Weekend Plug-in 🔌

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” features analysis, fact checking and top headlines from the world of faith. Subscribe now to get this newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr. at therossnews@gmail.com.

(ANALYSIS) My wife has lupus and autoimmune diseases that make her high-risk if infected with COVID-19.

Because of that, we’ve adhered strictly to masking, distancing and other safety precautions. For nearly a year, we’ve not attended an in-person worship assembly or eaten inside a restaurant.

After reporting from all 50 states and 15 nations in my career, I’ve done all my work from home since flying to Tennessee to cover deadly tornadoes last March. That was right before the coronavirus lockdown hit America in the middle of that month.

Last week, I mentioned my excitement to roll up my sleeve for the first of two Moderna shots.

And on Thursday, our family got an extra dose of hope: Tamie received a Johnson & Johnson single shot, the coronavirus vaccine recommended by her rheumatologist because of her life-threatening reactions to medications last year.

Ironically, my wife was able to schedule her last-minute appointment on the same day that ReligionUnplugged.com managing editor Meagan Clark and I moderated an online panel on the COVID-19 vaccines and religion.

A key focus of the panel: conflicting and sometimes confusing statements issued by U.S. Catholic bishops on the morality of the newly approved Johnson & Johnson shot.

“Leaders at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are discouraging Catholics from using the new Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine if given a choice, citing the use of cells with a distant link to abortion in the development of the vaccine,” reported Religion News Service national reporter Jack Jenkins, one of the panelists.

Jenkins offered excellent insight on the diversity of Catholic responses to the vaccine debate, from individual bishops to the Vatican.

Panelist Clemente Lisi, who analyzes Catholic news for ReligionUnplugged.com, noted: “Unless you’re a scientist, this is a very difficult thing to understand. … I think most people are getting this (news) through headlines, through Twitter, and I think it may cause some misunderstanding.”

Many Americans have no choice which COVID-19 vaccine to receive, Lisi stressed. Stopping the virus’ spread, he added, could itself be construed as a pro-life act.

At NPR, religion correspondent Tom Gjelten quoted a top Southern Baptist leader:

"We should oppose authorizing or funding research rooted in the taking of innocent human life," says Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

"That does not mean, though," Moore tells NPR, "that people must shun medical treatments that can save lives because they were discovered through means of which we would not necessarily approve."

Other topics of the panel ranged from vaccine skepticism by many African Americans (addressed by veteran journalist Hamil Harris) to why some wrongly liken the vaccine to the Mark of the Beast (as explained by The Tennessean religion writer Holly Meyer and others).

Watch the full discussion.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. QAnon and conspiracy theories are taking hold in churches. Pastors are fighting back: On the front page of today’s Los Angeles Times, Jaweed Kaleem reports on the toll that misinformation has taken at a rural congregation in Michigan.

“Details emerging from investigations into hundreds of Capitol rioters have cast an unsettling light on the toxic roles that fringe religious beliefs and QAnon conspiracy theories have played in shaking big and small churches across the nation,” Kaleem writes. “(Former President Donald) Trump’s false insistence that he won the 2020 election may have incited the mob, but it also pointed to a dangerous intersection of God and politics.”

2. Since this California church began flouting pandemic restrictions, attendance has surged: Veteran religion writer Sam Kestenbaum goes inside a Southern California church whose “crowded, maskless indoor services in flamboyant violation of California’s health orders” have caused attendance to soar during the pandemic.

Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, north of Los Angeles, “remains ensnared in legal battles with the county and state,” Kestenbaum notes for the Washington Post.

3. Faith leaders urge clemency for Oklahoma death row inmate, cite mounting evidence: In advance of a parole board hearing next week, “faith leaders are ramping up their support” for Julius Jones, a Black man convicted in the shooting death of a White man named Paul Howell, according to Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks.

Last week, Carla Hinton, The Oklahoman’s faith editor, reported on marchers “delivering boxes filled with more than 6 million signatures of people who signed a Change.org petition asking that Jones' be granted clemency or that his sentence be commuted.”

