Unity in Diversity

In an article about interfaith relationships, Cassandra Spratling, reporter for the Chicago Tribune, opened by highlighted a Detroit family. She describes their home of Arnie and Andrea D’Amore-Braver and their two sons as they decorates for both Christmas and Hanukkah with beautiful detail of the “blue-and-white tablecloth imprinted with menorahs” and the “sparkling Christmas lights”, presenting the border between religious faiths which the family straddles through vivid imagery.
Spratling continues to describe the family’s religious situation. She does so, however, with no direct quotes from any one of the four family members, though they are the main sources featured in the article. The fact that not one of them had something newsworthy to say or was willing to speak on the record raises suspicions.
The story has a certain charm to it, emphasizing families, holidays, and a sense of togetherness. The story could have been enhanced by focusing on a family from the Chicago area, making the piece more relatable to Tribune readers. This would be especially effective considering the lack of good journalistic coverage of the D’Amore-Braver family from Michigan. In fact, near the end of the piece another interfaith family, the Chandra’s, is mentioned, using direct quotes, from the surrounding Chicago area. The article could have easily begun with the Chandra’s and lead into the statistics presented about interfaith couples as a whole, rather than begin with a narrow focus which widens to a national scope only to be narrowed again.

A Parodoxal Debate

Like its title, Chicago Tribune reporter Steve Schmadeke’s article, Giant Downstate cross at a crossroads, is full of carefully presented paradoxes. The restoration process of the ten story cross atop Bald Knob Mountain, understood for decades as a symbol of unity, has caused dissention within the surrounding faith community.
Schmadeke highlights the debate, emphasizing the existence of two clear-cut sides: “the founders' descendants—who sold cross-themed goods and held turkey-dinner fundraisers to help pay for the site—against new board members who saw those activities as profane profiteering.” A court settlement reached on Christmas Eve disintegrated the board completely. One the eve of a holiday celebrating unity as made possible by communion with Jesus, a community was dissolved.
Allegations of fraud in fundraising for the restoration of the cross were voiced by new members of the now non-existent board. It is once again ironic that those trying to preserve a universal symbol of truth are being accused of dishonest practices. Schmadeke selects his quotes carefully and intentionally to provide an underlying sense of irony.
Schmadeke also plays up the controversy, using figurative imagery such as “Battles lines were drawn” and “the fight” in reference to the dispute taking place on paper. Whether or not the disagreeing members of the community are as whole-heartedly opposed to each other as Schmadke suggests with his narration is unknown. However, what is obvious is that Schmadke successfully conveys the tension and anxiety presented by the situation.

Day of Prayer: A day of Inclusion or Exclusion?

Manya Brachear, writer for the Chicago Tribune’s online religious blog called The Seeker, invited readers to voice their opinions about the National Day of Prayer. Is President Obama breaking the tradition of recognizing this lawfully instituted holiday?
According to well-known Evangelical Christians Shirley and James Dobson, President Obama is selling out those who follow the Christian faith, the same faith he claims to follow by not inviting figures of faith and religious communities to pray at the White House this year. However, Brachear presents another perspective in the words of an unnamed White House official, who says that the president will recognize the holiday, but will focus his attention on improving the nation by working with faith communities and furthering his individual spiritual faith.
Although both sides of the debate about President Obama’s intentions regarding the National Day of Prayer, the sources conspicuously lean to the side of the Evangelical Christians. Representing the National Day of Prayer Task force, Brachear spoke with Shirley Dobson, married to one of the most renowned and influential figures of the Christian faith in contemporary religious society. On the other hand is a single anonymous white house official. The term official is broad and can mean a number of positions, ranging in access to information pertinent to this article.
The article diverges into various opinions, both past and present, about the purpose and dangers of a National Day of Prayer. While the blend of opinions is somewhat unorganized and dizzying, Brachear succeeds in giving the reader a sense of the possibilites that could be reached by recognizing or rejecting the Day of Prayer.
If President Obama were to embrace the holiday whole-heartedly he risks marginalizing religious, non-Chrisitian faithful citizens as James Madison, who is quoted in teh article, foresaw. However, the Interfaith Alliance asserts that if he extends the holiday to followers of all faiths as an interfaith celebration and plea for prayer for our country he could promote unity in diversity, a trend in our society.

