Chat Details

TWT religion writer Julia Duin 02-03-09

This chat will begin at noon on Tuesday, February 3, 2009.

Read the transcript of the live chat with Julia Duin, religion writer for The Washington Times, who took questions on Tuesday, Feb. 3.

Transcript

1. • Julia Duin, who covers religion for The Washington Times, joins www.WashingtonTimes.com for a live chat. Good afternoon, Julia. Thanks for being with us today. by Jeffrey Lea
   • Answer: Happy to be here! by Julia Duin
2. • Joshua Dubois, President Obama's selection to head the White House's Council for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, is affiliated with the United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God. Could Mr. Dubois' appointment be seen on Mr. Obama's part as a reaching out to conservative church leaders? by Jeffrey Lea
   • Answer: Not at all. Had the new president wanted to reach out to conservatives, there are many other folks he should have picked. Obama picked someone who seems to think like him and who is pretty malleable to whatever the president wants. As I call various groups, the ones who are middle of the road or liberal seem to have heard the most from Mr. Dubois, whereas the conservative ones are either drawing a blank or saying they have not heard much. Since I ran an article Saturday about some of the questions religious groups were having about Mr. Dubois, I have heard Bread for the World and Catholic Charities, both of which said there's been a fair amount of contact to them from Mr. Dubois. BFW is a hunger issues group and basically apolitical, and I'd never term Catholic Charities as conservative. by Julia Duin
4. • You reported recently that the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia is inching closer to blessing same-sex unions. Do you foresee the diocese eventually doing so? If so, when? Could the Virginia diocese be thought in the forefront of this movement in the Episcopal Church, or do many other dioceses have this practice? by Jeffrey Lea
   • Answer: The diocese is definitely on the road to doing this, especially since their conservative minority has left. I only saw about 30 votes at the diocesan convention resisting the trend toward blessing gay unions. There are already partnered gay folks working at the local Virginia Theological Seminary so essentially it's a done deal. The Virginia Episcopalians seemed to be saying at the convention that they wanted the national church to give the go-ahead for these blessings at their upcoming convention in Anaheim this June before totally approving such rites. I would not say, though, that the Virginia diocese is at the forefront. The D.C. Episcopal diocese across the Potomac is way ahead of them -- last time I counted the clergy roster, there were 14 same-sex clergy couples. Roughly 10 dioceses already have these rites in place. by Julia Duin
6. • Do you foresee a schism in the Episcopal Church over homosexuality? by Jeffrey Lea
   • Answer: It's already happened, although the numbers are still on the side of the Episcopal Church. But what conservative breakaways could not accomplish, the economy might. The Episcopal Church not long ago had $300 million in endowment funds. That's not gone, but the national church plus nearly every single diocese has had major losses in their endowments, and they are all cutting back. The Episcopal bishop of Washington last week told delegates they had to somehow find the money to keep their churches afloat. One of the priests at the diocesan convention told me that is a fantasy; her 2009 budget is missing $50,000 that it desperately needs, and she has no idea where she's going to find those funds. by Julia Duin
7. • Pope Benedict XVI recently welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church an excommunicated British-born bishop who denies the Holocaust. Has this move set back Catholic-Jewish relations? How has the Vatican explained the pope's move? by Jeffrey Lea
   • Answer: Pope Benedict has assured Jews that he greatly esteems them and that he doesn't for a moment doubt the Holocaust really happened. There's a point, though, at which the Vatican balks at having its interior politics questioned by outsiders, especially those who are not Christians. I don't see the Vatican issuing protests at how some Jewish groups are allowing gay rabbis. All the same, someone did not do a good job of vetting the Holocaust deniers before lifting the bans of excommunication. Then again, there has not been a whole lot of dialogue between the Vatican and the breakaway Catholics, so the Vatican may have decided first to catch the fish, then clean it afterward. by Julia Duin
8. • On Sunday, the Russian Orthodox Church installed former Metropolitan Kirill as its patriarch. How will relationships between the Russian church and other religions be affected, especially the Roman Catholic Church? by Jeffrey Lea
   • Answer: The Catholics are pretty happy about Kirill's appointment as they see him as a man who's traveled the world, talked with different faiths and has at least tried some interfaith and ecumenical dialogue.Kirill has to fight off attacks from conservatives who fear he's going to give ground to the Catholics in some way. The last thing they want is for him to invite Benedict XVI to visit Russia. I hope Kirill does extend the invite, if only to show that Russian Orthodoxy is confident enough in itself and able to allow other expressions of Christianity some room to move in Russia. If he does not invite in the pope, that shows a fear of competition and an admittance that maybe Orthodoxy doesn't have what it takes to hold on to the Russian masses. by Julia Duin
9. • You reported in a lengthy series two years ago about sex-selection abortions in India. Would you please tell our readers a bit about your articles. How did you come upon the topic? by Jeffrey Lea
   • Answer: Accompanied by photographer Mary Calvert, I spent three weeks in India documenting why the country is headed toward a demographic catastrophe whereby numbers of female babies are plummeting. Many Indians simply do not want baby girls, so sometime around the fourth month of pregnancy, a woman will seek out a sonogram machine, find out the sex of her child and then abort the fetus if she is a girl. Using such pre-natal imaging for sex determination is illegal in India, but this rule is widely flouted, The four-part series we ran in February 2007 is one of the most depressing things I have ever worked on. Two years later, I am not convinced things have changed at all over there. One problem is India's police: Law enforcement in India is basically lax on just about everything, so doctors can operate these ultrasound machines with impunity. I met with some reporters in Jaipur who did a "sting" operation and discovered more than 100 clinics in a five-state area that were telling women the sex of their unborn children -- and there were NO arrests being made until other media started pressuring the state of Rajasthan to do SOMETHING. India's leaders need to make "female feticide" something punishable by huge fines and prison sentences and get serious about keeping the laws already on the books. I interviewed a government functionary from Hyderabad who went after some of the local clinics and shut down an impressive number almost singlehandedly. So it can be done. by Julia Duin
