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) “Sexual harassment went unchecked at Christianity Today.”

The headline shocked me.

The source of the news stunned me as much as the content of it.

“Women reported two top leaders’ inappropriate behavior for more than 12 years,” the story said. “Nothing happened.”

Where were those claims made? In a bombshell investigative piece by Christianity Today itself.

The influential evangelical magazine, based in Carol Stream, Illinois, outside Chicago, published an in-depth exposé written by news editor Daniel Silliman and edited by senior news editor Kate Shellnutt.

I’ve frequently praised Silliman’s investigative reporting on evangelical institutions. In this week’s piece, he delves into serious allegations inside his own workplace:

A number of women reported demeaning, inappropriate, and offensive behavior by former editor in chief Mark Galli and former advertising director Olatokunbo Olawoye. But their behavior was not checked and the men were not disciplined, according to an external assessment of the ministry’s culture released Tuesday.

The report identified a pair of problems at the flagship magazine of American evangelicalism: a poor process for “reporting, investigating, and resolving harassment allegations” and a culture of unconscious sexism that can be “inhospitable to women.” CT has made the assessment public.

“We want to practice the transparency and accountability we preach,” said CT president Timothy Dalrymple. “It’s imperative we be above reproach on these matters. If we’re falling short of what love requires of us, we want to know, and we want to do better.”

In separate, independent reporting, the CT news editor interviewed more than two dozen current and former employees and heard 12 firsthand accounts of sexual harassment.

If Galli’s name sounds familiar, he made widespread headlines in December 2019 when he wrote an editorial calling for then-President Donald Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. Galli later left the evangelical magazine and converted to Catholicism, as Mark A. Kellner reported here at ReligionUnplugged.com in September 2020.

In Silliman’s article, Galli characterizes the allegations as misunderstandings. In a personal blog post responding to Christianity Today’s report, he expands upon that defense:

As anyone who has read this newsletter knows, I am sometimes apt to write something that I later recognize was confusing or misleading, and I am forced to retrace my steps to clarify. This has also been a character flaw in my interactions with people that crops up now and then, as anyone who has worked with me can testify. So that point in the article is fair as far as it goes.  

But I was stunned to read the piece and discover that there were a number of incidents reported that either never happened or the context in which they happened was left out. Just three examples among many: It is said that I lingered over a woman’s bra clip and that my hand got caught in her bra. Never happened. It is said that I “felt up” a woman. Never happened. It is said that I said aloud that I like to watch women golfers bend over. Never said it. So amidst the stories in which I can see I genuinely offended or confused some women, there were allegations that just mystify me.

Concerning Olawoye, the magazine notes:

Olawoye’s tenure at CT ended after he was arrested by federal agents in a sting operation in 2017. He was attempting to pay for sex with a teenage girl. He ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Today he lives in suburban Chicago and is registered as a sex offender. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

Along with the news story, Christianity Today published an editorial by Timothy Dalrymple, its president, CEO and editor-in-chief, titled “We fell short in protecting our employees” and a 39-page assessment made by Guidepost Solutions.

For more coverage of the news at Christianity Today, see these stories by Bob Smietana of Religion News Service and Kellner, now with the Washington Times.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. A Texas pastor wants evangelicals to forge ties with Muslims and Jews: Will they listen?: The most striking part of this exceptional piece by Chris Moody for ReligionUnplugged.com is the friendship formed by a Christian pastor and a Muslim imam — both of whom “take exclusivist views of their faith.”

“If there’s one successful thing I can do as a pastor and die in peace, it would be to baptize Magid,” pastor Bob Roberts Jr. says of his Muslim friend, Mohamad Magid.

2. COVID-19’s personal toll at one Ohio church: ‘Big hunks of us are gone’: The Columbus Dispatch’s Danae King profiles a predominantly Black church where roughly 60 members have died in the past two years — “more than one-third of them due to COVID-19 or related complications.”

"COVID has really impacted the Black community, and particularly this church," Bishop Donald Washington of the Mount Hermon Missionary Baptist Church told the Dispatch. "It just seemed like every week, two or three were dying at the same time."

3. War ‘becomes incredibly real’ for Texas Baptist Men aiding Ukrainian refugees in Poland: Russia’s war on Ukraine remains the world’s biggest news story.

In this feature, the Dallas Morning News’ BeLynn Hollers recounts the experiences of a faith-based group from Texas that helped refugees near Poland’s border with Ukraine.

