by Jessica Donath

Last weekend, former House speaker Newt Gingrich announced he would run for president in 2012. Only hours later, he spoke to a congregation of evangelical Christians in San Antonio about the greatest threats he believes the country is facing: atheism–which infiltrates the minds of young children, according to Gingrich, through public school teachers, decisions from activist judges and “elite” politicians–and radical Islam.

Politico printed excerpts of Gingrich's speech at Cornerstone Church. Virtually every story – see coverage from CNN and CBS – about Sunday's event mentioned that the mega church and its pastor, John Hagee, have a checkered history of endorsing Republican candidates for president. They also put Gingrich's utterances into the context of his own life; the former Speaker of the House, who converted to Catholicism two years ago, is married for the third time and has admitted to cheating on his previous two wives.

Apart from Politico's report, the only other lengthy account of what happened at Cornerstone Church is found at the San Antonio Express-News. Why the scant coverage? Taking politics, presidential candidates and voters seriously means explaining the issues and choices thoroughly. What's missing from most of the reports about Gingrich's visit to Texas is some background information on the presumed relationship between atheism and radical Islam (a spokesperson for Gingrich said his boss left out the word “or” in a key sentence during his speech).

Simply recounting Gingrich's intellectual journey and reciting his reasons for being concerned about the future of America's children if the “elites” he so despises stay in power does not constitute good journalism. Most articles mention the decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to drop the line “under God” from the pledge of allegiance in 2002 as the moment for Gingrich to return to public life. But they don't probe deeper into the politician's apparent disdain for the separation of church and state. What does it mean when Gingrich says he wants to preserve the “Judeo-Christian” heritage of America? What effect would teaching the Declaration of Independence in elementary schools have? Is there any real evidence to support his claim that Islamic law and/or atheism pose significant threats to the country?

Not only did most journalists neglect to point out that Gingrich's two bugbears–creeping atheism and creeping Sharia–would seem to cancel each other out, they also don't question what a country run by Gingrich would look like. Coverage of the Gingrich speech–or lack thereof–offers two valuable lessons to journalists: First, a politician's couching his assertions in religious language shouldn't exempt him from being held accountable for the facts on the ground. Second, the policy implications of his beliefs should be probed, especially if he intends to blur the line between political and religious authority.

Jessica Donath is a German freelance writer and comedian pursuing her M.A. in journalism at USC Annenberg.

by Rosalina Nieves

The position of U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom has remained vacant for the past two years. This has some critics wondering what approach, if any, the White House is taking toward religious freedom issues. It also begs for deeper reporting on why a Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee opposed the administration's eventual nominee.

The special ambassadorship, established by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, was created to advocate on behalf of individuals all over the world who are persecuted for their religious beliefs. That would seem an obvious and relatively easy appointment for President Obama, but his administration came under fire this time last year for failing to produce a nomination. In its annual report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom blasted Obama for allowing the post to remain vacant and for supposedly softening his stand on protecting faith-related rights.

“Here we are halfway through this administration, and nobody is in charge of the religious freedom issue,” Thomas Farr, a former director of the State Department's international religious freedom office, told CNN. “The biggest issue is the utter indifference from the Obama administration to a policy we've had in place since 1998 of advocating religious freedom as a way of countering religious extremists and advancing democracy.”

In June, the administration nominated Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook for the ambassadorship. By the close of 2010, procedural maneuvering by a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had dimmed the prospects of Cook's confirmation. But on Tuesday the administration renominated her for the ambassadorship, which will give her a fresh opportunity to persuade the Foreign Relations Committee of her fitness for the role.

Her chances, as Emily Belz of World Magazine points out, are a lot better now. “Cook is likely to win confirmation this time. If confirmed she'll only have the remainder of Obama's term to serve, about a year and a half, so most advocates at this point would rather see someone serving in this capacity than derail her confirmation, which would probably result in the post remaining empty through the rest of Obama's term.”

Some of her opponents have argued that Cook is not qualified for the diplomatic post, citing her lack of experience in foreign policy. Though the position is bureaucratically isolated from the State Department, the ambassador still plays a vital role in international affairs.

