Two thirds of Americans have heard nothing about the congressional probe on Muslims (but most support it)

A Public Religion Research Institute poll found that “two-thirds (65%) report having heard nothing at all about” upcoming congressional hearings on “alleged extremism in the American Muslim community.”

Yet, when questioned, a “majority (56%) of Americans say that” the hearings House Homeland Security Committee Chairm Rep. Peter King (R-NY) are a good idea.

Religion News Service explored the islamophoia obvious in the findings:

Peter Gottschalk, co-author of “Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy,” said the findings reflect the impact of recent waves of anti-Muslim rhetoric surrounding burning the Quran and opposing the construction of mosques.

“The Muslim community has been fairly successful at demonstrating themselves as neighbors, but the question becomes are they good neighbors?” said Gottschalk, chairman of the religion department at Wesleyan University.

There is a significant relationship between that islamophobia and preference for Fox News as an information source, the Public Religion Research Institute poll found:

More than three-quarters (76%) of those who most trust Fox News say [the hearings are a] good idea compared to only 45% of those who most trust CNN and 28% of those who most trust Public television.

…

The survey findings also show a significant correlation between trust in Fox News and negative attitudes about Muslims. Americans who most trust Fox News are more likely to believe that Muslims want to establish Shari’a law, have not done enough to oppose extremism, and believe investigating Muslim extremism is a good idea. There are even differences among Republicans and white evangelicals who trust Fox news most and those who trust other media.

• Republicans who say Fox News is their most trusted news source are more likely than Republicans who trust a different news source to say they are well-informed about Islam (53% to 34%). They are also more likely than Republicans who most trust other news sources to say the hearings are a good thing (82% to 60%).
• White evangelicals who most trust Fox News are much more likely than those who trust a different news source to say they feel informed about Islam than those who trust other sources of news (70% to 37%). This same group of evangelicals is also more likely than their counterparts who most trust other news sources to say the hearings are a good thing (84% to 60%).

Fox News’ cultivation of the reflexive human fear of “the other” can have profoundly destructive consequences, as Nicole Neroulias obliquely notes in her Beliefnet blog:

As Islamophobia expert Peter Gottschalk explained, in a quote that didn’t make it into my story: “Most Americans were also in favor of the Patriot Act, because they didn’t think they were the ones who would be investigated – but, compare that to the outrage over the invasiveness of TSA screenings, which everyone experiences.”

The mythical 16-million-member Southern Baptist Convention shrinks again

With a straight face, news services reported this week that in 2008-2009, the number of Southern Baptists declined 0.42% to 16.1 million members. It is the third straight year of decline, according to the 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

Yet those are grossly misleading numbers. They say nothing of value about the number of active members, and it is old news that active membership is perhaps one-third of those reported membership numbers.

In 2000, Ernest C. Reisinger and D. Matthew Allen wrote:

The Wall Street Journal reported in 1990 that, of the 14.9 million members of Southern Baptist churches (according to an official count), over 4.4 million are “non-resident members.” This means they are members with whom the church has lost touch. Another 3 million hadn’t attended church or donated to a church in the past year. That left about 7.4 million “active” members. However, according to Sunday School consultant Glenn Smith, even this is misleading, because included in this “active” figure are those members who only attended once a year at Easter or Christmas.

More recent numbers from Jim Ellif’s Founders Ministries article are even smaller:

Out of the Southern Baptist’s 16,287,494 members, only 6,024,289, or 37%, on average, show up for their church’s primary worship meeting (usually Sunday morning). This is according to the Strategic Information and Planning department of the Sunday School Board (2004 statistics).

No need to belabor the point. That 16.1-million-member Southern Baptist Convention is as much of a myth as Bigfoot.

H.R. 3 is an exercise in senseless hypocrisy

Incoherence, thy name is H.R. 3.

Falsely entitled the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” it is bafflegab written given bizarre and for honest people indefensible legal condification, as Kristin explains:

In the case of abortion and health care, religious right organizations claim that even if individuals purchase their own abortion coverage, any tax subsidy for health care coverage that includes abortion constitutes federal funding– which is why they’re trying to pass the extreme H.R. 3 “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.” But in the case of church exemptions and school vouchers for parochial schools, these same groups argue that a tax deduction or subsidy is not a form of government funding (because if it were, it’d be a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment).