The First Family's Search for a Spiritual Connection

Tribune reporter Mark Silva reported that the Obamas attended St. John’s Episcopal Church on Easter Sunday. While he reports that this was the first step in the first family’s search for a new church home, the article does not go much deeper than simply repeating the fact that the Obama’s attended church on Easter Sunday.
The article could have benefitted from a deeper look into the history of the Church, although it is understandable that a full profile would not be appropriate because the Obamas’ have nowhere near settled on a permanent church home. However, Silva says that St. John’s Episcopal has been a place of worship for many past presidential families. A closer look into which presidents attended the church could allow for a deeper look into the church itself, avoiding the lack of a new peg.
The article obviously has a religious peg, but strays towards a political piece halfway through the article as Silva diverges from president’s church attendance to talk about the first family’s new dog and a private dinner with Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to the president. The remainder of the article returns to the original topic presented in the lead, outlining the Obamas’ trip to St. John’s Episcopal with meticulous detail.
The format of the article takes the shape of an hourglass, with the most significant news-related information at the beginning and end of the piece with timely, but unrelated details filling the gap. The traditional inverted pyramid format may have been a better choice for this piece, putting the headlining facts at the beginning and then going into details about the Church and the attendance of former presidents, rather than attempting to fill the space between the most relevant and more news-worthy information.

A Question of Rights

In an article entitled “Homosexual Harmony or Violation of Scripture?” the Chicago Tribune posed a question of individual verses corporate rights. Threatened with litigation, eHarmony-an online matchmaking site previously appealing largely to single Christians- created CompatiblePartners.net, a site that matches same-sex individuals. Does eHarmony have the right to gear their service towards a fragmented range of consumers? Do homosexuals have the right to demand that service?
Besides the threat a lawsuit from one offended homosexual customer, potential for eHarmony to actually be charged with discrimination is not made clear in the article. eHarmony is a private business and has the right to discriminate between consumers if for a legitimate reason. One reason provided in the article is that it will be more difficult to pair same-sex couples because eHarmony has not done enough research in this area yet to form a comprehensive and effective customer inventory. Of course the fact that Christian eHarmony users feel as though they have been betrayed with the creation of Compatible Partners was mentioned as well. However, the only source quoted who thought negatively of eHarmony’s expansion was well-known anti-homosexual orator Peter LaBarbera. Christians are generalized throughout the article as sharing the same hurt feelings towards eHarmony, without the sources to back this up.
The article is also very much focused on the Christian eHarmony user’s perspective, with little thought given to the thoughts of users of Compatible Partners. Not a single source is mentioned with a purely positive opinion about the issue, leaving the article leaning unstably to one side.

The Numbers Game

In an article entitled “How Many Muslims Does it Take?”, Chicago Tribune reporter Manya Brachear presented further insight into quantitative mistake reported in the Tribune earlier in the week regarding the number of Muslim individuals in the United States. From the outset of the story, the focus is not made apparent. She begins by talking about the article published in the Tribune containing the mistake, which was about the lack of Muslim representatives in government positions, by asserting that readers were more concerned with miscalculation of the Muslim population than with the actual aim of the piece. She then gives several estimated population numbers of the Muslim community, as reported by private demographic researchers and Muslim institutions as well as one Jewish organization. At this point the focus seems to be on the contradicting numbers reported, and whether or not a national religious census should be issued to provide accurate numbers. She provides a credible source from the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, who said that the Muslim community should be able to report their own numbers. She fails, however, to provide a source with a contrasting perspective on this issue.
The flow of the article is majorly disrupted with an indirect quotation regarding the Union for Reform Judaism. Though Judaism is also a minority religion in the U.S., there is no logical connection between the previous paragraph and this quote: “Mujahid hopes an ongoing dialogue between the Islamic Society of North America and the Union for Reform Judaism will assuage anxiety about numbers. Religious minorities should see each other’s growth as positive, not counter-productive, he said.”
Brachear promptly shifts the focus to England, mentioning that the Muslim community was included in the British census, and reports the numbers. This irrelevant information is used merely for a rocky transition to report that the U.S. constitution restricts religious demographics from being included in a federal census. This information would have been better utilized earlier in the article, while the information regarding the Jewish population and the British Census should have never been included. Brachear ends by posing these questions: “What do you think? Should the U.S. Census settle the numbers question and survey faith? Or should religious groups be trusted to self-report?” These are questions which readers are in no way equipped to answer if given only the information in this article.