It will be up to Cook and her supporters to convince the Foreign Relations Committee of her qualifications. In any case, as Cook's most vocal advocate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) has pointed out, “[R]eligious minorities have recently suffered from recent attacks in a number of countries including Indonesia, Pakistan and Egypt…. It is vital that the United States have a leadership in place to work with the international community to protect the rights of religious.”

Those are good reasons for the Senate to move quickly on Cook's nomination–and also good reasons for journalists to do some thorough reporting on this story. Perhaps more importantly, have Cook's gender, politics, denomination or race figured into efforts to thwart her nomination? These are questions that reporters need to ask.

Rosalina Nieves is an assignment editor at CNN Los Angeles and an M.A. candidate in broadcast journalism at USC Annenberg.

by Brie Loskota

Could this really be what Maureen Dowd calls “The Mormon Moment“?

The catalyst for Dowd's comment isn't a controversy or crisis but rather a sassy piece of theater. Using the old-media platform of the Broadway musical, “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have penned “The Book of Mormon,” a love letter, of a sort, to one of America's homegrown religions. The production opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater in New York last week to a chorus of rave reviews.

“The Book of Mormon” merrily instructs its audience in the origins and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as it follows two young men on their mission to Africa. With naïve sweetness, absurdity and wit, Stone and Parker poke fun at some of the more esoteric aspects of Mormon doctrine while also highlighting some of the things that make the religion–all religions, really–so compelling for their adherents. The show's sly tribute to and gentle trashing of Mormonism is helping to shape a healthy discussion about the nuances of religion in some unexpected places. And it shines a spotlight on the LDS Church at a time when several members are breaking new political ground.

Ben Brantly of the New York Times wrote, “[A] major point of 'The Book of Mormon' is that when looked at from a certain angle, all the forms of mythology and ritual that allow us to walk through the shadows of daily life and death are, on some level, absurd; that's what makes them so valiant and glorious. And by the way, that includes the religion of the musical, which lends ecstatic shape and symmetry to a world that often feels overwhelmingly formless.”

Leave it to the creators of “South Park” to manage to valorize and lampoon religion at the same time, while sparking some really powerful reflection on what it means to be religious.

One the Mormon side, there seems to be little backlash. John Dehlin at MormonMatters.org “spells out 10 reasons why he believes the Mormon musical could be good for the faith, including the notion that the Utah-based church is important enough to mock.” Several stories quote LDS church members who are happy with the attention to the finer points of doctrine as well as the lack of sensationalism around polygamy. In fact, the LDS Church leadership produced a short, sweet note about the musical.

So does this mean Americans are ready to embrace the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints with open arms?  In some ways, Mormons are at the top of their game despite the wariness many non-Mormons still feel toward the faith.

Glenn Beck, a convert to the LDS church, has been embraced by the political right as a media-savvy godsend. Though Mitt Romney is still plagued by questions about his faith in what is being dubbed Mitt's Mormon Problem, Part II, he is nonetheless a serious contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. John Huntsman, who may also run for president in 2012, is described as a near-ideal Republican candidate aside from one major strike: his membership in the LDS Church. And Democrat Harry Reid has achieved the highest elected office of any Mormon, Senate Majority Leader.

What to make of all this attention to Mormons and their beliefs?

Joanna Brooks of Religion Dispatches seems to think it's a good thing: “However the Republican primaries turn out, the prospect of a Huntsman run may remind the world that Mormonism is as capable of producing urbane, globally-minded moderates as it is of producing Cleon-Skousenite-Tea-Party ideologues. (Not to mention a few liberals.) And that would be a welcome reminder indeed.”

Perhaps it is a little too early to declare this a “Mormon Moment,” but if it means that a fresh awareness of religion is enlivening theater pages, news blogs, political commentary and electoral strategy, whatever is happening probably is a good thing. And it's especially gratifying that a piece of art–rather than an act of violence–is prompting journalists to learn more about at least one of the religious movements in our current cultural mix.

Brie Loskota is Managing Director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She also serves as the program officer for the CRCC Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative, a program that seeks to spur new research on one of the world's fastest growing religious movements.

After a lull, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict erupted full-force last Saturday when Hamas and other Gazan groups lobbed 50 rockets into southern Israel. Israel retaliated, killing four civilians, and both sides continued their assaults. On Wednesday, a bomb exploded at the Jerusalem bus station killing a British tourist and injuring dozens of bystanders. Both sides continued air strikes throughout the week.

