10 hot story ideas for summer

Posted on May 30th, 2006

Faith and African-American family reunions

Religion permeates black family reunions, which are expanding in size, number and scope as popular ways to bring together far-flung extended families to preserve family history and culture. Worship, praise and spiritual expression through music, prayer, speeches and testimonies are often central to these events. Three-day reunions typically culminate in a Sunday worship service, which is often led by a minister who is a family member. At big events like ballroom parties, faith often plays a role as individuals express what is in their hearts.

Sociologist Ione Vargus, professor emeritus of Temple University and an authority on black family reunions, has traced the family pull to extended African kinship networks disrupted by slavery. Before civil rights, with black families shut out of public institutions, family networks served many social-service functions. Black churches were the center of these tight, family based communities.

Many reunions are still held in conjunction with church homecomings and revivals, says Stephen Criswell, visiting assistant professor of English and native American studies at the University of South Carolina-Lancaster. Both events developed in agricultural communities where summer offered farming families the time and opportunity to gather with family and friends, and both drew home family members who left the South as part of the great migration, he says. In addition to Christianity, a sense of spirituality permeates reunions when ancestors are evoked in memory or directly as spirits who are, in one form or another, present at the reunion, he says.

ANGLES
• Find how expressions of faith are included in reunions and ask participants to talk about how faith and family work together in their lives. Focus an article on a religious service included in a reunion.
• Transmitting social values to younger generations is a big impetus for reunions. Ask elders and youngsters how formal and informal expressions of faith help in this work.
• Vargus’ reunion research found plenty of religious diversity, including participants who were Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, nondenominational, African-centered and agnostic. Write about the diversity – the richness and the tensions it can bring – within one family.
• With black families tracing their line to plantations, descendants of plantation owners now are being invited to some reunions, adding rich complications of tension, forgiveness and curiosity, to name a few. Consider exploring what faith brings to these intriguing meetings.
• Big-city business and convention bureaus often assist the planners of family reunions and may be resources for articles.

SOURCES
• Stephen Criswell, visiting assistant professor of English and native American studies at the University of South Carolina-Lancaster, has researched the sociology of black family reunions. Contact 803-313-7108, criswese@gwm.sc.edu.
• Contact Ione Vargus through the Family Reunion Institute at Temple University, 215-204-6244. Read Vargus’ 2002 working paper, “More Than a Picnic: African American Family Reunions,” at the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life.
• Lonnie G. Bunch is founding director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. He formerly directed the Chicago Historical Society. Contact 202-633-1000.
• Read “The Family Reunion Trip: It’s All Relatives,” a Jan. 8, 2006, Washington Post article about black family reunions.
• Read “It’s a Family Affair: The family reunion is a mainstay in black culture,” an undated MSN Lifestyle article. It says that in 2002, Ebony magazine estimated that 45 percent of African-American travel was associated with a family reunion.
• Read Ebony magazine’s May 2002 article “Black family reunions: professionals tell how to organize the best event ever.”
• The National Council of Negro Women’s annual National Black Family Reunion Celebration is Sept. 9-10, 2006, at the Washington National Mall. A “spirituality pavilion” will be one of numerous themed areas, including economics, children’s health, sports and fitness, fathers and brothers and family values. Contact marketing coordinator Norvelle Jackson, 202-383-9130, njackson@ncnw.org.
• The African American Genealogist’s Family Reunion Primer has a message board that reporters can use to find sources for stories.
• Find black family reunion planners in your region through the National Coalition of Black Meeting Planners.

