Steven Waldman

STEVEN WALDMAN NAMED TO LEAD COMMISSION EFFORT ON FUTURE OF MEDIA IN A CHANGING TECHNOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski announced today the appointment of Steven Waldman, a highly respected internet entrepreneur and journalist, to lead an agency-wide initiative to assess the state of media in these challenging economic times and make recommendations designed to ensure a vibrant media landscape.

Dear Readers,

This is the most difficult (and surreal) post I've had to write. I'm leaving Beliefnet, the company I co-founded in 1999.

In mid November, I'll be stepping down as President and Editor in Chief to lead a project on the future of the media for the Federal Communications Commission, the government agency that sets rules for the communications industry.

I can't quite think of a suitable analogy. Perhaps it's something like saying goodbye to your child as he goes off to college? (Except I'm the one leaving). I feel an intense mix of sadness, excitement and pride.

I thought of the idea that became Beliefnet in 1997. Robert Nylen, a talented magazine publisher, and I secured funding in 1999 and launched the site December 28, 1999 (we used to joke that we wanted to get it up in time for the new millennium in case there was an apocalypse, which we thought would be good for traffic). Beliefnet has had many highs and lows, having boomed and busted and then gradually thrived again, becoming the largest multifaith website. 3.2 million people have visited us this month and 14 million have received email newsletters.

We had a variety of motives in starting Beliefnet -- personal, professional, and entrepreneurial. They all converged around a simple idea: faith is profoundly important to most Americans, and it was too often treated incompletely or condescendingly by mainstream media. We wanted to provide a safe place where people could explore their faith and find strength, hope, insight and friendship.

Our mission has been to help you enrich your faith or spiritual practice, but we secretly have hoped that the site would, along the way, improve understanding among believers of different flavors, too.

The best is yet to come for Beliefnet. The company will be led by Beth Ann Eason, the general manager and COO, who has been skillfully running the business side already for almost two years. Ju-Don Roberts, the senior vice president for content and community (who recently joined us from The WashingtonPost.com, where she was managing editor), will take over leadership of the editorial and community aspects. The whole Beliefnet team, as you might have guessed by now, is extraordinary. What's more, News Corp and Fox have been very good to us since acquiring the company in 2007 and we're busily hatching exciting plans for further improvements.

I'm going to become "Senior Advisor to the Chairman" at the FCC, helping (in the words of the press release) "to assess the state of media in these challenging economic times and make policy recommendations designed to ensure a vibrant media landscape.

In a way, it feels a bit like 1999 for me. I started Beliefnet because I thought a particular group -- people of faith -- weren't getting the information they needed. Now, there may be a more systemic crisis in journalism and I'm honored to be able to help address that.

One last factor: I know Julius Genachowski, the new chairman of the FCC, quite well. He's as talented, honest and decent a person as you'll find in public service.

I'll undoubtedly reminisce in this space before I leave -- about the extraordinary people I've worked with, the caring people I've met in the faith and spirituality community, and about how privileged I feel to have been given this gift for the past 10+ years.

But I can't resist saying a bit more, today, about the people who visit Beliefnet. When we started turning message board posts into articles in 2000, we didn't know to call it "user generated content" or that such user involvement would revolutionize communications. It has been clear since day one that Beliefnet's character derives in significant part from the contributions of those who visit, participate, and very often comfort and inspire each other here with stunning eloquence. What a blessing it has been for me to watch this all unfold.

I realize you all have very busy lives. You have a thousand different options for how to spend your time. I am, and will always be, profoundly grateful that you're spending some of that time on Beliefnet.

Steve

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week, in Buono v. Salazar, about whether a white 6 1/2 foot cross can be displayed in a national park as a tribute to World War I soldiers. Though it's depicted as a classic clash of the secular and the religious, it actually illustrates why Christian activists should think long and hard about pushing for religious symbols in the public square.

In order for religious symbols to pass Constitutional muster, they often must have some "secular" purpose, so advocates of religious displays spend much time trying strip the item of its religious meaning. Hence this amazing exchange between Justice Antonin Scalia and Peter J. Eliasberg, the attorney for the ACLU (via the New York Times):

Mr. Eliasberg said many Jewish war veterans would not wish to be honored by "the predominant symbol of Christianity," one that "signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins."

Justice Scalia disagreed, saying, "The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of the dead."

"What would you have them erect?" Justice Scalia asked. "Some conglomerate of a cross, a Star of David and, you know, a Muslim half moon and star?"

Mr. Eliasberg said he had visited Jewish cemeteries. "There is never a cross on the tombstone of a Jew," he said, to laughter in the courtroom.

Justice Scalia grew visibly angry. "I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead," he said. "I think that's an outrageous conclusion."