According to a Google timeline, hundreds of sources covered the successive stories. The greatest spike occurred after the Jerusalem bombing and a subsequent attack of phosphorous shells, which international law prohibits, fired by Gaza fighters into Israel.

While it's no surprise that punishing raids and devastating deaths draw headlines worldwide, it is stunning that so few stories about the day-to-day toll of the conflict are posted, published and broadcast. (Equally notable is the paucity of coverage on models for coexistence.) Is the problem lack of space, absence of interest, a diminished press corps or a news cycle bound to a narrowly circumscribed set of blood-and-bluster narratives?

In Israel earlier this month, my graduate journalism class and I repeatedly confronted a basic question: What is news and by whose authority is it defined? Visiting Lod,  a mixed city of Jews and Palestinian Arabs just southeast of Tel Aviv, we walked through some of the city's poor Palestinian communities. According to Shatil, an Israeli NGO that works in cities with mixed populations, more than 70 percent of the homes in these areas have no legal status. Since houses are on land that the Israeli government has zoned agricultural rather than residential, owners are not allowed to expand or improve them. When owners do so anyway—making repairs to older structures or expanding smaller buildings to accommodate larger families—the government deems them illegal and subject to demolition.

More than 400 homes have been demolished in Lod; 1,600 more are “illegal” and could be added to that list. In the past, when houses were torn down, the government reclassified the land as residential, making it possible for developers to build apartments, schools and other accommodations for Jewish Israelis.

Walking through the neighborhoods, we saw ramshackle homes, empty lots and a high concrete wall that blocks off the blighted Palestinian area from a wealthy Jewish one. But the impact of the problem truly hit when we rounded a corner and came upon a football-field sized lot with several house-sized mounds of broken concrete, twisted iron pipes, flattened appliances, unhinged doors, solitary sneakers and similarly unmoored remnants of a once-normal life.

On the morning of December 13, 2010 Israeli police roused residents of seven homes that housed some 70 members of the extended Abu Eid family. Families were ordered to evacuate immediately so that bulldozers could smash the buildings. Many of those who were displaced went to live with nearby friends and families, but a group of men pitched tents around the rubble, signifying their determination to stay. They'd also laid foundations for two prefabricated homes when, on March 2, the police demolished those too. When we visited on the 14th, two tents were back up.

The Lod demolitions and the Abu Eids' story have been covered by Israeli and Palestinians news outlets and circulated by NGOs. But few American sites have picked up this news, even though it should be impossible to ignore. The Lod demolitions reflect an ongoing crisis in Israeli society that is just as pressing and just as intractable as the bloody outbreaks that are the most obvious outward emblems of the conflict.

Palestinian Arabs make up 20 percent of the Israeli population. Although most are citizens of the state, they are subject to ongoing discrimination. Just this week, the Israeli Parliament passed a law that “allows the Finance Ministry to remove funds from municipalities or groups if they commemorate [Israel] Independence Day here as a day of mourning or reject Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” The Nakba, the Arabic word for catastrophe and the term used to describe the birth of Israel, resulted in the loss of homes, lands and a way of life. But new legislation seeks to make this narrative illegal. A second law allows small communities to establish admission committees to screen potential residents. Applicants considered unfit or undesirable— who might be Arab or Ethiopian Jews, single mothers, or ultra-Orthodox Jews as well as Palestinian Arabs—could be turned away.

These new laws, like other examples of state-sanctioned discrimination, reflect the complexity of maintaining a democratic Jewish state amidst a large and growing non-Jewish minority. Most Americans may be aware of the human toll exacted by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But far fewer know the problems facing Palestinian citizens within Israel.

But it's not only news of demolitions or democratic conflicts that go unreported for American audiences. There is also good news that's seldom covered. Palestinians, moving into the middle and upper-middle classes, are making a way for themselves in Israeli society. Jews and Palestinians are collaborating on projects to push integration and equality in education, the arts and economic ventures, including start-ups that bring Palestinians into the lucrative Israeli high-tech sector.

As recent revolutionary movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and other Middle East countries demonstrate, there are on-the-ground social, cultural and economic storylines that swirl beneath the political, top-down, conflict-oriented narratives that constitutes news for many American media outlets. News consumers would do well to ask who decides what they get to see, hear and read—and what calculations go into those decisions.