Spirituality on the silver screen

Despite dismal reviews, The Da Vinci Code is the most likely candidate for the biggest religion-related flick of the summer, but there’s more spirituality on the way in a wide range of films. They touch on spirituality through themes (connection, sacrifice, redemption and reconciliation), settings and characters. Each offers an opportunity to explore the ways entertainment reflects and shapes the culture:
• X-Men: The Last Stand (May 26): Bigotry against mutant humans continues with a proposed “cure,” while self-sacrificing Jean Grey returns from the dead with overwhelming powers – and temptations.
• The Omen (June 6): The Antichrist arrives in the form of a small boy, in a remake of the 1976 classic. Note the release date: 06-06-06. See ReligionLink’s 2005 tip on the Apocalypse and a 2003 tip on Satan.
• Nacho Libre (June 16): A cook who works at the monastery-run Mexican orphanage where he grew up works as a wrestler to raise funds for the orphans – and capture the heart of a nun.
• Click (June 23): A husband and father gains godlike control of his universe with a very special remote control.
• Superman Returns (June 30): The Man of Steel – raised among human beings but not one of them – comes back to Earth after several unexplained years. Read a 2002 Journal of Religion and Film article about Superman as a Christ-like figure.
• Lady in the Water (July 21): The fates of an apartment building’s manager and tenants are tied to a bedtime story character who is trying to return to her own world.
• World Trade Center (Aug. 9) – Oliver Stone directed this epic, which is sure to raise religious issues, as the actual attacks did.

SOURCES
• For Da Vinci Code resources, see ReligionLink’s March 13, 2006, tip.
• See ReligionLink’s guide to experts on religion and pop culture.
• Greg Garrett is an English professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, and author of Holy Superheroes! (NavPress, 2006) and co-author of The Gospel Reloaded: Exploring Spirituality and Faith in “The Matrix” (Pinon Press, 2003). Contact 254-710-6879, Greg_Garrett@baylor.edu.
• Amir Hussain is a professor in the religious studies department at California State University, Northridge, but during the 2005-06 academic year, he is teaching in the theological studies department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He teaches courses on Islam and religion and film. Contact 310-338-5987, amir.hussain@lmu.edu.
• Roy Anker is a professor of English at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., and author of Catching Light: Looking for God in the Movies (Eerdmans, 2004). Contact 616-526-6530, anker@calvin.edu.

Hot enough for ya?

Sure, summer is supposed to be hot, but many environmentalists say not this hot! People of faith who are concerned about global warming are speaking up with added urgency because of the record-breaking hurricane season. Many scientists linked 2005’s seven major storms to the slow heating of the atmosphere. If global warming isn’t controlled, some religious leaders say, the suffering of the poor – who are usually the hardest-hit victims of storms, pollution and drought – will grow. The National Hurricane Center predicts that at least four major hurricanes – of Katrina strength or greater – will develop in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico during the new hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Sept. 1. The religious environmental movement has grown in the last year to include evangelical leadership as well as a widening array of faiths. Grass-roots and national groups now include Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and others – sometimes alongside secular groups.

SOURCES
• See ReligionLink’s “Hurricanes spawn talk of ties between religion, environment” (Sept. 23, 2005) for background and sources.
• Paul Gorman is the founder and executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment in Amherst, Mass. Its four founding partners are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Evangelical Environmental Network, the National Council of Churches and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. Last year, the group launched a three-year climate change initiative that includes goals in energy conservation, fuel economy and clean air. This summer, the partnership plans to refine these programs, which are expected to include mailings and educational materials for 100,000 congregations and interfaith climate and energy campaigns in 15 states. Contact 413-253-1515, nrpe@nrpe.org.
• Barbara Lerman-Golomb is acting director of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life in New York City. The coalition has been concentrating on fuel economy and climate change. Contact 212-532-7801.
The Rev. Jim Ball is executive director of the Evangelical Environmental Network. In February it launched the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which was signed by 86 evangelical leaders committed to reducing global warming. This summer it plans to launch a Young Evangelicals Leaders Climate Initiative on college campuses. Contact een@creationcare.org.
• Kenneth Kraft is a professor of religious studies at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., where he teaches about Buddhism and ecology. He says the Buddhist environmental movement is growing, and he notes that a May 2006 symposium titled “Healing and Buddhism: Self, Community, Planet” in Rochester, N.Y., drew 450 people. Contact 610-758-3370, klk2@lehigh.edu.
• Stop Global Warming describes itself as a secular, non-political grassroots organization working to, ahem, stop global warming, The group has started a “virtual march” to effect that change, and it has been joined by more than 300,000 people, including a number of religious leaders. Among them are the Rev. Paul Mayer, the Rev. William Sinkford and Rabbi David Saperstein. Contact Mayer at paulmayer1@myexcel.com, Sinkford at 617-948-4302 and Saperstein at 202-387-2800, rac@uahc.org.
• Read a Feb. 8, 2006, New York Times article about the Evangelical Climate Initiative, posted on the Common Dreams web site.

