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) The Religion News Association will present its 2022 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence in a ceremony next week at Columbia Journalism School in New York.

Finalists, for work produced in 2021, were announced in August. See the full list.

Wednesday night’s hybrid in-person and online event will feature a panel discussion by finalists for Religion Story of the Year, including:

• Julia Duin, for “The Christian prophets who say Trump is coming again,” for Politico.

• Tom Gjelten, for “An inconvenient genocide,” for Moment.

• Deepti Hajela (representing a team that included Luis Andres Henao and Mariam Fam), for “Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias,” for The Associated Press.

• Emily Kaplan, for “The rise of the liberal Latter-day Saints,” for The Washington Post.

• Marie-Rose Sheinerman, “‘Second class citizens’: LGBTQ students allege culture of alienation and fear at Yeshiva University,” for The Forward.

I plan to watch the ceremony and report on the winners in next week’s Plug-in. In case you missed it, ReligionUnplugged.com’s own Paul Glader and Michael Ray Smith earned third place for Religion Story of the Year last year for “God and guns: Why American churchgoers are packing heat.”

In other contest news, the American Academy of Religion has announced the recipients of its 2022 journalism awards: Peter Manseau, Dawn Araujo-Hawkins and Ken Chitwood for best in-depth newswriting and Mike Cosper, Monique Parsons and Kylie McGivern for best in-depth multimedia journalism. Read about all the winners.

This is cool: Chitwood’s honored stories include two he wrote for ReligionUnplugged.com: “Yiddish music is resurging in the Weimar square Hitler frequented” and “In Europe's 'secular capital,’ some Berliners are finding solace in religion” (co-authored with Giulia Brabetz). See what the judges said.

Congrats to Ken and all the winners!

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Southern Baptist Convention President Bart Barber on Trump, abortion, sex abuse in the church and more: Millions watched Anderson Cooper’s “60 Minutes” interview of Barber on Sunday night.

Many Baptists gave Barber’s responses positive reviews, as noted in a Twitter thread by The Tennessean’s Liam Adams. But abuse survivor Christa Brown said his condemnation of misconduct by pastors and others in the SBC fell short, according to The Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner.

In you missed it, check out my recent Associated Press profile of Barber.

2. ‘Saved by grace’: Evangelicals find a way forward with Herschel Walker: “The embattled G.O.P. candidate reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but conservatives have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause,” New York Times religion writer Elizabeth A. Dias reports.

More timely headlines on religion and politics:

• Michael Flynn’s ReAwaken roadshow recruits ‘Army of God’ (by Michelle R. Smith and Richard Lardner, Associated Press)

• Mastriano’s attacks on Jewish school set off outcry over antisemitic signaling (by Katie Glueck, New York Times)

• In Milwaukee, Latino Christians fed up with crime weigh GOP appeal (by Giovanna Dell'Orto, AP)

3. Africa’s worst famine in decades threatens family unity and human dignity: “The plight of herding communities facing hunger echoes Old Testament examples,” Christianity Today’s Morgan Lee reports from Kenya.

In another compelling piece by the leading evangelical magazine, Emily Belz reports from New York that “nursing homes still haven’t recovered from pandemic loneliness.”

BONUS: “Pope Francis on Oct. 11 marked the opening of the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council — a three-year period that launched landmark reforms in the Catholic Church’s relationship to the world around it and the church's own liturgy and practices — by pleading for the church to ‘overcome all polarization and preserve our communion,’” National Catholic Reporter’s Christopher White reports from Rome.