More compelling headlines related to the Russia-Ukraine war:

• Pope Francis urges Patriarch Kirill to use ‘language of Jesus’ as Vatican tries to end Russia-Ukraine war (by Clemente Lisi, ReligionUnplugged.com)

• Ukrainian spiritual and diplomatic leaders urge aid, weapons (by Luis Andres Henao, Associated Press)

• U.S. adoptions in Ukraine come to a halt as Russia invades and orphans flee (by Jill Nelson, World)

• Ukrainian Jews escape to Israel: ‘We were happy, and now, we will start again’ (by Leila Miller, Los Angeles Times)

• Russian American pastors combat propaganda in their churches (by Emily Belz, Christianity Today)

• U.S. religious freedom watchdog warns of significant oppression if Russia gains Ukraine (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)

• For Holocaust survivors from Ukraine, Russian invasion stirs painful memories (by Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post)

• Eastern Orthodox leaders are outspoken on Ukraine war. Except one. (by Liam Stack, New York Times)

• Russia’s war on Ukraine has some Christians wondering: Is this the end of the world? (by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post)

• Russia-Ukraine war: Some pastors wonder about “end of days” (by David Crary, AP)

• Russian Orthodox parishes in Europe pressured from both sides as war rages in Ukraine (by Tom Heneghan, Religion News Service)

• Ahead of Purim, Jewish students take up fasting to show solidarity with Ukraine (by Yonat Shimron, RNS)

• Orthodox churches seek peace in Ukraine (by Frank E. Lockwood, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

• Think piece: Is Putin a ‘real’ Christian? To understand this conflict we need to ask different questions (by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz and Robert Saler, Religion Dispatches)

• Think piece: The Pope, the patriarchs and the battle to save Ukraine (by Paul Elie, New Yorker)

• Think piece: Ukraine’s believers and the ‘Christian’ Putin (by Mindy Belz, Wall Street Journal)

More Top Reads

• Thousands of churches close every year. What will happen to their buildings? (by Bob Smietana, Religion News Service)

• ‘God knows’: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s faith to share spotlight at confirmation hearings (by Devin Dwyer, ABC News)

• AME Church halts retiree payouts amid probe into missing funds (by Theo Francis, Wall Street Journal)

• What to know about Purim, the most joyful — and rowdy — of Jewish holidays (by Mya Jaradat, Deseret News)

• Hijab bans deepen Hindu-Muslim fault lines in Indian state (by Sheikh Saaliq, Associated Press)

• Friday fish fries are starting to come back this Lent (by Carol Zimmermann, Catholic News Service)

• Yeshiva University basketball team ends unforgettable era (by Luis Andres Henao and Jessie Wardarski, AP)

• Gonzaga is coming in hot to March Madness. But what's behind the name? (by Rina Torchinsky, National Public Radio)

• Poll: Big split between right and left on requiring religious bakers to make same-sex wedding cakes (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)

• Study: Black Catholics in US are a tiny minority increasingly drawing on immigrants (by Yonat Shimron, RNS)

• The church is losing its gray heads (by Adam Macinnis, Christianity Today)

• They were killed by death squads in El Salvador four decades ago. Now, these martyrs are closer to sainthood (by Alejandra Molina, RNS)

• In wild overestimate, Americans think 30% of the country is Jewish (by Arno Rosenfeld, Forward)

Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines

Lord willing, I’ll file next week’s Plug-in from the Religion News Association’s annual conference — the first one in person in 2½ years — in the Washington, D.C., area.

The meeting should be educational and fun.

Charging Station: In Case You Missed It

Here is where you can catch up on recent news and opinions from ReligionUnplugged.com.

• 5 ways to celebrate the Hindu spring festival of Holi (by Myrian Garcia)

• What is ‘Christian nationalism’ and is it connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection? (by Richard Ostling)

• Russian Orthodox priest fined for condemning war in Ukraine (by Victoria Arnold)

• Stories about Ukrainian Jews? Try a 1,000-year history, the pale of settlement and a global diaspora (by Ira Rifkin)

• Will Russia's ruler listen to Orthodox Christian voices praying for ceasefire? (by Terry Mattingly)

• Q&A with Alabama minister who escaped Ukraine after war broke out (by Timothy Hall)

• How India’s religious headwear ban affects Muslims and not Hindus (by Myrian Garcia)

• Two insiders' writings should be weighed carefully by evangelical-watchers in the press (by Richard Ostling)

• 'A Journal for Jordan' is a sweet love story and a reflection on good parenting (by Jillian Cheney)

• How David Brooks, Peter Wehner and others fail to address evangelical divisions (by Paul Marshall)     

The Final Plug

Let the March Madness begin!

No. 15 seed Saint Peter’s University — a small Jesuit college in New Jersey — pulled off a major upset of No. 2 seed Kentucky on Thursday night.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. is a columnist for ReligionUnplugged.com 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.