Love and marriage … or not

Summer, and especially June, is traditionally known as wedding season. Several trends, though, are changing marriage traditions, and that, in turn, affects houses of worship:
• The marriage rate is declining as more Americans are choosing to live together. The marriage rate has dropped nearly 50 percent since 1970, from 76.5 per 1,000 unmarried women to 39.9, according to The State of Our Unions: 2005, a report from the National Marriage Project.
• Couples who do marry are increasingly choosing a civil ceremony over a religious service, for a variety of reasons: because a faith tradition does not approve of some aspect of their relationship, because of a sense of individual spirituality, because the couple does not consider religion important, or because the couple or their families are from different faiths. A 2005 Catholic News Service story found a steep decline in church-sanctioned marriages, even as the number of Catholics has grown. There are no national statistics on civil marriage rates, but 18 states have collected data, according to this Oct. 6, 2003, USA Today article. Does yours?
• The rise of “do-it-yourself” ministers – men or women who go through an easy and inexpensive certification process to become eligible to preside at a wedding – has taken marriage out of the realm of traditional denominations. Now a bride and groom who want a “religious” ceremony – when and where and how they like – can have a friend or relative serve as the ad hoc minister by getting credentials from organizations such as SpiritualHumanism.org or Universal Life Church, which says it has ordained more than 20 million ministers since 1959. A popular basic ordination kit costs $24.99, but an entire wedding kit costs $149.

What effect are these trends having on clergy and houses of worship? Are pastors doing more to accommodate the desires of couples who want to marry so they will choose a religious service? Or are they drawing the line? Is the battle over same-sex marriage drawing attention away from the larger crisis of marriage, as some believe?
• The Alternatives to Marriage Project (AtMP), which bills itself as “a national nonprofit organization advocating for equality and fairness for unmarried people, including people who choose not to marry, cannot marry, or live together before marriage,” offers a number of useful resources, including a roundup of statistics.
• ReligionLink also has a number of tips on marriage issues. A good starting point is “A guide to covering marriage issues.”

Like a controversy: Madonna ignites more religious outrage

Madonna has sparked a new controversy. Granted, that’s not exactly news of the man-bites-dog variety, but for the past few years the Material Girl has been concentrating on her music, family, spiritual growth through Kabbalah and dabbling in social and political issues. But with the launch of her new summer tour, the singer is again outraging religious groups by “crucifying” herself on a mirrored cross, wearing a crown of thorns no less, onstage at her concerts. This latest Madonna controversy once again points out how popular culture and religion intersect in America. Summer, when entertainment media reigns, is a great time to explore what influence celebrities and pop culture have on religion. Do people – and particularly young people — take cues from celebrities, books, music, video games and movies? How do youth respond to celebrities who mock religion, as opposed to celebrities, such as Bono, who say they draw on faith to campaign against poverty and for other issues? When celebrities talk about religion, do youth pay attention only when it applies to their own faith tradition, or do they learn about other faith traditions through pop culture? Do religious leaders say pop culture provides a forum for discussion within faith communities, or do they feel like they are losing the battle of morals and values?

SOURCES
• See ReligionLink’s guide to experts on religion and pop culture.
• Read a May 22, 2006, San Jose Mercury News article on the latest Madonna controversy.
• Timothy K. Beal is a director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He co-edited the book Mel Gibson’s Bible: Religion, Popular Culture, and “The Passion of the Christ” (University of Chicago Press, 2005). Contact 216-368-2221, tkb5@case.edu.
• Quentin J. Schultze is a professor of faith and communication at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. He wrote the article “Touched by Angels and Demons: Religion’s Love-Hate Relationship with Popular Culture” for the book Religion and Popular Culture: Studies on the Interactions of Worldviews (Iowa State University Press, 2001). Contact 616-526-6290, schu@calvin.edu.
• M. Colleen McDannell is a professor of history at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. She has studied the relationship between religion and popular culture. Contact 801-581-4748, Colleen.mcD@utah.edu.

