Faith
and the Media
Canada is primarily a Catholic nation; the U.S. is primarily an evangelical
nation.
Canada's faith groups cooperate with each other; American faith groups
compete with each other.
The Catholic, liberal Protestant, Orthodox and evangelical churches and
occasionally non-Christian faiths in Canada regularly combine forces to
speak out on topics like poverty and the federal budget; that rarely happens
in the U.S.
Religion has little apparent influence on politics in Canada, partly because
religious identity has little effect on how we vote. In the U.S., religion
has obvious political influence because religious identity affects voting
preferences; most black churchgoers vote for Democrats, and conservative
white Christians generally vote Republican. As a result, presidential and
other candidates woo faith groups, agonize over what to say about abortion
and homosexuality and make a point of publicly attending church.
Family values are also an important issue in the U.S., because almost half
of the population believe it's important to hold orthodox Christian beliefs;
in Canada, most of us think our private beliefs are more important than
what is taught by any religious group.
The religious right has a very strong presence on the American political
scene; in Canada, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who even wants
to start a Moral Majority or a Christian Coalition.
The U.S. is the most church-attending of all the industrialized nations
on earth, and has resisted the secularizing trend common to most of the
other industrialized nations of the earth, including Canada. More than
40 per cent of Americans still attend a worship service weekly, and the
U.S. South is one of the most pious regions in the world. Fifty years ago,
Canadians actually attended church in even higher numbers than Americans,
primarily because of the piety of Quebec Catholics. Today, only one in
five Canadians regularly attend church services, and Quebec is the least
pious region of North America.
The American religious scene is also affected by the existence of five
large African-American denominations, the growing number of Latin-American
churches, and the fact that 40 per cent of American Muslims are U.S.-born
Black Muslims.
In Canada, the francophone-anglophone divide gives us a distinct flavor,
particularly in the Catholic church, where francophone bishops tend to
be more "progressive" than the anglophone bishops, and put more emphasis
on social justice.
Main players
The only Christian groups big enough in Canada to have full-time public
relations people are the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the
Anglican and United churches. Some Catholic dioceses also have public relations
spokesmen; so does the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and the Canadian
Jewish Congress. The Canadian Islamic Congress is also beginning to emerge
as a visible player on the Canadian scene. The Canadian Council of Churches
has a small staff, but occasionally comes out with a major pronouncement
uniting all the churches.
Where to find stories
Religious leaders and religious readers alike seem to assume that inspirational
stories, or local church stories, are what should make the news. But readership
surveys in the U.S. suggest that most readers actually find national and
international religion stories more interesting, particularly when it concerns
social and ethical values, global issues or decision-making at the national
or international level. My Canadian editors seem to know that instinctively,
because my local stories tend to go in the back pages, while the national
and international stories are more likely to hit the front page.
Few stories are to be found today in the annual meetings of the denominations
or other faith groups. Denominations are more likely to make the news with
occasional press conferences on subjects like gambling or native residential
schools; pronouncements from the Vatican, or attacks by dissidents, whether
they be conservative United Church members bemoaning change or liberal
Catholics demanding change.
Sources
Most of my stories come from cultivating contacts and working the beat,
by having lunch or coffee with local clergy or public relations people,
keeping track of out-of-town speakers, or anniversaries like Holocaust
memorials among the Jews, or attending formal Muslim dinners, or reading
denominational magazines, or the Vatican Information Service to pick up
alerts on upcoming developments. With the aid of a tailor-made religion
query on my computer, I also keep a close eye on the wire services for
ideas and trends developing elsewhere and stories about subjects like euthanasia
or Third World debt, which often have neglected religious or ethical angles
to them. A number of the denominational websites are also particularly
helpful; the Vatican, for example, now posts papal encyclicals within hours
of releasing them in Rome.
Religion is a wonderful beat, because there are virtually no limits
on what you can cover. There is spirituality in the workplace, religion
in sports, faith in politics, faith in science, faith in ethics, faith
in movies, and theatres, and rock n'roll. Some of the most colorful stories
can come from reflecting the religious community to your readers. Most
readers still know little of our new Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh or Hindu neighbors;
most will not go near a church or synagogue more than once or twice a year,
or attend a New Age group. As journalists, we can take them into mosques,
Hindu temples, meetings of Christian homosexuals, or charismatic prayer
meetings.
Special challenges
Religious celebrations like Christmas, Ramadan, and Passover are a challenge.
They're big events for the local religious communities, but it's hard to
find new angles year after year. One of my most prized Passover stories
was a first-person piece. I stood in for a synagogue as the local Gentile
who traditionally takes temporary ownership of all things to do with leavened
bread, whether that be dishes or bakeries. My favorite among several Christmas
stories last year was a front-page Christmas Eve piece on the Faces of
Jesus: art from many different cultures, showing Jesus as black, Chinese,
Japanese, etc.
One area I think religion writers are all struggling with is the spirituality
of those Canadians who rarely have anything to do with organized religion.
The sales of books like The Celestine Prophecy, the number of films
about the afterlife and the spirituality behind many popular songs all
show that something spiritual is going on outside our temples, churches
and synagogues. And, on the whole, we journalists do a poor job of covering
this trend. Doug Todd of the Vancouver Sun has made one of the better
attempts by mining the spiritual preferences of writers, entertainers and
other celebrities in the arts world. Few of them have strong ties with
organized religion, but all have something to say about spirituality and
how it has affected their work.
Trying to Know It All
The religion beat is so vast and complex that none of us can understand
all of it, but it's important to know such basics as the difference between
a priest and a minister, or Reform and Orthodox Jews, or Sunni and Shiite
Muslims. The simplest and best thing to do is what journalists do on all
beats: take nothing for granted, do your research in advance and keep asking
questions until you're sure you understand those you interview. Don't be
afraid to ask "What do you mean that you know God?", "What is predestination?",
"What does papal infallibility mean?", or "What does Islam say about women
wearing a veil?"
But I think the religion beat requires some extra measures, because
every faith has its own vocabulary, its own complex theology, and its own
sensitivities. The Canadian Islamic Congress, for example, has published
its own study of what it terms anti-Islam in the media, and some simple
ways of avoiding problems, like referring to "extreme forms of Islam" rather
than stereotyping all Muslims with phrases like "Muslim terrorists."
Believers care deeply about how they're portrayed in the media. Religion
stories often provoke the most heated of all debates in our letters to
the editor pages; they also prompt some of the most vicious hate mail,
and probably some of the most ecstatic letters of praise as well. And most
of the problems can be avoided simply something about your subject.
I have tried to fill in some of the gaps in my own knowledge by taking
courses on Islam, the Middle East, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. I have
also collected a library of reference books. Some of the most useful are
Huston Smith's wonderful book on comparative religion, The Religions
of the World; Irving Hexham's Encyclopedia of Terms; the Catechism
of the Catholic Church; and copies of the Koran, the Bible, and other sacred
scriptures.
All this emphasis on knowledge and pitfalls may make the religion beat
sound intimidating, but take heart. Keep working at the beat, and you will
soon have a broader knowledge of religion than many members of the clergy.
Often, none of them have time to research anything more than next week's
sermon!
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Last modified: 29 October 1999
