Fellowship with Spiritual Exemplars Project

What role does religion play in motivating exemplary individuals to commit their lives to humanitarian work? How does engaged spirituality sustain their work in the face of great challenges?

These are the questions I will help the University of Southern California’s (USC) Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) explore as a journalist-fellow reporting on, “Spiritual Exemplars: A Global Project on Engaged Spirituality.”

I am humbled, honored, and terribly excited to join a team of top-notch journalists from around the globe to help report on and write profiles about individuals working on humanitarian causes, such as poverty and  human rights.

The journalist-fellows for the Spiritual Exemplars Project. (PHOTO: USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture)

These “exemplars” are often inspired and sustained by their spiritual beliefs and practices. Whether they are Buddhist, Muslim or Christian — or do not adhere to any particular tradition — their spirituality compels them to be engaged with the world.

Religion and spirituality matter. They motivate us. They move us inwardly and outwardly and move with us across the globe. Throughout the annals of time and over vast geographic boundaries, religion and spirituality have helped humans express their deepest questions, confront some of the most critical issues of life, and influenced virtually every human society, civilization, or culture since the dawn of human history. 

Despite their ubiquity and importance, religion and spirituality are still relatively misunderstood. Even if they are valued, there remains a blind spot in our critical, but compassionate understanding of how religion and spirituality function in the lives of some of humanity’s most inspiring individuals and compelling communities. In the U.S., but also abroad, we suffer from what scholar Stephen Prothero calls, “religious illiteracy.” 

That is why it is important for us to seek to understand religion and spirituality in all of its vast diversity and from a variety of perspectives. 

The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture studies, documents and helps communities understand the changes that shape religious cultures in Southern California and across the globe.

My writing, teaching, and speaking have been geared toward addressing religious illiteracy since I started with my first blog back in 2007. Given that the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture studies, documents and helps communities understand the changes that shape religious cultures in Southern California and across the globe, I saw working with their Spiritual Exemplars Project as a prime opportunity to continue that work. Through my work over the next couple of years I aim to continue to shine light on how religion and spirituality function in the lives of exemplars and their communities in a diverse array of places and from multiple points of view.

If we want to understand our world and how the complexities of the human condition inform behavior in changing contexts, we must pay attention to the role of religious traditions and spiritual practices. Not only will this allow us to better appreciate the human condition and apperceive its highest shared values, but it might improve the possibility of addressing some of humanity’s most urgent shared challenges. 

Although the foundations of modern religion are shifting and spirituality as we have long known it is undergoing daily transformations, neither shows any signs of going away. Religion and spirituality will remain tenaciously important and will continue to impact human societies for the foreseeable future, playing a role in addressing the world’s most intractable problems — both for good and for ill. 

For these reasons and more, I am beyond thrilled to be a journalist-fellow with the Spiritual Exemplars Project and look forward to the stories, reports, and scholarly work that comes out of our work together over the next two-and-a-half years.

Be on the lookout for stories from the project on this website. If you have not already, be sure to sign up for my e-mail list so you can stay up-to-date with all the latest religion and culture news!

RNA's Lifetime Achievement Award

Several years ago I got the chance to attend the Religion News Association's (RNA) conference in North Carolina. At the time I was blogging for the Houston Chronicle's "Houston Belief" blog. Little did I know that attending that conference would propel me into writing for publications like The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Huffington Post. 

I can't thank the RNA and its leadership enough for the opportunities this network of religion beat reporters gave me. That's why I am honored to serve on the RNA Board as Treasurer and especially humbled to be the point-person for the selection of our William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award. 

The William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award was created in 2001 and is presented to individuals who demonstrate exceptional long-term commitment and service to the Religion News Association and its members, and to the field of religion newswriting. 

This year we selected Cecile S. Holmes -- formerly of The Houston Chronicle and current professor of Journalism at the University of South Carolina -- for the award. As a past RNA President and long-term religion reporter I enjoyed interviewing her and writing a profile on her contribution to the beat and her reception of the award. I invite you to read more about her life and experience below, if only to get a small glimpse into the world of religion newswriting...

“Thirty years ago Cecile Holmes started working on a beat that some find downright strange.