On a mission: hurricane relief

Relief organizations are putting out the word: Rebuilding areas of the Gulf Coast and Florida strafed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita will take years. They are getting more specific about where and how to help, and often mission trips taken by faith-based groups are providing the heart and muscle. Summer is a big time for mission trips – both for youth groups and for multigenerational teams including retirees, single people, teenagers and parents. This year, many groups will travel to Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, sleeping in tents or on church floors. Some will go farther from home – traveling to Mexico, Latin America or the Caribbean, where they’ll build houses, install water purification systems, see firsthand what poverty can mean. Often those who go on mission trips say they are overwhelmed by the love and faith with which they are greeted. They say whatever they contribute in time and sweat, they get much more in return.

SOURCES
• Check the disaster assistance sections of web sites of denominations and of community service groups for the latest on hurricane relief efforts. Contact denominational offices and personnel in the hurricane region to find out how many and what kind of mission trips are planned for summer; national offices can help you track them down. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention has organized an effort to provide 50,000 volunteers in the New Orleans area through “Operation Noah Rebuild” – read an April 28, 2006, story from Baptist Press. The web sites often include information on which congregations are sending volunteers and provide on-the-ground contacts in the relief areas. The Disaster News Network web site has an interactive map with links to disaster recovery efforts around the country.
• Think interfaith and intergenerational. The relief effort often mixes volunteers from different places, ages and faiths – united by hammers and a common goal of helping. Read a March 31, 2006, story from the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California about a trip to Gulfport, Miss., jointly taken by volunteers from a Presbyterian congregation from Tiburon and a nearby Jewish synagogue.
• Although Katrina blasted her way into the nation’s attention, some groups continue to volunteer in Florida to rebuild after the devastation inflicted by a string of hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. Read an account of a trip to Port Charlotte, Fla., written by a volunteer from First Congregational Church in Ridgefield, Conn., and posted on the Disaster News Network web site.
• As popular as short-term mission trips are, some are discussing how much bang for the buck they really produce. Read a July 2005 e-mail conversation from the Christianity Today web site with Kurt Ver Beek, an assistant professor of sociology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., and director of Calvin’s program in Honduras. Ver Beek has published a study about whether short-term mission trips to Honduras after Hurricane Mitch produced long-term results. Contact kverbeek@calvin.edu.

New faces in the pulpit

May and June will see changes in Catholic pulpits as many current priests take up new posts and more than 400 new priests join their ranks at ordination Masses across the country. The new ordinands are becoming priests after years of intensive prayer and study, but most will hardly have time to catch their breath. They will be assigned right away to parish work, which is more taxing than ever because the overall number of priests continues to decline. Moreover, they are entering the priesthood when the clerical sexual abuse scandal has cast a harsh light on their vocation. The move from the seminary to the altar will be a sudden transition for many of them and will come during the summertime, when congregations thin out and many older pastors go on vacation. How will they fare? How will the congregants fare?

SOURCES
• The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has data showing trends among the new ordinands that provide interesting story lines. For example, these new priests will be significantly older on average than previous classes, and more – nearly a third – are foreign-born. The source of the USCCB statistics is the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University in Washington.
• ReligionLink has published a number of tips on Roman Catholicism that provide experts and resources on clergy issues.

Teens: time for volunteering?

Teens have time on their hands in the summer, particularly if they can’t find a job. Some turn to volunteering as a way to enhance their resume, fulfill school requirements, live out their faith or values, or as a way to fill time. In the process, experts say, they may develop a lifelong habit of giving to others and discover that such service involves its own kind of rewards. Studies show that people who volunteer in their youth are more likely to volunteer as adults and that teens who are a part of religious communities are more likely to volunteer than those who are not. Track down teens who are volunteering this summer and interview them at the beginning and the end of summer to find out what they learned and how their experience changed them.

