Weekend Plug-in 🔌

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-In” features analysis, insights and top headlines from the world of faith. Got feedback or ideas for this column? Email Bobby Ross Jr. at therossnews@gmail.com.

(ANALYSIS) I thought I knew a little about my family’s history.

I’ve written about my grandfather Lloyd Lee Ross, whose World War II service earned him a Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart. Papa died in 2011 at age 93.

I’ve visited the rural West Tennessee cemetery where generations of my relatives — going all the way back to my great-great-great-great-grandfather Daniel Ross (1791-1842) — are buried.

But not until the COVID-19 crisis hit did I learn about the global influenza pandemic of 1918 — known colloquially as the Spanish flu — and my family’s connection to it.

I knew that Papa lost his father when he was a baby. It turns out that my great-grandfather William Charles Ross (1883-1918) died on Nov. 15, 1918, at age 35 from the flu pandemic. Papa, the youngest of William Charles’ five children, was nine days shy of eight months old.

I appreciate my Uncle Chuck educating me on these details from our family’s past.

Given my interest in religion, I am grateful, too, for the journalists digging through newspaper archives to report on how houses of worship responded to the 1918 pandemic, which killed nearly 700,000 in the U.S. and 50 million globally.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Peter Smith wrote a fascinating piece on the subject, as did the Birmingham News’ Greg Garrison. For Religion News Service, Megan Botel and Isaiah Murtaugh related a Los Angeles church’s “tale of two pandemics, 100 years apart.”

At The Gospel Coalition, Joe Carter offered “9 things you should know about the 1918 influenza pandemic.” And Word & Way editor Brian Kaylor interviewed a historian who says the 1918 pandemic shows churches can survive shutdowns.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. A cough. An X-ray. A ventilator. Bishop Steve Wood battles coronavirus and lives to tell: I have a short list of journalists who could write the phone book (this ancient reference will make sense to a few) and I’d read it.

That list includes Jennifer Berry Hawes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning special projects writer for the Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina, and author of the must-read “Grace Will Lead Us Home” about the Emanuel AME Church massacre.

Trust me, you’ll want to take time to read Hawes’ compelling narrative about an Anglican bishop who survived the coronavirus.

2. Pastor-sharing: For clergy, a holy hustle and labor of love: “Multiple churches increasingly share one pastor. It's an old model making a comeback amid new cultural dynamics,” notes G. Jeffrey MacDonald.

MacDonald is a veteran religion writer and author of the new book “Part-Time Is Plenty: Thriving Without Full-Time Clergy.”

His enlightening Christian Science Monitor cover story explores how the pastor-sharing trend is “shaping church life, faith identities and the future.”

3. ‘Plague on a biblical scale’: COVID-19 has hit New York City-area Hasidic Jewish families especially hard, reports Liam Stack, the Metropolitan religion writer for the New York Times.

In a deep piece impressive both for its specific details and its broad context, Stack explores how “the epidemic has killed influential religious leaders and torn through large, tight-knit families.”

More Top Reads

• Spiritual counselors adapt to serve faithful during pandemic (Elana Schor and Mariam Fam, Associated Press)

• The loneliness pandemic: The elderly in ICUs battle coronavirus and solitude (Claire Giangravé, Religion News Service)

• Orthodox Jewish women are facing an impossible choice right now (Emma Green, The Atlantic)

• The pandemic has put an end to door-knocking for Jehovah's Witnesses (Dionne Searcey, New York Times)

• Amid coronavirus pandemic, Holocaust survivors at special risk — and getting extra help (Michele Chabin, Jewish Telegraphic Agency)

• One Harlem church, nine coronavirus deaths (Ray Sanchez, CNN)

• Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast in Minneapolis neighborhood (Jean Hopfensperger, Star Tribune)

• U.S. church faces neglect allegations after Haiti child allegations (Michael Weissenstein and Ben Fox, AP)

• Under fire from many, Samaritan’s Purse finds an unlikely champion (Yonat Shimron, RNS)

• Inside the fringe Japanese religion that claims it can cure COVID-19 (Sam Kestenbaum, New York Times)

Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines

Kate Shellnutt, senior news editor for Christianity Today, earned the first-place award for reporting in the Evangelical Press Association’s annual contest.

Shellnutt was honored for her story on a major counterfeiting scheme that targeted a Christian bestseller.

Congrats to Kate and all the other winners!

Charging Station: In Case You Missed It

Here is where you can catch up on recent news and opinions from Religion Unplugged.

• A butcher by name, this Muslim surgeon saves lives across battle lines (by Ken Chitwood)

• Wondering where God is during this pandemic? (by Terry Mattingly)

• How Billy Sunday traded his bat for a Bible and came to love New York (by Clemente Lisi)

• Caring for the least of these: One evangelical’s mission to promote ‘creation care’ (by Jillian Cheney)

• What's more Christian: capitalism or socialism? (by Richard Ostling)

• 'Zoo Rabbi' opens museum featuring Biblical wildlife with virtual tours (by Gil Zohar)

• Growth in the LDS Church is slowing — but not for reasons you might suspect (by Emma Penrod)

• Prisoners of conscience freed due to COVID-19 (by Ewelina U. Ochab)

• There is a false dichotomy between theological and practical questions (by Michael Metzger)

• Social distancing tips from Christian church tradition (by Michael Metzger)

• COVID-19 widens the rift between Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and secular communities (by Gil Zohar)

• The COVID-19 'miracle' drug maker is named after biblical balm (by Meagan Clark)

• Coronavirus is highlighting the rift in Islam (by Lawrence Pintak)

• Devil in detail: Italian exorcist describes his lifelong battle against demons and the occult (by Clemente Lisi)

The Final Plug

Since you made it this far in the column, I hope you’ll indulge a bit of personal privilege.

My son Keaton graduates today (virtually) with his journalism degree from Oklahoma Christian University.

Amazing news about his future was announced Thursday: On June 1, he’ll join the public watchdog news organization Oklahoma Watch as a Report for America corps member.

I am so proud of him and thrilled about this next step in his journey.

Bobby Ross Jr. is a columnist for Religion Unplugged and editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 15 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.