NC religion stories, airport chapels, and a religious knowledge quiz
Welcome to the 13th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup: anti-Semitic flyers, Christian colleges and Title IX, and more.
Happy Friday! Thanks for reading the 13th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup, a newsletter that highlights major religion news and trends in the Triangle and greater NC.
I’m a reporter covering community colleges, postsecondary access, and faith at EducationNC, and a M.Div. student at Duke Divinity School. As I write this, I’m finishing the first intensive week of my second year as a Duke Div student. I am learning a lot, and as a result, my brain is very tired. (That said, please bear with me if you notice more typos than usual.) As always, I’d love any thoughts or feedback regarding parts of the roundup you particularly like, and/or anything you’d like to see in the future. Plus, I’d love it if you’d share this newsletter with a friend.
Thanks for following along. Happy reading!
This week:
In a Nutshell, I highlight some NC religion stories to keep an eye on, including: anti-Semitic flyers found in Raleigh, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s forthcoming memoir, and Title IX efforts at Christian colleges.
And in What I’m Reading, I include my favorite religion read (and quiz) this week.
In a Nutshell:
Rabbi finds anti-Semitic flyer in Raleigh neighborhood
Last month, Rabbi Eric Solomon of Beth Meyer Synagogue and his teenage daughter found a strange, plastic bag filled with a handful of rice and a piece of paper, according to a report by the News & Observer.
He later learned the paper was one of at least four anti-Semitic hate flyers distributed across his Raleigh neighborhood, where many Jewish residents live. The flyers pictured “Holocaust imagery” and a list of political figures of Jewish descent. “The flyers imply a kind of violence to them,” Solomon told the N&O. “What starts with language leads to violence and real threats.”
The incident is not an isolated event. It’s a part of rising antisemitism across the state and country — a topic I covered in an earlier newsletter. Anti-Semitic incidents in the state more than doubled from 2020 to 2021, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — with a 131% increase in anti-Semitic incidents over the past year. There were 30 incidents in 2020; 13 in 2020.
There were 2,717 national incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism reported to the ADL in 2021 — the highest number since tracking started in 1979. The Raleigh Police Department told the N&O it was no longer investigating the antisemitic flyers at the time of the Aug. 20 publication.
Meredith R. Weisel, regional director of the ADL in Washington, D.C., told the Charlotte Observer that conspiracy theories and COVID-19 were two factors in the dramatic uptick of cases. “We need our policymakers to put in place laws and tools and trainings to prevent hate crimes from even happening and when they do how to respond appropriately, understanding it has a ripple effect to hold throughout the whole community,” Weisel said.
In memoir, NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson mulls 2024 run, calls for taking science, history out of elementary schools, WRAL
In a forthcoming memoir obtained by WRAL, NC Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson said he’d work to keep science and history out of some elementary school classrooms, eliminate the State Board of Education, end abortion, and try to prevent transgender people from serving in the military. Robinson, also a pastor, is vocal about his conservative Christian faith. In the memoir, he criticized gay pride rallies and wrote about gender roles for women — two topics he has spoken about previously and faced criticism for. The book is expected to release Sept. 13.
Four Out of Five Victims Don’t Report Sexual Assault. Can Christian Colleges Do Better?, Christianity Today
Overall, more than 26 percent of female undergraduates experience rape or sexual assault, but only about 1 out of every 5 female students who are assaulted report it to authorities — that rate is even smaller among male students. Some Christian schools may inadvertently discourage reporting, I found while reporting this story for CT, because of policies that prohibit all alcohol, drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage. I spoke with Title IX directors at several Christian colleges — including Gardner-Webb in Boiling Springs — about their efforts to increase reporting.
For 50 Years, the Center for Jewish Studies Has Delivered Interdisciplinary Insight, Duke University
Duke’s Center for Jewish Studies celebrated its “golden anniversary” last month. “It has become a world-renowned interdisciplinary program offering an undergraduate certificate in Jewish Studies and supporting master’s and doctoral candidates across Duke,” the university said. Moving forward, the center wants to continue providing interdisciplinary programming and community enrichment with guest speakers and artists who address cultural and political movements.
A statement from The Daily Tar Heel on unpublishing a recent column, the DTH
Last month, the DTH wrote about their choice to unpublish an opinion piece written about University students studying abroad in Israel. The writer, the DTH editor said, said his family had received threatening messages regarding the column, and asked that it be taken down for his and his family’s safety.
Former NC Sunday school teacher gets up to 109 years in prison for rape of children, N&O
A Johnston County man who taught Sunday school was found guilty of rape and other sexual crimes earlier this week. Jonathan David Young, 38, was convicted of rape, sex offense, and taking indecent liberties with children. The charges involved three children and took place from 2003 to 2014. Many of the offenses happened at Firstborn Baptist Church in Benson where Young served as a Sunday school teacher for several years. He was sentenced to a minimum of 87 years and a maximum of 109 years in prison.