Diane Winston

by Dalia Hashad

Last Sunday's edition of Wolf Blitzer's CNN program, “The Situation Room,” yielded one of the most groan-inducing moments in recent news media coverage of Islam outside of Fox News. It occurred during Blitzer's interview with Fouad Ajami, a professor of Middle East studies at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and a current CNN darling.

In speaking of American intervention in Libya, Ajami opined:

In 20 years…this is the sixth mission of rescue in the Islamic world for a Muslim population that America has undertaken. Let's go over them. Kuwait, 1991, Bosnia, 1995, Kosovo, 1999. The Afghans from the tyranny of the Taliban in 2001. The Iraqis in 2003 and now the Libyans from the tyranny and the murderous regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

It is the American destiny, this is our mission in the world. We may not like it, we may not want to pay the price, we may have a hard time finding to whom do we hand over? But…in many ways, this has been the American mission and the American destiny in the world.

BLITZER: Well, how do you explain, Fouad, then if the United States has intervened six times to help Muslims, as you point out correctly, over the past 20 years, there's so much anger toward the United States in so many Muslim and Arab countries?

AJAMI: Well, there is hypocrisy in that broad swath of the world aplenty. I mean you see people saying they hate America and they want to send their kids to Johns Hopkins and to Princeton. You see people…professing anti-Americanism and yet when the chips are down and when people are in trouble, they don't call the Arab League, they call General Kimmitt, they call the United States Air Force.

They call upon America because they understand that the American mission in the world is mercy. And it is not because people have oil that we go covet their oil… It's really about this need for American protection in the world. People need American protection and they complain about the protector. It's the nature of the world in which we live.

CNN is seldom accused of being highbrow, but this “Why-do-Muslims-hate-us-when-we-are-so-good-to-them?” storyline was unabashed pandering to the ignorance and fear of that segment of the news media audience that has no interest in learning about Muslims or the real consequences of American military-industrial consumerism in a globalized world. It is inexcusable that Blitzer would leave unchallenged any contributor, Muslim or not, who essentially asserted that, like an irrational teen, the Muslim world foolishly rebels against its wise and well-intentioned parent, the United States. And if Blitzer was so lost in his own misinformed imagination that he missed this obvious opening for some real hard-nosed journalism, a producer should have been pushing him for appropriate followup in his ear-piece.

This adherence to the simplistic and inherently false narrative that the U.S. acts as a disinterested, charitable protector of the Muslim world would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. On the one hand, it perpetuates an insular, un-self-critical view of American exceptionalism and, on the other, a blindness to the aspirations, capabilities and complexities–indeed, the human-ness–of the people who constitute the Muslim world.

If nothing else, the ongoing series of uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa illustrate the basic truth that the people of these countries want the same fundamental elements of a decent life as anyone, including Americans. They want to free themselves from tyranny and live in a stable society where they have economic opportunity that isn't bound by the constraints of civil and political repression.
 
Spectacular for its blinkered assumptions, the Blitzer-Ajami exchange is also striking because it occurred on the same day that news broke (but not on “The Situation Room”) about further photographic evidence of U.S. soldiers' abuses in Afghanistan. In echoes of the Abu Ghraib scandal, American troops jubilantly posed for photos with the bodies of dead Afghans. The discovery occurred as part of a continuing war-crimes investigation in which five soldiers have already been charged with murder.

With headlines like “German news group runs photos of U.S. soldiers with Afghan corpse” and “Der Spiegel publishes photos of U.S. soldiers with slain Afghan,” the story as it played in the States was less about the weighty issues of violence and hubris and more about the fact that a foreign news agency ran photos that disrupted our preferred narrative. When an oblivious fantasy is passed off as news analysis on CNN, that narrative is in serious need of disruption.

Dalia Hashad is an attorney specializing in human rights and civil rights. She has also been a host and co-executive producer of “Law and Disorder,” a weekly talk-radio program.

by Kevin Healey

In his New York Times op-ed on Friday, Nicholas Kristof suggested that while the Japanese government may be guilty of incompetence, the character of the Japanese people is worthy of admiration. After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Kristof notes, “Japan's social fabric never tore.” Presumably, the same resilience will prevail today. The Los Angeles Times likewise praises the Japanese for maintaining their “impeccable manners” even in crisis. As Kristof suggests, “bickering” Americans might learn a thing or two here. Of course, as Kristof admits, that lesson gets complicated very quickly.