Food Bank Bailout

According to the Chicago Tribune, over 3,000 people have signed a petition started by Faithful America, an online community of roughly 80,000 religious individuals, to negotiate government financial aid to bailout failing food banks. Faithful America aims to promote morality in our society and consists of members from varying religious traditions. Though there is no direct quote from any one of the 80,000 members, but Tribune reporter Manya Brachear reports that the group defines morality with several specific goals including “ending poverty, promoting economic security, fostering peace, promoting human rights and diplomacy, preventing the effects of climate change, countering hate speech and misinformation in the media and building inclusive communities for immigrants and people of all faiths.”
Though the success or failure of food banks is not an intrinsically religious issue, religion is often closely linked to moral issues, especially regarding politics and the economy, and churches are often looked to for taking the initiative on solving moral as well as social issues. Brachear reports that the majority of food provision agencies in the Chicago area are faith-based organizations.
Brachear points out a flaw in the well-intentioned petition. Bob Dolgan, spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Directory, states that Obama’s stimulus package already includes additional funding of $150 million for the Emergency Food Assistance Program. This organization distributes food to banks around the U.S. According to him, it is not this chain of food banks which needs additional funding, but the private faith-based food pantries and soup kitchens which are suffering with the increased demand for food and the decreased supply of funds. The article, therefore, presents both sides of the issue, though a source from Faithful America would have been beneficial asset.

Past, Present, and Future

Manya Brachear wrote an inspiring and well evidenced article about the opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. She began by quoting Rev. Scott Matheney, chaplain at Elmhurst College. Matheney was one of about 100 clergy members who toured the Museum one Friday afternoon soon after the museum’s opening. The Reverend leads the reader to adopt a spiritual perspective about the historical museum. This perspective is continued by the museum’s executive director Rick Hirschhaut who said that the goal of the exhibit is to take visitors on a journey of self-evaluation in light of the events of the past, highlighting the acts of heroism amidst acts of terror and celebrating the possibilities of human who act with integrity.
Brachear then turns the focus from the past and present towards the future, by highlighting events that will occur as a response to the opening of the museum. Youth United for Darfur, one of 40 Chicago student groups raising money for young Sudanese victims of violence, predicted at a rally at the celebration of the opening of the museum, that together they will be able to raise $15,000.
With all of these components, the article commemorates the past with a present event while asking readers to look to the future. The single weakness of the sobering article is that, despite opening with a quote from Rev. Matheney, there is not much of a religious focus so much as a focus on social justice. Brachear does end however with a quote from Eboo Patel, the executive director of Interfaith Youth Core. Speaking of the Holocaust Museum, Eboo quotes Martin Luther King Jr. in saying, “Because of this institution, there will be a generation of righteous people.” This quote again draws on the past by reminding readers of a movement of great social change while inspiring them to continue this tradition of promoting justice in the future.

Lincoln's Death a Mark of the Divine?

Manya Brachear challenges Chicago Tribune readers to observe the “religious overtones” in current national politics. Although this is an interesting thought provoker, it does not serve as a solid basis for a news article without some concrete facts. The single news peg and focus of the article (“Lincoln’s Death Had Sacred Significance”) is a suggestion made by Harold Holzer, co-chair of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, that because Lincoln’s death occurred on Good Friday it was his fate to be "sacrificed on the altar of freedom and died for the nation’s sins” like Jesus died for the sins of his followers. This colossal claim is not backed by any additional evidence or endorsed, at least not in the article, by any other sources. The specifics of how Lincoln was paying for the sins of the nation are not addressed any further and leaves a great deal up to the imagination as to how this actually makes logical sense.
Holzer is a credible source, but the only one that is used for this article. There have been plenty of other, usually light-hearted, articles which present an interesting, far out claim, but there are almost never the focus of an article, but used as an entertaining quote or thought provoking ending. And though Lincoln is regarded by many Americans as a man of integrity and held in great esteem, it may be a bit too much of a stretch to imply that he had a divine nature. Also, though the fact that the article was posted during Easter weekend, the focus of the article is on an event that occurred in 1865 with one mention of Barak Obama’s “messianic qualities” (again, a bit of a stretch) in an attempt to make the story relevant.

Reader Contributes What Journalist Does Not

The Chicago Tribune printed an article entitled “How Should Catholic Hospitals Balance Faith and Family?” in which Manya Brachear addressed the decision of hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church to decline requests for in-vitro fertilization, commonly abbreviated IVF. IVF throughout the U.S. offer this non-surgical procedure, which has been largely simplified and increased in efficiency since it was first completed successfully in 1978. The process consists of retrieving oocytes (unfertilized eggs) from the female’s ovary, which are fertilized with the male’s sperm and some of which form pre-embryos. One of the pre-embryos is then placed in the woman’s uterus where it will hopefully develop into a newborn.
This procedure requires to surgery or even anesthesia and has helped many infertile couples become pregnant. However, the controversial question that one must ask is what is done with the extra fertilized pre-embryos? According to the Georgia Reproductive Specialists, IVF centers leave that decision up to the parents. They have the option to freeze the fertilized embryo for later use, or simply to “dispose” of them. This question is one of the defining factors in the Catholic Church’s stance against IVF. It is strange then, that this question is not even addressed in the Tribune article.
Instead, the Brachear attributes the negative view of this procedure by Catholic Hospitals to the experimental nature of the procedure, and then quickly cuts down that argument saying, “the process is hardly experimental anymore”. The viewpoints of several physicians at Loyola University are given addressing how patients inquiring about IVF are responded, but the reason for their refusal to perform the procedure is not mentioned whatsoever. This personally offended one Tribune reader who commented on the mishandling and misrepresentation of facts on the Tribune’s religion blog, The Seeker. She explained her understanding of the Catholic Church’s stance on the procedure and the reasoning behind it, something that should have been made known in the article.

