "civil racism," the problem is less with the text of the founding documents than with their application. "The United States is sufficiently inclusive as a philosophy," she says. "In practice, it's obviously been exclusive and has pushed people out as not being deserving — or, in religious terms, not being faithful enough."
Itagaki notes that the American idea would be meaningful to more people if more recognition were given to some of its less familiar sources.
"The Iroquois nation's Great Law of Peace was influential in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence," she notes. "So we've got other thinkers, other texts, and I think we need to consider them in creating this civil religion that we talk about."
Similarly, Yale's Philip Gorski argues that the notion of an American scripture needs periodic updating to incorporate the voices of others alongside the nation's founders, such as Frederick Douglass, the social reformer Jane Addams, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"I think about the American civil religion as an evolving tradition," Gorski says. "I sometimes liken it to a river whose banks grow wider over time and which is changed by the landscape that it flows through, instead of thinking about it as some kind of pristine spring that we have to return to again and again."
Gjelten later connects the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to efforts to maintain a more “traditional” civil religion, citing theologian Myles Werntz. “The widespread display of Christian symbols on Jan. 6, in fact, has triggered a general backlash against religious nationalism in the country. Werntz fears that the notion of a civil religion for the country may suffer as a result. Some of the most eloquent apostles of the American idea, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., spoke from a Christian tradition, Werntz notes.”
4) The Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey interviews Duke Kwon and Greg Thompson about their new book, Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair. Notably, the book is heavy on theology and light on policy (“We’re approaching as people who are penitent,” said Thompson, “not people who dictate the terms”), approaching a controversial idea through the lens of faith without any specific expectations. I’m looking forward to reading it this summer.
5) Finally, Religion in Public shares new research on religious reactions to vaccinations in the United States. Political scientists Paul Djupe, Jason Adkins, and Jake Neiheisel report results from a 3,600 person survey, breaking down support for and opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine via religious identification, behavior, and more. Here’s one key finding:
It’s important to note that partisanship appears to rule the roost. If evangelicals (measured through denominational identity) do not stand out as distinct from partisans, then that’s rare and telling. They do stand out, though, among strong Republicans and represent the strongest concentration of anti-vaccination attitudes with 43 percent of strong Republican evangelicals indicating disagreement with the statement, “I will get vaccinated against the coronavirus as soon as I am eligible to receive it.”
They report a number of other important findings, including the relationship between vaccine attitudes and support for QAnon, holding “prosperity gospel” beliefs, and believing evil is prevalent in the world. They also tease a forthcoming book on religion and COVID-19, in which Andy Lewis and I have a chapter on legal advocacy and religious freedom politics during the pandemic. Stay tuned!
The Overview (Monday, April 26)
It wouldn't be anything Dr. Bennett related without some work of Ryan Burge or Paul Djupe (or both) showing up. It is rather disturbing to see QAnon so comfortably bandied about in mainstream articles. I almost wish that the whole movement had remained in the shadows, rather than becoming so prevalent, if only so that we wouldn't have to confront the utter inanity of it so often.
I read the interview with authors Kwon and Thompson, and I was curious about an answer that Kwon gives to the question, "What are the strongest arguments you know of against reparations? How would you answer them?" Part of Kwon's answer is that "There’s a strong Christian tradition that restitution is owed even to descendants of victims of theft who have since deceased." I was not aware of this supposedly strong tenet of Christianity. Perhaps he is mistaking the long-obsolete Old Testament laws of the Jewish faith for what is "strong Christian tradition"? Either way, I must admit I'm interested to see how they make this argument in their forthcoming book.
I was also amused at the response that Thompson gives to the question, "I could see someone saying, ‘If we did reparations, at what point would we stop?’ How do you respond to people who believe it can’t practically work?" Though I am usually remiss to apply intent to simple words in an article, I can't help but read a tone of smarminess from his answer. Thompson replies first, "There’s sometimes a motive in that question that’s a pretext for not taking it seriously. 'When are these folks going to be satisfied?' I bet we could ask them." Here, Thompson does a wonderful job of side-stepping the question and instead reframes the issue to critique the motives and sincerity of the potential opposition. He doesn't even go on to define what the "motive that is a pretext for not taking reparations seriously" is. What a confounding rhetorical move.
The second of part of Thompson's reply I found to be equally as frustrating, which reads as follows: "Also, when are we done with democracy? When are we done with the work of perfecting our union? When are we done loving? The question itself shows we have not grasped what we are dealing with. Part of what we’re saying is, this is the work of our lives. We’re trying to reframe how the questions are being asked." I struggle to understand why Thompson moves the goal posts from concerns about the extent of reparations payments to the ephemeral ideals of "democracy" and "loving." I find this comparison absurd. The authors themselves state that there exists goals that reparations would be trying to pursue. Why then, do both authors avoid direct engagement with questions about the efficacy of reparations reaching those goals?
Kwon's answer to the same question was just plain confusing. Here I quote from his reply, "The process of reparations will be healing when it includes self-denial and utter relinquishing of control." I admit it, I'm lost. Reparations are a monetary thing, something which is necessarily defined by the policy that implements it. What does "utterly relinquishing control" have to do with making reparations work? If a reparations program is established, people won't comply because of Christian love or morals, they'll comply because (1) it's out of their control and (2) the authorities are well versed in prosecuting people for tax evasion. Now of course, Kwon could be referring to the idea that White people (and other groups, perhaps) will only benefit from a reparations once they learn to apologize and realize the theological value of reparations. This very well may be a valid point, but I'd argue that reparations is not the best way to achieve reconciliation, if that's what the goal is. If the goal is just giving money to African-American communities, then why all the theological maneuvering?
While I do have several other bones to pick with the answers that the authors give throughout the rest of the article, I must leave this comment as it is now. I think it's one of the longest that I've written on your Substack, so I thank you for your patience, Dr. Bennett.