The American tradition of religious demagoguery was certainly on display this week, when Glenn Beck suggested that the Japanese crisis might be a message from God. “Hey, you know that stuff we're doing? Not really working out real well,” Beck surmised, thus joining the ranks of Jerry Falwell and Fred Phelps. His remarks were vague on specifics, but Beck's diatribes against individuals and organizations advocating for social justice, and the anti-immigrant rhetoric from his fellow Tea Partiers, indicate whom he thinks should bear the brunt of the blame.

One might prefer, with Kristof, that our public figures adopt the Japanese attitude of “shikata ga nai,” which means “it can't be helped.” Medical doctors suggest this attitude is especially helpful during times of crisis, since it alleviates feelings of failure and curbs the tendency to place blame.

But let's not overlook Japan's own history of nationalist bigotry. After the 1923 Tokyo earthquake, rumors that Korean immigrants were “poisoning wells and committing arson” sparked a massacre. In April 2000, Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara evoked those memories by claiming that “[a]trocious crimes have been committed again and again by sangokujin and other foreigners. We can expect them to riot in the event of a disastrous earthquake.” The derogatory term “sangokujin” refers to residents from the former colonies of Korea and Taiwan. Governor Ishihara, described as “a devotee of the Shinto religion and… a right wing nationalist,” raised eyebrows again on Monday. “The character of the Japanese people is selfish,” Ishihara said, adding, “The Japanese people must take advantage of this tsunami to wash away their selfish greed. I really do think this is divine punishment.”

An ocean apart, the Ishihara's comments sound remarkably like Beck's. Like the tsunami following Friday's earthquake, religious demagoguery heeds no boundaries. But there are differences. While Ishihara's views are unpopular in Japan, Beck's may resonate more widely among American Christians.

The upshot for journalists? While news media coverage asks whether the U.S. is technologically and organizationally prepared for crisis, our understanding of the “culture of preparedness” should include a spiritual dimension. Kristof's op-ed, and today's coverage from NPR, point in the right direction. Japanese traditions help victims move “beyond the 'Why'” by focusing on how to proceed. By contrast, in the American religious context it may be precisely the capacity to dwell in the uncertainty of an unanswerable “Why?” that sustains compassion in the face of disaster.

In assessing the cultural preparedness of the U.S., journalists might consider Americans' willingness to embrace existential doubt, rather reactionary dogma, as the hallmark of authentic faith. That may be the key that allows many Americans-of-faith to move beyond the scapegoating question, “Who is to blame for God's wrath?”

Kevin Healey received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Communications Research at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His dissertation is titled “The Spirit of Networks: New Media and the Changing Role of Religion in American Public Life.” Kevin's research on media and religion appears in Journal of Mass Media Ethics, Cultural Studies<=>Critical Methodologies, and Symbolic Interaction.

by J. Terry Todd

It's been a tough couple of weeks at NPR. The conservative video-sting operation that brought down ACORN and threatened Planned Parenthood has now turned its attention to public broadcasting. Video-punker James O'Keefe, a self-described “investigative journalist” whose organization Project Veritas is in the business of “creating modern-day muckrakers,” scammed Ronald Schiller, NPR's Senior Vice-President for Development. O'Keefe orchestrated a meeting between Schiller and a Project Veritas team posing as two money-toting Muslims, eager to dole out $5 million as part of their efforts to “spread the acceptance of Sharia across the world.” 

With a hidden video cam rolling, Schiller railed against the Tea Party and House Republicans, and even said NPR might be better off without government money.  A political and public relations ruckus ensued, leading to Schiller's firing as well as the sacking of NPR's President, Vivian Schiller (no relation). This drama followed quickly on the heels of a House vote to zero-out federal funding for public broadcasting.

Some historical perspective is essential to understand why this issue is political dynamite, and what religion has to do with it. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created as a Great Society program in 1967, and to many of its opponents it has always seemed like a socialist enterprise. Public broadcasting meant the government was sitting in your TV room and teaching your children. The Nanny State indeed!

