It’s a new year and that means new stories — or at least new looks at ongoing stories. Here are some topics for religion reporters to watch in 2016. Few of these are traditional religion stories; most are broader national and international issues with religion angles.
Background
Several religion news organizations and pundits did a year-in-review for 2015 and a few even glanced ahead:
- Religion News Service — Editor-in-chief Jerome Socolovsky took a look back at 2015 and made some predictions for the year ahead.
- Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly — The Dec. 30, 2015, episode of this Public Broadcasting System national broadcast rounded up three religion journalists to forecast holy hot spots of 2016.
- Canon and Culture — This project of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission reviewed 2015’s most important legal cases involving religious liberty. The review was written by Andrew Walker and posted Dec. 28, 2015.
- Religion Dispatches — Richard Flory, senior director of research and evaluation at the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, pegged five stories about American Christianity to watch in 2016.
The elections
Presidential elections are always rife with religious rhetoric, posturing and pandering and 2016 promises to be no different — with a few twists:
EVANGELICALS: Some analysts said evangelicals “imploded” during the 2012 election, despite turning out in high numbers for Romney — 79 percent by some counts. Current Republican candidates are now bending over backward to reach evangelicals, and Franklin Graham, founder of Samaritan’s Purse charities and son of evangelical superstar Billy Graham, has launched a national effort to organize the evangelical Christian vote. Marco Rubio is going full-frontal faith with his new campaign ad for Iowa.
National sources:
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Leith Anderson
The Rev. Leith Anderson is president of the National Association of Evangelicals and the former senior pastor of Wooddale Church in Eden Prairie, Minn.
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J. Budziszewski
J. Budziszewski is a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and a fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of Evangelicals in the Public Square: Four Formative Voices on Political Thought and Action, in which he suggests that evangelicals could enhance their political clout if they could learn to draw on the broader lexicon of natural law to justify their public policy proposals.
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D. Michael Lindsay
D. Michael Lindsay is a sociologist and the president of Gordon College, a Christian school in Wenham, Mass. His focus is on issues surrounding leadership, organizations and culture. He is a former Gallup consultant with an expertise on research about evangelicals. Lindsay is author of the 2007 book Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite and the 2014 book View From the Top: An Inside Look at How People in Power See and Shape the World.
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Russell Moore
Russell Moore is editor-in-chief of Christianity Today. Named in 2017 as one of Politico Magazine’s top fifty influence-makers in Washington, Moore was previously President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
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Grant Wacker
Grant Wacker is professor emeritus of Christian history at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, N.C. He specializes in the history of evangelicalism, Pentecostalism and world missions and is the author of Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture.
MUSLIMS: Islam in America is becoming an election issue, thanks largely to the heated rhetoric of Donald Trump. Look for candidates to be asked about Muslims in America — both those born here and those who have migrated here — throughout the election. And look for Islamic leaders and groups to respond.
Related ReligionLink source guide:
Background:
- Listen to “Michigan’s Arab-Americans Respond to Donald Trump’s Anti-Muslim Rhetoric,” broadcast on NPR on Dec. 11, 2015.
- Read “A majority of Republicans in a new poll support Trump’s proposal to bar Muslims from entering the US,” by Mark Abadi writing for Business Insider, Dec. 14, 2015.
National sources:
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Ihsan Bagby
Ihsan Bagby is an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky and an expert in Islam and its history and practice in North America. He is one of the authors of the research report “The American Mosque 2011.”
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Michael Wishnie
Michael Wishnie, a law professor at Yale Law School, has taught a class titled “Balancing Civil Liberties and National Security After Sept. 11.” His human rights law clinic has been honored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
SECULARISTS: Atheists, humanists and other “nones” (as in, having no religious affiliation) are pumped up about their growing numbers. Some secularist groups are working to organize a so-called atheist or secular vote. Will they succeed?
National sources:
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Ronald A. Lindsay
Ronald A. Lindsay is president and CEO of the Council for Secular Humanism, based in Amherst, N.Y.