10. • What role do you expect religion to play in the Obama administration? by Washington, DC
    • Answer: We're certainly going to hear a lot from what I'd call the Religious Left. Obama knows he needs to involve the religious community, but he's going to mostly reach out to the folks he's in sync with philosophically. I find it interesting that the folks he's named to head certain offices or initiatives -- Mara Vanderslice, Josh Dubois and Mark Linton -- are all fairly young and not well known by the constituencies they supposedly represent. Josh is billed as a Pentecostal, but when I called his own denomination plus the Assemblies of God (one of the largest Pentecostal groups), they drew a blank. Mr. Linton is not well known among Catholics compared to many other folks who could have been chosen. Mara is slightly better known because of her involvement with the Kerry campaign, but she has not, say, written for Christianity Today, worked for any of the big conservative groups or been on the staff of an evangelical member of Congress so lots of evangelicals are drawing a blank on her. It's been said Obama wants his own people who he can mold, and that appears to be what he's doing in terms of selecting people to work with religious constituencies. I mean, if he really wanted to reach evangelicals, he would have hired Richard Cizik, a former top official with the National Association of Evangelicals. by Julia Duin
11. • You're the author of four books, the most recent of which, "Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do About It," was released Sept. 1. What are the titles of the other three? What did you discover while writing "Quitting Church"? Why are Americans forsaking the church? by Jeffrey Lea
    • Answer: My first two books were about and for single Christians. One was "Purity Makes the Heart Grow Stronger" (1988) and another was "Wholly Single" (1991). A third, a children's book, released in 1998 -- and since retitled -- is called "Knights, Maidens and Dragons: Six Tales of Valor and Virtue." The fourth book, "Quitting Church," deals mainly with why evangelical Christians are leaving church. (We already know that attendance is way down among Catholics and mainline Protestants). But everyone thinks evangelicals are simply filling out all those megachurches. Well, some of them are, but there's a huge dissatisfaction with how churches are pastored, what's taught, whether what's offered in church is relevant, plus there are groups of disenfranchised people: singles, working women, charismatics -- there's a whole bunch of bad trends going on now. One thing I discovered while writing the book is that many Christians did not want to leave their churches, but the atmosphere was so poisonous there, they had to get out. I am amazed at all the e-mails and feedback I am getting on "Quitting Church," so I know those people are out there. by Julia Duin
14. • Ted Haggard, the founder of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs who was ousted in a sex scandal in 2006, has been back in the spotlight recently, with the screening of an HBO documentary about him, accompanying media appearances and the revelation that he also had a relationship with a male member of his church. How has the religious community reacted? by Jeffrey Lea
    • Answer: Basically with a yawn. Folks are simply tired (already) of hearing about Mr. Haggard. I was talking with a member of his former church the other day, and the member was saying he was getting sick of one crisis after another happening there: Haggard's first dismissal, then the fatal shooting of 2 church members by a deranged gunman, and now Ted is baaaack, plus there are revelations that a church intern was involved sexually with the minister. My friend is ready to go elsewhere. He just cannot keep on explaining this stuff to his kids. Remember back in 1988, Jimmy Swaggart -- after his fall -- was told by the Assemblies of God to go repent and stay out of the ministry for at least 2 years. Within 3 months, Swaggart had thrown off those constraints and was back on TV. And he has gone down ever since. So we've been through this before. Sounds like Ted is heading down the same path. A lot of evangelicals are double-leery of this whole thing now they see all the sympathetic treatment given to Ted by nonreligious folks while they are being pegged as intolerant bigots. by Julia Duin
15. • As a journalist, were you surprised by the outpouring of people who arrived to see the pope when he came to Washingtonlast spring? What was the most difficult challenge that you had that day in covering the event? by Washington, D.C.
    • Answer: I was not surprised by the enthusiasm; in fact, I expected to see more folks out on the parade routes than were. Part of the problem was that the Secret Service made it nearly impossible to get anywhere near the guy. I tried one night driving up Massachusetts Avenue to the chancery where he was staying and finally gave up after running into endless roadblocks, flashing lights, etc. All the events were by ticket only, including the Mass at the Nationals' stadium, so the ordinary person didn't have too big a chance at glimpsing the pontiff unless they wanted to camp out on a parade route -- after they figured out how to get near it -- for many hours. My most difficult challenges were the ridiculous regulations imposed on the media by the Secret Service. Mind you, all of us had badges, had been vetted and checked out by the Secret Service. STILL, we had to show up five, six and seven hours ahead of time and wait in lines for three hours to get X-rayed and questioned once again. What was the point of that? Did they think al Qaeda would slip in somehow in disguise of a camera man? These stupid regulations made it impossible for us to cover more than one event per day -- which is OK if you are a large paper with a huge staff. But if there's only one or two reporters available to cover eight or nine venues (as was the case with us in New York), well, it was oppressive. by Julia Duin
16. • Julia, we're coming to the end of our chat. Thanks for being with us today. Do you have any last words for our readers? by Jeffrey Lea
    • Answer: One of the biggest uncovered issues in religion is religious persecution overseas. It's rampant. Whether it's the Muslim and Orthodox officials ousting the Hare Krishnas from Kazakhstan or the Hindus killing Christians in Orissa, India, the statistics are getting worse, not better, I am sorry to say. by Julia Duin