In 1969, with war raging in Vietnam, the Rev. Fred Rogers made his way to Capitol Hill to testify against President Nixon's proposed cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Nixon planned to gut the CPB and the Public Broadcasting System because they opposed his Presidency and the war effort. Or so Nixon believed. The star witness for public broadcasting's defense was Rogers, a Presbyterian minister from Pittsburgh better known for his role as Mr. Rogers on PBS's premiere children's show, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.

In a legendary appearance before a Senate sub-committee, Rev. Rogers pleaded for funding, using the emotional needs of children as his main talking point.  The tough-talking chairman, Rhode Island Democrat Sen. John Pastore, was convinced, telling Rogers, “Looks like you just earned the $20 million.”

Rogers' soothing words may have won the battle, but the war was far from over. Calls for ending public broadcasting have been a right-wing mantra for over 40 years now, binding an uneasy coalition of small-government libertarians of the Cato Institute variety, conservative watch-dog groups like Accuracy in Media and Christian fellow-travelers of the American Family Association. For Christian Right groups with a dog in this fight, Rogers' blend of liberal Protestant piety and child-centered perspectives – “I like you just the way you are” – ran head-long into an opposing ideology better represented by James Dobson's wildly influential 1970 book Dare to Discipline that advocated, among other things, reviving the practice of spanking children.

After surviving threatened cuts during the Reagan years because of its supposed liberal bias, public broadcasting ran into its most potent resistance during the “culture wars” of the 1990s. Specifically, it was the specter of homosexuality that mobilized the Christian Right's determined opposition.  

After years of silence on the issue of sexual orientation, in the 1990s PBS aired a number of imaginative programs dealing with gay content. First there was the American Playhouse adaption of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, then “Tongues Untied,” Marlon Riggs' meditation on being black and gay in the U.S., followed by “Serving in Silence,” the story of Marine Colonel Grethe Cammermeyer's coming out. These programs generated a furious backlash, with stepped-up demands to end federal funding of public broadcasting as well as the Legal Services Corporation and the Department of Education.

A correlate to the pro-gay charge was that NPR and PBS were anti-Christian. In 1998, the Southern Baptist Convention demanded that PBS end its “religious bigotry” or face the threat of Baptist lobbying to end federal funding.

This long history suggests that fresh calls for an end to funding for public broadcasting might very well be little more than political theater. Still, it's important to see the game for what it is. As the past shows, political posturing over public broadcasting always involves questions about whose stories should be included in the panorama of American life–and whose shouldn't. In a post-9/11 world, that means that Muslims as well as gay people stand uneasily in the klieg lights. A coincidence, perhaps, that Project Veritas leaked its PBS tapes the same week that the House Homeland Security Committee began its investigation of Muslim “radicalization”? 

Where is Mister Rogers when public broadcasting needs him most?

* * * * * *

J. Terry Todd is Associate Professor of American Religious Studies at Drew University. The author of many articles on religion in 20th-century America, Terry is especially interested in religious conflicts over family life and sexuality, and how Christian ideas and practices shape U.S. politics and mass media.

by Salman Hameed

An Imam at a mosque in London is facing death-threats in response to his support for evolution and his liberal views on hijab. The imam in question, Dr. Usama Hasan, is the vice-chairman at Leyton Mosque and also a senior lecturer in engineering at Middlesex University. Under intense pressure, Dr. Hasan later retracted some of his statements – both about human evolution and hijab.

I first heard about the controversy a few weeks ago. At the time, most newspapers had not picked up on the story, and I was dreading how it would eventually play out in Western news media. On the one hand, there is no question about the need for a strong condemnation of tactics of intimidation when freedom of thought and speech are at stake. At the same time, framing the story as another instance of religion's–specifically Islam's–hostility to science would oversimplify the debate.

Indeed, the headlines read “London imam subjected to death threats over his support for evolution” from the Guardian, “Scientist imam threatened over Darwinist views” from the Independent, and “Imam who believes in evolution retracts statements” from the BBC. All of these headlines are accurate – but in the narrowness of their focus, they basically serve to goose the prejudices of readers who are already inclined to be fearful or hostile toward Islam.

