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) Look for a little thunder today, but I don’t see any rain in the Nashville, Tennessee, forecast for next week.

That’s probably a good thing because I’m not sure how many more leaks the Southern Baptist Convention can take.

The heat will be turned up, though, as 16,000 Baptist messengers converge on Music City for the denomination’s (yes, I’m going to use that word) biggest annual meeting in a quarter-century.

Last week’s Plug-in set the scene, but the headlines just keep coming.

The new developments start with Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey’s scoop last Saturday on a leaked letter detailing allegations that Southern Baptist leaders mishandled sex abuse claims.

Next up: leaded audio Thursday of SBC officials showing reluctance to take action against churches accused of mishandling abuse, as The Associated Press’ Peter Smith and Travis Loller, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and Adelle M. Banks and The Tennessean’s Holly Meyer report.

More to read:

• Pressure mounts for an independent investigation of SBC Executive Committee handling of abuse (by Bob Smietana, RNS)

• Tensions erupt among Southern Baptists ahead of their big meeting in Nashville. Here's why (by Holly Meyer, The Tennessean)

• Sexual abuse pushed to top of agenda for Southern Baptist Convention (by Terry Mattingly, syndicated columnist)

• Southern Baptist pastors demand inquiry into handling of sex abuse cases (by Yonat Shimron, RNS)

• Southern Baptists take sides ahead of Nashville meeting (by Kate Shellnutt, Christianity Today)

• Southern Baptists to again meet under the cloud of abuse scandals (by Robert Downen, Houston Chronicle)

• Racial tensions simmer as Southern Baptists hold key meeting (by David Crary, Travis Loller and Peter Smith, AP)

• Secret recordings, leaked letters: Explosive secrets rocking the Southern Baptist Convention (by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post)

• ‘Take the ship’: Conservatives aim to commandeer Southern Baptists (by Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias, New York Times)

• ‘Our Lord isn’t woke.’ Southern Baptists clash over their future (Ian Lovett, Wall Street Journal)

• The scandal rocking the evangelical world as Russell Moore departs SBC (by Peter Wehner, The Atlantic)

• The fight for the heart of the Southern Baptist Convention (by Eliza Griswold, New Yorker)

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. The murder scandalizing Brazil’s evangelical church: This is a crazy story — and a crazy good piece of journalism.

The New Yorker’s Jon Lee Anderson delves into the murder of Anderson do Carmo, husband of Flordelis dos Santos de Souza, a famous Brazilian gospel singer, pastor and politician.

2. This summer’s ‘Brood X’ cicadas are inspiring death-to-life meditations: Veteran religion writer Kimberly Winston has a knack for finding faith angles in the strangest places … say, insects.

“The cicada has been sacred to cultures, faiths and peoples,” Winston writes right here at ReligionUnplugged. “And this year, many see in them a reflection of a specific symbol of our own rebirth as the country emerges from COVID-19 restrictions.”

3. Charles Stanley: Not selling CBD: “This story has snake-oil medicine, a famous Baptist preacher, Internet scams, Icelandic websites, language written to fool algorithms, a mind/body transformation guru, and Tom Hanks saying ‘Come on, man,’” says the author, Daniel Silliman of Christianity Today. "Not sure what else you could want.”

Not anything at all. This is quite enough.

BONUS: Let’s see. We’ve already featured secretly recorded Baptists, a real-life telenovela, faithful cicadas and a CBD scam.

Why not go ahead and let Relevant’s Tyler Huckabee explain why Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber could never be real Christians?

More Top Reads

• A Christian congregation fled Xi Jinping’s China, but escaping control had a price (by Chun Han Wong and Josh Chin, Wall Street Journal)

• Spirituality underpins migrant activism in US borderlands (by Anita Snow, Associated Press)

• She’s running for New York city council, but newspapers won’t publish her photo (by Hannah Dreyfus, Politico)

• Vaccines push the question: Are you going back to church? (by Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post)

• Mixed city of Arabs and Jews remains on edge after violence (by Ilan Ben Zion and David Goldman, Associated Press)

• Thanking God for miracles, asylum seekers enter US (by Bekah McNeel, Christianity Today)

• Methodists drop state line church, one of the seven original Methodist churches in Alabama (by Greg Garrison, Birmingham News)

• A refugee agency rebuilds its pipeline after Trump: ‘We’re starting from scratch’ (by Emily McFarlan Miller, Religion News Service)

• How the Mormon church unlocked medical pot for deep red states (by Natalie Fertig, Politico)

• Who is Sister Cindy? Evangelist Christian preacher turned TikTok star (by Kate Fowler, Newsweek)

• Naftali Bennett, set to be Israel’s next leader, represents a break with its more secular past (by Griff Witte, Steve Hendrix and Shira Rubin, Washington Post)

• Wisconsin priest digs in to refuse bishop’s demand to resign (by Todd Richmond and David Crary, Associated Press)

Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines

Sarah Smith, then with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, first made a name for herself in Godbeat circles in 2018. That occurred as a result of her must-read investigation into sex crimes in independent fundamental Baptist churches.

Most recently with the Houston Chronicle, Smith has joined ProPublica’s South team, based in Atlanta, where she’ll cover housing, mental health, poverty and, yes, religion.

Her first official day was Monday.

Charging Station: In Case You Missed It

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

• The pandemic has slowed tourism to Thailand’s Buddhist temples, but the impact is more than economic (by Brooke Schedneck)

• The legacy of Marshall King, a restaurant critic who believes food and faith are linked (by Clayton Sidenbender)

• The Jesuit priest linking Indians and Pakistanis as unlikely pen pals (by Priyadarshini Sen)

• What is ‘common-good capitalism’ and how does it differ from our common idea of capitalism in the U.S.? (by Michael Metzger)

• New book with a Catholic’s perspective on the pandemic looks at the church’s future (by Clemente Lisi)

• Where will American religious groups fit into the newly electrified abortion debate? (by Richard Ostling)

• ‘Shtisel’ and ‘Unorthodox’ make ultra-Orthodox Jewish life relatable to us all (by Myna German)

• This obscure law shielded an Episcopal school from a lawsuit and raises concerns about accountability (by Chelsea Langston Bombino)

The Final Plug

In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a pickup truck attack that killed four members of an immigrant family a hate attack directed at Muslims, as Rob Gillies reports for The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, the discovery of an unmarked, undocumented burial site with remains of 215 Indigenous children has brought a national reckoning to America’s northern neighbor, as I report for The Christian Chronicle.

Thank you for reading!

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.