More on the 60th anniversary:

• Pope urges unity as he marks Vatican II’s 60th anniversary (by Nicole Winfield, Associated Press)

• Vatican II impact still felt 60 years later as generation that participated passes (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)

• How Francis is reviving the Vatican II team (by Christopher Lamb, Tablet)

• Think piece: How Catholics became prisoners of Vatican II (by Ross Douthat, New York Times) (See a Twitter thread by David Gibson responding to Douthat)

More Top Reads

• United Methodists are breaking up in a slow-motion schism (by Peter Smith, Associated Press)

• A $100 million ad campaign wants to fix Jesus’ image. His followers remain a problem. (by Bob Smietana, Religion News Service)

• What faith groups are doing to help with the housing crisis (by Mya Jaradat, Deseret News)

• Meet Father Bill Holt, the Dominican priest who went viral on ‘Humans of New York’ (by Ricardo da Silva, S.J., America)

• Mourners pray at Thai temple filled by children’s keepsakes (by Assanee Vejpongsa and David Rising, AP)

• Are the culture wars changing how Christian students choose colleges? (by Kathryn Post, RNS)

• Spread of Catholic hospitals limits reproductive care across the U.S. (by Frances Stead Sellers and Meena Venkataramanan, Washington Post)

• Pastor on leave after reportedly giving out ‘i (heart) hot youth pastors’ stickers (by Emily McFarlan Miller, RNS)

• Iran protests are proving a durable challenge to the Islamic Republic (by Sune Engel Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal)

• Supreme Court ruling on religious schools has broader impact in Maine (by Lana Cohen, Portland Press Herald)

• Sikhs’ appeal to start boot camp with beards, long hair, turbans gains sympathy at D.C. hearing (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)

• A food truck at Duke University offers a truce to rising tensions on Mideast politics (by Yonat Shimron, RNS)

• Think piece: Why don’t popes ever win the Nobel Peace Prize? (by John L. Allen Jr., Crux)

• Think piece: What Kanye can teach us about anti-semitism (by Yair Rosenberg, Atlantic)

Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines

Good news, Part 1: The Chattanooga Times Free Press has a new religion writer. Welcome to Andrew Schwartz!

Good news, Part 2: The Tennessean’s Liam Adams has a new monthly religion newsletter, “Faith in the South.” Check it out!

Charging Station: In Case You Missed It

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

• Agape Flows provides menstrual products to impoverished South African girls (by Audrey Jackson)

• Headcovers have always been political in Iran – for women on all sides (by Eliz Sanasarian)

• Loretta Lynn: Gospel truth meets rhinestone feminism (by Terry Mattingly)

• Eboo Patel is leading Interfaith America into the new era of religious diversity (by Kimberly Winston)

• In Georgia County with history of racial violence, Christians seek unity (by Bobby Ross Jr.)

• Masked soldiers seize pastor and wife in Russian-occupied Mariupol (by Felix Corley)

• Fox Sports’ Chris Broussard uses hoops and Christianity to address needs of young men (by Clemente Lisi)

• 6 virtues Christians ought to promote (by Paul Prather)

• Native Americans’ struggle for control over sacred lands is making progress (Rosalyn R. LaPier)

• Bloomberg: Surge in giving to donor advised funds helps wealthy, not poor (by Steve Rabey)

• Kenyan President William Ruto criticized for favoring Pentecostal Christians (by Tom Osanjo)

• Feds aim to stop violence at houses of worship with faith-based council (by Tom Campisi)

The Final Plug

What happens when Sunday morning church conflicts with early NFL kickoffs?

For The Associated Press in 2005, I wrote about a church that developed a “Holy Huddle” program to combat people leaving services early to watch the Dallas Cowboys.

In 2018, Holly Meyer did a feature for The Tennessean on “the two cultural lightning rods in Southern life” squaring off.

This week, the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas has an interesting piece on the subject. And guess what? Dallas reports that Aaron Rodgers “feels your pain”:

As a player, Aaron Rodgers loves early games on Sundays.

“In the league, you dream about playing at noon (Central time) because the schedule is a little bit better on the body and you get to get home and relax,” the Green Bay Packers quarterback said during a Wednesday press conference.

But as a kid, Rodgers never even got to watch them.

“I was at church,” he said, noting that he could only watch afternoon and prime-time games.

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.