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David Niose
David Niose is legal director of the American Humanist Association’s Appignani Humanist Legal Center. He previously served as the organization’s president. Niose has written about the growing significance of secular voters.
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David Silverman
David Silverman is president of American Atheists. He co-hosts the TV show Atheist Viewpoint and is the author of Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World. Silverman resides in Piscataway, N.J.
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Roy Speckhardt
Roy Speckhardt is executive director of the American Humanist Association, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that works on behalf of the nontheistic community.
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Phil Zuckerman
Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. He is the author of The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies.
Courts and laws
GAY RIGHTS: Twenty-eight states do not have laws that ban discrimination against LGBTQ people in housing, employment and trade. State legislatures in Indiana, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere are expected to tackle the issue of discrimination based on sexual orientation, and faith groups promise to speak loudly on both sides.
Related ReligionLink source guide:
Background:
- Read “Can States Protect LGBT Rights Without Compromising Religious Freedom?” by Emma Green writing for The Atlantic, Jan. 6, 2016.
National sources:
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American Civil Liberties Union
The ACLU addresses hate speech in its work on free speech, religion, LGBT rights, human rights and racial justice.
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Robert A. Destro
Robert A. Destro is a law professor and founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Law and Religion at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. He is an expert in freedom of religion, constitutional law (separation of powers), international human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association, bioethics, marriage law and civil rights. Destro served as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1983 to 1989.
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National LGBTQ Task Force
The National LGBTQ Task Force organizes and operates the National Religious Leadership Roundtable, a group of leaders from LGBTQ-welcoming faith organizations, and runs the Institute for Welcoming Resources, which works with eight major denominations. It maintains offices in Massachusetts, New York, Minneapolis, Florida and Washington, D.C. Contact Mark Daley.
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Rose Saxe
Rose Saxe is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia Law School in New York and a staff attorney at the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual & Transgender and AIDS Projects. She has worked on issues involving the intersection of civil rights for LGBT people and religious freedom and expression.
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Alan Sears
Alan Sears is president, CEO and general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal alliance based in Scottsdale, Ariz., whose focus is defending religious liberty. The ADF sponsors the Day of Dialogue in schools around the country to “counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective.” It also supported the legislation that would have allowed Arizona business owners to deny services to same-sex couples for religious reasons.
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Traditional Values Coalition
The Traditional Values Coalition in Washington, D.C., is a leading voice in Congress for Bible-based traditional values. The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon is chairman of the organization.
DOCTOR-ASSISTED SUICIDE: Doctor-assisted suicide (or physician-assisted dying) will be a legislative issue in several states in 2016, including a new right-to-die act taking effect in California. Many evangelicals, Catholics and other conservative religious people oppose such laws.
Related ReligionLink source guide:
Background:
- Watch “Death with Dignity,” a segment of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly that aired Jan. 8, 2016.
- Read “The Death Treatment” by Rachel Aviv writing for The New Yorker, June 22, 2015.
- Read “How many people choose assisted suicide where it is legal?” by Sophie Warnes writing for The Guardian, July 18, 2014.
- ProCon.org maintains a page showing which states approve physician-assisted suicide, which do not and which have pending laws.
- Euthanasia.com opposes physician-assisted suicide and maintains a page of religious and medical writings in support of its stance.
National sources:
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Margaret Pabst Battin
Margaret Pabst Battin is a philosophy professor at the University of Utah and a leading figure in the public debate on end-of-life issues. She has written extensively on religious and ethical concerns in physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia and has researched active euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands. Her books include Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die and Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate.
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Lucy Bregman
Lucy Bregman is a religion professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. She researches religion and death and has taught a course on death and dying since 1979.
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Aaron Mackler
Aaron Mackler is an associate professor of theology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and a Conservative rabbi. He has written extensively on health-care ethics, theological ethics and Jewish theology and helped draft reports on physician-assisted suicide and medical decision-making as ethicist for the New York State Task Force on Life and Law.
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Ann Neumann
Ann Neumann is the author of The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America, which is on aid-in-dying issues and religion.