Duke volleyball players ‘racially heckled’ by BYU fans in ugly incident during match, N&O
Brigham Young University, a private Mormon university, banned a spectator from attending events at any of its athletic venues after an incident in which racial slurs were directed toward Black Duke players during a volleyball match on its campus last week. Duke sophomore outside hitter Rachel Richardson, who is Black, released a statement Sunday saying she and her Black teammates were “targeted and racially heckled throughout the entirety of the match.” In her statement, Richardson quoted Romans 12, citing Christian unity as a call to treat people with respect regardless of differences.
NC NAACP loses tax-exempt status; audit assessing misspending allegations, N&O
The IRS disclosed this month that it revoked the NC NAACP’s tax-exempt status in May after the organization failed to file tax returns for three consecutive years. The IRS also reports that it had revoked the tax-exempt status of many local NAACP branches across the state for the same reasons. Across the country, the NAACP has largely been led by Black faith leaders and social justice advocates, including North Carolina’s Rev. William Barber III and the late Rev. Anthony Spearman, whose membership was revoked by the organization in February due to the alleged withholding of records.
‘One brotherhood’: Asheville mosque offers rare prayer center for mountain Muslims, Smoky Mountain News
The Islamic Center of Asheville is the only house of Muslim prayer within a one-hour radius in Western North Carolina, drawing more than 100 people every Friday afternoon for the weekly Jummah assembly. Some drive as long as 90 minutes to attend, the Smoky Mountain News reported in February. “As part of the Muslim faith, we are supposed to establish a center for prayer so we can come together wherever we go in the world,” said Timothy Garrett, who serves as khateeb, or pastor, for the congregation. “Unlike Christian faiths, we usually only have one center where everybody comes to.”
The Sixth Love Language Does Not Exist, The New York Times
This interesting and aesthetically pleasing interactive piece explores the history of “love languages.” Fun fact: the man who created the concept was a Southern Baptist preacher from Winston-Salem. Gary Chapman, a 50-year-old pastor with a doctorate in adult education, introduced the concept 30 years ago with his book, “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts.” This piece explores the intention behind love languages, as well as the cultural explosion (and memes) that followed.
Raleigh Author Makes a Case for Rewriting the Cultural Scripts Around Motherhood, INDY Week
Raleigh author Erin S. Lane published Someone Other Than a Mother, a collection of stories people outside of a dominant family narrative. A graduate from Duke Divinity School, Lane offers a Christian perspective in her book, INDY wrote, also including broader considerations of choice, purpose, and parenthood. “I wanted to parse both how I had received certain messages from American Christianity about what a life well lived look like,” Lane said in this very interesting INDY Q&A.
~What I’m reading ~
Most of the busiest U.S. airports have dedicated chapels, from Pew Research
Deacon Jack Sutton prays with visitors in an Ash Wednesday service at the Interfaith Chapel at Denver International Airport in 2011. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
More than half of the nation’s busiest airports have dedicated chapels, and many of these facilities offer a variety of worship services for different faith traditions. The first U.S. airport chapel, Our Lady of the Airways, opened at Boston’s Logan International Airport about 60 years ago.
I had no idea! I am fascinated by this though, and think it speaks to just how influential a person’s faith is in their lives — even impacting their travel plans. Have you visited an airport chapel before? I’d love to hear your experience if so. From the piece:
While most airport chapels are designated as interfaith spaces, some airports provide facilities for specific religious groups. John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, for example, has four places of worship: a Catholic church, a Protestant chapel, a mosque and a synagogue that is reputed to be the only one in a major airport in all of North and South America. …
Of the 30 large hubs, 18 (60%) have chapels or prayer rooms. Among the 12 that don’t have space for worship are some of the nation’s most important airports, such as Los Angeles International Airport (the second-busiest in the nation) and McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
While four of the 18 major airports with chapels offer no formal services, the rest (14) offer at least one type of organized worship, and many of them offer more than one kind of service. For instance, Washington Dulles International Airport, near Washington, D.C., offers weekly Catholic Mass, Protestant worship and Christian prayer services, as well as daily Jewish and Muslim prayer services.
U.S. Religious Knowledge Quiz
This 2019 Pew Research quiz asks/answers two primary questions of the quiz-taker: How much do you know about religion? And how do you compare with the average American? The quiz asks about Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Full Disclosure: I got 12 out of 15 questions right. On average, the overall population for 7.4 questions correct. Jewish respondents had the highest average correct score among religious groups, with 9.5 questions right. Black protestants had the lowest average score, at 4.9.
What about you? Let me know if you take the quiz, and what you learn!
That's it for this week's edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup. Thanks for reading. Until next time. And in the meantime, I gladly welcome any tips, feedback or news you think I haven’t included but should in future editions. — Hannah