So, in order to preserve its place in the cemetary, Scalia secularized the cross. It became not an emblem of Christ's love or sacrifice but instead a "common symbol of the resting place of the dead."

We've seen this before. To pass Constitutional muster, the Christmas tree has been deemed an icon of a festive season, rather than something related to Christ's birth. In Lynch v. Donnelly, the court found that even creches could be considered to have secular purposes.

In other words, the more you want Christian symbols in the public square, the more you have to prove they're lacking religious meaning. A question for devout Christians: Do you really want the cross and the creche to become akin to the Christmas tree -- or the Easter Bunny?

The "secular purpose" trap isn't the only reason the "pro-religion" position can end up hurting Christianity. Legal cases pressing Christian symbols tend to argue that these efforts are acceptable as long as the government isn't excluding other faiths. That's how we've ended up with town squares with Menorahs alongside the creches. But this is the ultimate slippery slope. The Courts cannot and should not say that pluralism is imited only to Jews. Over time, Islam, Buddhism, Paganism will inevitably end up having greater public displays, too.

That means conservative Christians need to ponder a more subtle theological point. If you believe visible public displays convey important social messages, doesn't a pluralistic scene convey a second message: that all faiths are equal? And for those who believe that God is angered by our unwillingness to advocate His presence in public places, how will He feel about your implicit declaration that Islam or Buddhism deserve equal stature?

Finally, some earthly symbols that make excellent culture war statements may be less successful at conveying the desired spiritual meaning. The residents of Oglethorpe, Georgia are fighting for the right of cheerleaders to hoist paper banners featuring Bible quotes, through which the football players can burst at the beginning of games. One quotes Philipians 3:14, "I Press On Toward the Goal To Win the Prize for Which God Has Called Me in Christ Jesus."

Really? Is that goal -- the one with the white stripe near the big yellow metal post -- the one God in Christ Jesus had in mind?

I understand the impulse: residents thought they were doing a hopeful, helpful thing, and opposition from some small minority seems like part of a larger culture war against their faith in general. But I'm not sure they're truly advancing the cause of Christ through these banners. As someone posted on a community message board recently, "Yeah that's what Jesus got nailed to a cross for. So high school football games could be won. They're insulting Christians and Atheists in one fell swoop."

To be clear: I'm not arguing the Constitutional merits here; I tend to side more with conservatives on the legal matters, feeling that religious displays often can be constitutional. Nor am I questioning the sincere motives of those wanting to deepen their faith by celebrating it in public.

I'm saying that there's such a thing as being Constitutionally allowed -- but spiritually unwise. Remember, James Madison supported strict separation of church and state primarily because he thought it was good for religion. Perhaps he was on to something.

P.S. One of the parties in favor of the public display of the cross is the Obama administration's Justice Department! I'm still waiting for my Family Research Council press release praising Obama for opposing the American Civil Liberities Union and advocating faith in the public square.

We buried Amy's father's ashes this weekend in a beautiful church garden in suburban Chicago. Because Austin had served in the Air Corps during World War II, we had military honors at the small ceremony. Two airmen from an Air Force base in Missouri came. The last two ceremonies had been active duty suicides from the Iraq war.

At the beginning of the ceremony, the two men ran their white gloves along the edges of the triangular flag-bundle, and saluted it. They then peeled it open, one triangular section at a time, until it was a long narrow strip, the full length of the flag but still folded. Dramatically, they suddenly unfurled the full flag, angling it toward the loved ones. Each of us gasped silently.

After lovingly folding the flag back up, triangle by triangle, the Air Corp representative walked to my wife, handed her the flag, saluted, and said,

"On behalf of the President of the United States, the Department of the Air Force, and a grateful nation, we offer this flag for the faithful and dedicated service of your loved one."

One of them walked 20 feet away, raised his bugle and played taps.

I don't think we expected to be quite as moved by this experience. It had been 63 years since Austin had served in the Air Corps. He bore no physical scars from the war and had lived until 94. We knew the airmen knew nothing about him or the particulars of his service, and that they utter the same script thousands of times, including for men and women who died recently in combat. It almost seemed embarrassing that they had come all this way to pay tribute to Austin.

Yet the effect was overwhelming. When they saluted the flag, they were saluting Austin, too. And when they said the President of the United states and the grateful nation was thanking him, it's like somehow they knew everything. They knew he'd lost both of his brothers in the war, a devastation that shaped him in ways the family accepted but never really understood. (Would he have been that stoic without that experience? How did the war shape what kind of father he became, what kind of a girl my wife was, and, glancingly, what kind of grandchildren are growing up now?) The effects of war trickle through generations, unseen.

The ceremony seemed to say: we don't know the particulars but we suspect there were sacrifices, perhaps severe. And we understand, and offer our thanks.

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