SOURCES
• Find experts in volunteerism in ReligionLink’s issue, “Crises highlight the need for volunteer management” (Sept. 12, 2005).
• “Attitudes, Politics and Public Service: A Survey of American College Students,” published in May 2004 by the Leon and Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, interviewed 800 college students about their attitudes toward public and volunteer service, politics and more. Fifty-three percent said they had volunteered in their communities, a drop from 2001, when 68 percent said they did. Volunteering in community or public service, on average, ranked at the bottom of the list of students’ personal goals. Students who did volunteer said it made them feel better about themselves, enhanced their understanding of public issues and increased their tolerance or changed their views on people of different racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds.
• “OMG! How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era” — a survey of almost 1,400 youth ages 18 to 25 that included Christian, Muslim and Jewish youth and a mix of races and ethnicities – explored attitudes about faith, politics and volunteer service. It found a “strong and intimate” connection between religious faith and volunteerism. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed volunteered in their community in the last year, but only 14 percent did so regularly. The 2004 survey was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.
• Seventy percent of teens who volunteer began doing so before age 12, according to a 2003 poll for Youth Service America. More would volunteer if opportunities were presented to them, the survey found. See news release.
• A 2002 Kennedy School of Government survey found that the “habit” of volunteerism is often instilled in high school.

A grand old debate: patriotism and religion

Flag Day is June 14, and the Fourth of July follows less than three weeks later. Celebrations of both will be encouraged and observed in churches across the country. Patriotism and religion have had a complex relationship since the beginnings of our country. That relationship is even more complex in a time of war, and particularly in a time of divided opinions about war. The same is true when the country is embroiled in debates over immigration. In many sanctuaries, flags will be waved and patriotic songs sung alongside hymns. In others, Flag Day and July Fourth will barely merit a mention. In many more, prayers will be offered seeking guidance for the political leaders of our country, protection for our armed forces and comfort for all those whose lives are devastated by war. Religion and patriotism is an emotional and divisive topic in a country where court rulings on the “Under God” clause in the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools have provoked years of debate and outcry. This year, divided opinions over the war in Iraq and over immigration offer an especially good opportunity to explore what patriotism means for people of faith and how they handle differences in opinion over it. Consider interviewing people with different opinions about the war or immigration, of different religious traditions (various Christian traditions, various ethnicities, Jews, Muslims and more) and life circumstances (military families, families directly affected by 9/11, immigrant families, etc.) about how they are expressing their love of country this year.

SOURCES
• Read “Can Churches Celebrate Both God and Country?,” a 2005 Religion News Service story posted by Beliefnet.
• For interview sources, see ReligionLink’s guide to church-state experts and organizations.
• PollingReport.com posts recent opinion polls on Americans’ attitudes toward the war in Iraq and President Bush’s handling of it.

Books for the beach – and tapes for the car

For the past few years, religion has been a hot publishing subject, and summer brings with it time to read on the beach – or wherever else vacations are taking place. A few topics have sold strongly this year, attracting readers and writers. What’s popular with readers in your area, and why? What are they learning, and how is it changing their beliefs or opinions?

SOURCES
• Politics: 2006 is an election year, and the role of faith in politics continues to kick up lots of dust on both sides of the aisle. A crop of new and recent books — The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right by Michael Lerner (HarperSanFrancisco, 2006) and What Jesus Meant by Garry Wills (Viking, 2006) — offer critiques from politically liberal perspectives. Popular conservative pundit Ann Coulter’s new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, 2006), also wades directly into the culture wars.
• Da Vinci: Published in 2003 and a best-seller list fixture since then, Dan Brown’s blockbuster thriller The Da Vinci Code has spawned keys, refutations, thriller novels about art and church history, and even travel guides, which may come in handy for summer vacationers. Amazon.com has a Da Vinci Code store, as does the online Barnes & Noble. The movie that opened May 19 has fueled this phenomenon even more.
• Fiction: The typical big book in the typical big beach bag is fiction. The genteel Light from Heaven (Viking, 2005) concluded Jan Karon’s popular Mitford Years series about an Episcopal priest. Historical fiction has also been popular lately.
• Non-Christians: Not everybody reads about Christianity. Books about Islam, for example, have multiplied, as have readers of them, since 2001. Newer books go beyond an Islam 101 for Americans, with more nuanced reporting and varied viewpoints. Mark Bowden’s just-published Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War With Militant Islam (Atlantic Monthly, 2006) has already made the best-seller list.

BACKGROUND
• The online The Book Standard lists 2005 best sellers.
• The trade magazine Publishers Weekly breaks out hardcover and paperback religion best sellers monthly.
• Other religion best-seller lists: Amazon.com; best sellers in the evangelical Christian market, tabulated monthly by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.

10 hot story ideas for summer

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