Starting as the religion and food writer at the Greensboro News and Record in Greensboro, N.C., Holmes was quickly captivated by the beat.

“I learned some odd things,” on the beat Holmes said. Like, “how to write quasi-interesting stories about the peripatetic John Paul II when I had had no sleep and way too much caffeine.”

On a more serious note, she also found herself sticking up for stories her editors wanted to shut down or keeping her sense of humor when she interviewed the holier-than-thou. Through it all Holmes said, “I still think religion is the best reporting beat.””

God Beat 101: An Introduction to Religion & the News

Today is the day! For the next 15 weeks over 30 students and I will explore the ins-and-outs of religion reporting and how to analyze, critique, and comment on religion news. 

Such a class, and conversation, is vitally important in this present moment. It is impossible to think about religion without noticing the news. It is impossible to be a journalist without understanding something about religion. Religion is at the center of multiple headlines and news stories the world over. Whether it is politics, personal issues or the palpable effects of religious extremism in the public sphere, religion plays a significant role in the world. To ignore this fact is to do so at our peril. How do we make sense of these stories? How do we critique the coverage or question the approach of the journalists? How could we play an active part in producing and analyzing such news? 

*Read an interview of Ken about the course from Get Religion

These questions will help participants cover the importance of religion reporting in an age of simultaneous religious pluralism and illiteracy and discuss news as a primary portal for knowledge about religion. It aims to give students an opportunity to give voice to why they report on religion, from a personal perspective and familiarize students with the multiple representations and expressions of religion, discussing how we can define religion in a pluralistic age. 

Students will also get the chance to know what resources, methods and theories are available for religion newswriting and then to write and publish blogs, articles and analysis pieces for public consumption. This is not a passive class with a theoretical end, but an active class with practical and real-time applications and assignments. 

The hope is that students will find value in this course as we attempt to appreciate religious diversity and seek to develop objective religious observation and reporting. All the while, we will not deny real religious differences, nuances in coverage and the need to appreciate local stories in dynamic dialectic with global trends. This will help journalists, or analysts, avoid dogmatism and instead promote reports on the mutually shared human quest to understand the transcendent, share it with the people of the world and do so from a perspective of generous curiosity, humble awe, and equitable scrutiny. 

I invite you to take a look at the SYLLABUS for the course and to stay tuned as students post religion news content, analysis, and commentary on our course website, which I will link to on this blog. If you have any questions, comments, or want to "audit" the course let me know! 

Studying 'the God Beat': Religion & the News 101

It is impossible to think about religion without noticing the news. It is impossible to be a journalist without understanding something about religion. Religion is at the center of multiple headlines & news stories the world over. This course will explore both the production, and reception, of religion in the news investigating what it takes to be on “the God beat” and what kinds of conversations such a beat creates, questions, & critiques.

Such a class, such a conversation, is vitally important in this present moment. Exploring several news site home pages I was able to find religion headlines on every single one -- about conflict in Israel, about burned churches in the Midwest, nature spirituality in the Pacific, abstinence in Britain, Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria. How do we make sense of these stories? How do we critique the coverage or question the approach of the journalists? How could we play an active part in producing and analyzing such news? 

Building off my experiences as a freelance journalist, news analyst, and researcher engaged in the academic study of religion I am offering a course in partnership with the University of Florida's Religion department and Journalism School (one of the Top Ten in the U.S.) -- Religion & the News (REL 3938/JOU 4930).

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Weimer Hall at the University of Florida, Gainesville. 

This course will cover the importance of religion reporting in age of religious illiteracy & discuss news as a primary portal for knowledge about religion. It aims to give students an opportunity to give voice to why they report on religion, from a personal perspective and familiarize students with the multiple representations and expressions of religion, discussing how we can define religion in a pluralistic age. Students will also get the chance to know what resources, methods, and theories are available for religion newswriting and be given the opportunity to write and publish blogs, articles, and analysis pieces for public consumption. Basically, this is not a passive class with a theoretical end, but an active class with practical and real-time applications and assignments. 

The course will be offered Tuesdays 1:55-2:45pm and Thursdays 1:55-3:50pm and more information about registration and course details are available HERE (Course Listings) and HERE (Registration). Interested in auditing the course? Talk to me!