Back in 1999, I wrote about Jones’ arrest for The Oklahoman.

BONUS: Details emerged this week concerning plans for a conservative denomination — the Global Methodist Church — in the expected breakup of the United Methodist Church.

The Associated Press’ David Crary and Religion News Service’s Emily McFarlan Miller report on the planned denomination, whose doctrine will oppose same-sex marriage.

That news came the same week as Bethany Christian Services, a leading evangelical adoption and foster care agency, announced that it will begin providing services to LGBTQ parents, as reported first by the New York Times’ Ruth Graham.

More Top Reads

• The wasting of the Evangelical mind (by Michael Luo, New Yorker)

• Capitol riot shaman puts spotlight on religious diets for prisoners (by Pamela Manson, United Press International)

• It’s back: Resolution to make the Bible Tennessee's official state book joins slate of religion legislation (by Holly Meyer, The Tennessean)

• A weekend of mourning at a Los Angeles church (by Philip Cheung, New York Times)

• Dozens of houses of worship, one DC street, a 9-year photo project (by Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service)

• How a tiny Utah community fought off an LDS Church housing project and lost a temple (by Tony Semerad, Salt Lake Tribune)

• Backlash in Fresno as evangelical church tries to buy Tower Theatre, a bohemian landmark (by Diana Marcum, Los Angeles Times)

• ‘Not a good idea:’ Experts concerned about pope trip to Iraq (by Nicole Winfield and Samya Kullab, Associated Press)

• Covid left a small town reeling. A new generation is leading the recovery (by Clare Ansberry, Wall Street Journal)

• Christian lawyers fight COVID-19 home evictions (by Bekah McNeel, Christianity Today)

• Nine months later, fencing comes down around the church where Trump stood with a Bible (by Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post)

• Young Black Christians see churches' social justice programs as failures, seek greater activism (by Danae King, Columbus Dispatch)

Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines

The Washington Post’s top editor, Marty Baron, retired at the end of February.

“We had our moments of disagreement (a good journalist always pushes back, right?), but Marty was always keen on religion, and I am grateful,” Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey said on Twitter. “We still see the enormous impact of the Boston Globe Spotlight series.”

The National Catholic Reporter’s Christopher White interviewed Baron about the legacy of the Spotlight series on Catholic clergy sex abuse and the Oscar-winning movie that it inspired.

Charging Station: In Case You Missed It

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

• Pope Francis on a historic visit to Iraq (by Ewelina U. Ochab)

• A third of Gen Z doesn’t trust people of other religions, but they’re willing to try (by Kevin Singer and Josh Packard)

• The pandemic is pushing children’s ministers to be even more creative (by Cheryl Mann Bacon)

•  In true crime series ‘Murder Among the Mormons,’ LDS church reckons with rewritten history (by Jillian Cheney)

•  ‘Where Feet May Fail’: After Carl Lentz affair, what’s next for Hillsong Church? (by Mattie Townson)

• Turning point in ‘Reindeer Laws’ debate in Indiana’s nativity court case (by Terry Mattingly)

• Reflecting on Ravi Zacharias: When we have to apologize for the apologist (by Bruce Barron)

• Christian Solidarity International ‘slave rescue’ efforts face scrutiny (by Juliana Chan Erikson)

• Ask any church-state lawyer and you’ll hear this is a hard question: What is religion? (by Richard Ostling)

• Indian government finds new ways to crack down on dissenting Sikh farmers, journalists (by Manmeet Sahni)

• Germany’s Catholic bishops aim to rewrite the Catechism, igniting a potential schism (by Clemente Lisi)

The Final Plug

Wait, what did he say?

A Baptist pastor in Missouri made news — not the positive kind — after preaching that “weight control” by wives is the solution for marital problems, as reported by Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks.

“Why is it so many times that women after they get married let themselves go?” Stewart-Allen Clark said. “Why do they do that?”

For some reason, I was reminded of the George Strait country hit “She Let Herself Go.”

Enjoy.

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.