In a House of Representatives hearing on the bill last week, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) exposes the incoherence of their argument while questioning Cathy Ruse from the Family Research Council and Richard Doerflinger from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Check out the video:

About those historically absurd ‘Christian nation’ claims

Mainstream Baptist Bruce Prescott refers us to Timothy Dwight, a grandson of the theologian Joanathan Edwards, and who while president of Yale University said in a chapel service at Yale as the war of 1812 broke out:

The nation has offended Providence. We formed our Constitution without any acknowledgement of God; without any recognition of His mercies to us, as a people, of His government, or even of His existence. The [Constitutional] Convention by which it was formed, never asked even once, His direction, or His blessings, upon their labors. Thus we commenced our national existence under the present system, without God.

After the Philadelphia Indictments

The National Catholic Reporter’s Michael Sean Winters responded to the first “filing criminal charges against a high-ranking Roman Catholic official for allegedly failing to protect children” by concluding:

When the scandal broke in 2002, I wrote these words: “The Church’s lack of credibility on questions of sexual ethics is especially disheartening because the Church has a lot to say to a culture in which sexuality is dehumanized, commodified, and generally seen as less than the beautiful thing the Catholic Church’s best theology insists it is. It is more than a little ironic that a culture awash in images of underage sexuality–the same culture that gave Oscars to American Beauty and where Britney Spears albums go multi-platinum–is now struck with horror at the revelation of priestly molestation. The irony, however, is grim. When the Church is most needed to remind our culture that sexuality can and should be humanizing, a giving of self in freedom and love, a participation in God’s ongoing creative work, the Church instead finds itself in court.” I would not change a word.

The lesson from Philadelphia is as clear as day: Every bishop in America must do what the grand jury did, investigate the facts and remove those who not only perpetrated the crimes of sexual abuse, which I suspect has been largely done, but also remove those who perpetrated the crime of endangering children by covering that abuse up. They must invite outside scrutiny of the record. If they themselves were a party to any cover-ups, they must resign. The time for prevarications and obfuscations is over. And, at their forthcoming ad limina visits in Rome, the bishops must have the courage to raise the crisis of belief over the Church’s sexual teachings with the Vatican. This crisis will not go away.

You can read the full text of the grand jury report here (.pdf)

Vatican nixes the idea of a virtual confessional

Senior Catholic Church officials in the UK and US gave the iPhone application “Confession: A Roman Catholic App” their seal of approval, but the Vatican had serious reservations. Agence France-Presse reported:

“It is essential to understand that the rites of penance require a personal dialogue between penitents and their confessor … It cannot be replaced by a computer application,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists.

“I must stress to avoid all ambiguity, under no circumstance is it possible to ‘confess by iPhone’,” he said.

It was created by Little iApps and is on sale for $1.99 via iTunes. According to the Los Angeles Times, developer Patrick Leinen says he worked “with the Rev. Thomas Weinandy of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Rev. Dan Scheidt, pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka, Ind:”

He said he was inspired by a papal message in January in which the pope asked “that young people may learn to use modern means of social communication for their personal growth and to better prepare themselves to serve society.”

With all of that official assistance, why did no remember that on January 24, Pope Benedict XVI said:

It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives.

About John Allen’s advice …

Mark Silk asks if “This is journalism?”

No, we don’t think it is.

Justice does not mean letting any of the abusers go unpunished and journalism does not mean leaving any of the abuse unchronicled.

When one true friend is life, rather than death

Christa remembers Trish, who was true after predatory clergy abused her and failed churches deserted her. Referring first to herself, Christa writes::

I remember that girl — the girl whose whole sense of self disintegrated after she was molested, sexually abused and raped by a Southern Baptist minister when she was a 16-year-old church kid. I’m grateful that Trish remembers her, too.

In truth, I have no memory of sitting on the floor in Bruce Hall and telling Trish about “my affair.” But I expect Trish’s memory is more accurate than mine. I was probably totally sloshed.

What I do remember is that, several years after college, Trish had the misfortune of calling me on the phone one night when I had the pills on the counter and was already half-drunk and was trying to get up my gumption to down them. Trish figured out what was going on and she stayed on the phone with me for hours. No telling how things would have turned out if she hadn’t.