What would a broader perspective reveal? First, there is no “official” position in Islam on evolution, and in fact there are diverse opinions on the matter in Muslim communities throughout the world. To be sure, there are many Muslims who reject evolution – but there are others who have found ways to reconcile Darwin's theories with their faith. Evolution is included in biology textbooks in places like Iran, Turkey and Pakistan (see a recent article on evolution education here). For some Muslim communities in Europe, however, the rejection of evolution has become an identity marker, just like the issue of hijab, and the controversy at Leyton Mosque must also be seen within this context.

Second, journalists should question why they and their readers might be surprised to realize that schoolchildren in Tehran learn about The Origin of Species. Who profits, in one way or another, from keeping us ignorant about Islam and the complex relationship between science and faith? Anti-Muslim websites like Jihad Watch were quick to pick up the story, which several commenters saw as a validation of their anti-immigration stances. At Pharyngula, a popular science blog, P.Z. Myers wielded an even broader brush, declaring, “Religion is toxic. Here is a case in London in which both the acute and the chronic poison are in clear view.”

A death-threat against an imam for his scientific views is indeed a news story, but it's also yet another occasion for journalists to reflect on how Islam is covered and whether the warfare thesis is really the best way to approach the complex relationship between science and faith. Muslims have diverse views on evolution, and this particular episode is news not just because of the sensationalism of a death-threat but also because hostility toward science is a relative oddity within the Muslim context. That's an important datum that has been left out of the equation. From time to time, it's good for journalists to tweak their audiences' assumptions rather than cater to them.

Salman Hameed is an assistant professor of integrated science and humanities at Hampshire College. His primary research focuses on understanding the rise of creationism in the Islamic world and how Muslims view the relationship between science and religion. He is currently the lead investigator of a three-year NSF-funded study on this topic, and heads the Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies (SSiMS) at Hampshire. He blogs at Irtiqa.
 

by Richard Flory

Several recent reports suggest that the evangelical Christian world, as we have come to know it over the last 30 years, may be changing forever. Much has been written since the last presidential election about the rise of a new consciousness among young people, including evangelical young people, many of whom supported of Barack Obama in 2008.

More recently, however, reports of younger evangelicals suggest that they have a distinctly different perspective than their elders on such issues as gay identity and marriage, the environment, how to address poverty and other social justice issues. As writers for the New York Times and TransMissions have reported, they are even, apparently, arguing against a traditional conception of hell. While it is not exactly clear the extent to which these beliefs are really a part of the world view of younger evangelicals, or how they may translate into different forms of social action, they do suggest that important changes are unfolding within a important sector of American society.

On the surface, all of this may seem like so much intramural conflict. Why should the rest of the American population, let alone journalists, care about inter-generational tensions within evangelical Christianity? First, evangelical Christians represent a significant percentage of the American population—of all adults in the U.S., 26 percent are affiliated with evangelical churches. Second, and perhaps more importantly, since the late 1970s this influential cohort has consistently been a potent conservative political and cultural force in American public life. So any evolution in the outlook of American evangelicals bears watching.

There are several angles that reporters might pursue, starting with whether the theological reorientation of charismatic leaders like Rob Bell really represents a broad trend within evangelicalism (or are they getting attention because they're savvy about self-promotion and the usefulness of pushing their opponents' buttons). Further, reporters need to ask not only how many younger evangelicals there are who support a more progressive interpretation of the Gospel, but what influence they might actually have on politics and culture. For example, what might these changes mean for key evangelical institutions such as churches, colleges and seminaries? John Thune and Mike Huckabee, two potential Republican presidential candidates, are products of evangelical schools. Will these institutions support changes in scriptural interpretation and social ethics, or will they maintain their traditional role of working to keep young evangelicals within the range of acceptable beliefs and practices?

And what might all of this portend for the future of evangelicals as a reliable block of conservative voters? Will they continue to support mainly private solutions to social problems and oppose progressive social and cultural change, or will younger, socially engaged evangelicals alter the character of both conservatism and progressivism?

Ultimately, only time will tell. But in the meantime, there are many lines of inquiry that reporters can pursue to help us understand whether and how younger evangelicals represent new wine in old wineskins. Or whether they are just the same vintage in a shiny new bottle.

Richard Flory is associate research professor of sociology and senior research associate in the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He is the co-author of Growing Up in America: The Power of Race in the Lives of Teens (Stanford, 2010) and Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation (Rutgers, 2008).