Catholic Underground

College students across the nation are gathering in church basements to release pent up energy through rock and hip-hop music, the Chicago Tribune reported. In 2006 New York Franciscan Friars of the Renewal started Catholic Underground, a faith and worship based showcase if musicians, actors, dancers and other rising artists. Since the overnight popularity of the Bronx location, parishes in eight cities across the U.S. and two in Europe have installed Catholic Underground locations, each with their own flavor.
Chicago Tribune reporter Margaret Ramirez visited the Chicago location, which has the feel of a worship-based night club, featuring local rap artists. Catholc Underground was started in Chicago by UIC’s chaplain, Rev. Pat Marshall, who enlisted Rob Kaczmark, director for Spirit Juice Studios, to combine spiritual and social life with an edge. Kaczmark expressed that he observed hesitation among church leaders to implementing contemporary music and advanced multimedia technology in the Catholic Church. The article seems to present the Catholic Church, at least its older and more conservative members, as viewing rap and rock music with a stigma. And while it cannot be argued that the Catholic Church in general in the U.S. has been slower to implement more contemporary styles of worship than many Evangelical traditions, there is no supporting evidence of this negative attitude expect that given by Kaczmark.
The official websites for Catholic Underground in both NY and Chicago are run by leaders of the Church and a simple Google search reveals many articles of Catholic leaders eager to open new locations and continue to grow those already in existence. The Tribune article feeds the widespread connotation with the Catholic Church as being highly conservative and close-minded to popular music, without giving any evidence of this view being actively voiced.

The Church and AIDS

The Chicago Tribune devotes a section of its publication to spreading awareness of the religious occurrences of local faith communities in the Chicago area and across the nation, especially where they intersect with other areas of life including politics and social activism. Manya Brachear, one of the Tribune’s religion reporters, heads up articles for The Seeker, a professional blog supplement to the paper with articles pertaining to spiritual life.
Brachear refers to The Seeker “a personal and professional quest for truth”. It strays from the detached, third person journalistic style of writing, Brachear often speaking directly to readers in first person. Readers are encouraged to post comments about the articles, though they are reviewed by Tribune staff before becoming visible on the site. This and the fact that all of The Seeker articles are written by one reporter may invite biases into the writing, and the comments that are chosen to be posted for public viewing can be selected to create a sense of a general trend in reader reactions. However, the posted comments thus far appear diverse in their perspectives both politically and religiously.
In an article released on Friday, Brachear opened the dialogue about the association of the Church with the AIDS pandemic in America, if an association does exist. (Go to http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2009/03/should-churches-make-aids-a-priority.html to read the full story.) Rather than explain the role of the Church in addressing the AIDS problem, Brachear seeks only to raise the question and inspire readers to seek out the answer for themselves. She does, however, give the opinion of key sources who feel strongly about this topic.
Leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are getting tested for HIV to show their congregations that it is necessary to address the existence of AIDS. ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson explains that he hopes to raise awareness among members of ELCA of the reality of AIDS in our society, as opposed to a far-off pandemic, and to make people feel comfortable discussing the topic of HIV so that those who need treatment will not hide from it.
The information presented in the article leaves me with several questions. For those in a church community trying to rid the Church of the negative stigma surrounding AIDS, what other actions should and will be taken to address the issue in addition to being tested to help those who are HIV positive? Should the Church leave treatment completely in the hands of doctors, or should they reach out and offer assistance to those dealing with aids through counseling and/or financial support for treatment?
The perspectives of members of Lutheran and other large Christian denominations were well-represented in the articles, but I wonder if the views of other minority religions in the U.S. differ in any way. The question is raised as to who “the Church” consists of in the twenty-first century United States. The focus of publicized discussions of religion in the U.S., particularly religion and politics, is largely on the Evangelical Christian denominations. Christian language and references are infused the founding documents of our nation, and continue to be heard in political speeches today. However, with the increasing religious diversity in our nation, it is imperative that we inform ourselves of the many religious atmospheres and perspectives around us.