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World Federation of Right to Die Societies
The World Federation of Right to Die Societies links to dozens of right-to-die organizations throughout the world and provides information on the latest developments on the issue.
CONTRACEPTION: The Supreme Court will take up a case involving the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious nonprofits. The sisters — along with several religious universities and one Roman Catholic archdiocese — claim the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that they provide a birth control option for employees violates the employers’ religious beliefs, even with an accommodation.
Related ReligionLink source guide:
Background:
- Read “Little Sisters to Supreme Court: We Cannot Choose Between Our Care for the Poor and Our Faith” by the Catholic News Agency, published in the National Catholic Register on Jan. 7, 2016.
- Read “The Little Sisters of the Poor Are Headed to the Supreme Court” by Emma Green writing for The Atlantic, Nov. 6, 2015.
- Read “Do the Little Sisters of the Poor Have a Case Against Obamacare?,” as examined by Debate Club, a feature of U.S. News & World Report in which experts debate an issue. The feature is undated but appears to be from early 2014.
- Read background on Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell on Scotusblog.com.
National sources:
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Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
The Becket Fund is a public-interest law firm in Washington, D.C., that works to protect the free expression of all religious traditions. Stephanie Keenan handles media inquiries.
Becket Fund attorneys are representing the Little Sisters in their case against Burwell.
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Leslie Griffin
Leslie Griffin is the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, William S. Boyd School of Law. Griffin, who teaches constitutional law, is known for her interdisciplinary work in law and religion. She has written on the role of fundamentalist religion in the modern world, including an article in the Cardozo Law Review in 2003 titled “Fundamentalism From the Perspective of Liberal Tolerance.”
She has written that she thinks the Little Sisters will lose their fight.
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Mark Silk
Mark Silk is director for the Leonard Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Silk is also professor of religion in public life at Trinity. He is particularly knowledgeable about religious variances from one part of the country to another; his books include (as co-author) One Nation, Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics.
He has written that he thinks the Little Sisters will lose.
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Donald B. Verrilli Jr.
Donald B. Verrilli Jr. is an attorney and the solicitor general of the United States. He argued the government’s case in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga before the Supreme Court. Contact via the solicitor general’s office.
He is representing the government in the Little Sisters case.
Muslims in America
The terror attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., and Paris have brought renewed scrutiny to American Muslims. Human rights and other legal organizations say there has been an uptick in crimes against Muslims. And don’t forget Sikhs, who are often mistaken for Muslims and have also suffered attacks and hate crimes. How will these communities — and other faith communities — respond to this new climate of mistrust?
Related ReligionLink source guides:
Background:
- Listen to a Jan. 7, 2016, interview with Harsimram Kaur, legal director of the Sikh Coalition, on NPR’s Here & Now. She says Sikhs are experiencing a rise in discrimination and hate crimes since the San Bernardino attacks.
- Read “Sikh Americans are not Muslims, but they still suffer from Islamophobia” by Haya El Nasser writing for Al-Jazeera America on Dec. 29, 2015.
- Read “American Muslims Under Attack After San Bernardino and Paris Terror” by Liam Stack writing for The New York Times on Dec. 22, 2015.
National sources:
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Anny Bakalian
Anny Bakalian is a researcher at the City University of New York. She co-wrote a book titled Backlash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond, which looks at how ethnic organizations mobilized to demonstrate their commitment to the United States while defending their rights and distancing themselves from the terrorists.
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Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations says it is the largest advocacy group for Muslims in the U.S. It advocates for Muslims on issues related to civil liberties and justice. Contact communications director Ibrahim Hooper in Washington, D.C.
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Charles Kurzman
Charles Kurzman is a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. He is the author of The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists, in which he argues that there are far fewer Islamic terrorists than Americans think.
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David Schanzer
David Schanzer is director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in Durham, N.C. He is also a visiting professor of public policy at Duke University and an adjunct professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina.
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Sikh Coalition
The Sikh Coalition in New York is an advocacy group established by several Sikh groups across the United States after the 9/11 attacks to help protect Sikh civil rights. Nimarta Kaur is the media and communications director.