Religion Unplugged's top stories of 2019

Since launching in February 2019, the Religion Unplugged team has been thrilled with our readers’ responses. We’re also proud to have won an Editor & Publisher EPPY award in our first year for best culture and entertainment news for websites under 1 million monthly views. Thank you for reading! If you haven’t signed up for our email newsletter, you can do that here.

To recap, here are our top stories of the year, based on our website traffic.

1. A Jewish-Muslim legal duo is turning heads in New York City by Maya Harrison and Natallie Rocha

Who can resist a positive interfaith story? This one features a Jewish judge and his female Syrian Muslim clerk working together for justice. Since they both wear their religious garb to court, they attract attention.

2. Whistleblower Alleges $100 Billion Secret Stockpile By Mormon Church by Paul Glader

In November, a source contacted us with allegations and evidence about one of the world's wealthiest religious organizations... a 74-page document filed with the IRS and obtained by Religion Unplugged alleges that Ensign Peak Advisors, Inc. saw owned assets under management grow to more than $100 billion from $10 billion in the past 22 years, fueled by a mix of investment strategy and tithe money from church members. The complaint may be the most important look at LDS finances in decades. Read the update and listen to our podcast for more on this story here (iTunes) and here (Stitcher).

3. Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? By Richard Ostling

Our columnist and former long-time religion reporter for the Associated Press and TIME magazine gives some answers to the burning question in this viral post, sparked by a joint declaration in February by Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayebb of Egypt’s influential Al-Azhar University “in the name of God who has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity.”

4. Meet the real-life pastor portrayed in the Easter film ‘Breakthrough’ by Bobby Ross Jr.

This 44-year-old Assemblies of God pastor talked to Religion Unplugged about the true story from Missouri that inspired the film Breakthrough released in April. In 2015, a 14-year-old boy in his congregation fell through ice on a lake, was trapped under water for 15 minutes and had no pulse after 43 minutes of CPR, but he recovered as his mother prayed for his survival.

5. An Indian pastor's response to rising violence against Muslims by Akshay Rajkumar

Amid a new citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants, a Christian pastor writes about how India is moving away from its pluralistic tolerance of all faiths that he grew up with and into an era of intolerance for religious minorities that everyone who cares about democracy should be concerned about. For background, read our coverage of the protests in India and their significance here.

6. Catholicism at a crossroads: 3 takeaways from the Amazon Synod by Clemente Lisi

Our Catholic reporter gives his analysis that conservative, progressive and mainstream media has missed. Allowing married priests isn’t the biggest surprise. The bigger headline is the possibility of women serving as deacons. Other takeaways were on how the Vatican has created a larger wedge between conservative and progressive Catholics, and how the pope’s press office has added to ambiguity on doctrine.

7. The nuns who built a monastery (but are famous for their bakery) by Julia Duin

These Greek nuns in Washington state bake baklava good enough that visitors drive 50 miles through a Native American reservation to visit their shop. But they also built the Greek Orthodox monastery with a trained contractor and mechanical engineer among their ranks, with other sisters planning all the insulation and painting.

8. Photo essay: 50 injured in Kashmir's worst protest since India's crackdown by Avinash Giri

After India stripped the northern, Muslim-majority state of its autonomy written in the constitution, our India correspondent visited Kashmir to show that counter to what some Indian media reported, peaceful protests in the valley were met with violence. Our reporters were some of the only journalists on scene to cover the tense scene and faced danger themselves as they witnessed the violence, capturing chilling images in words and still photos for our readers.

9. The Religion of Marie Kondo and her KonMari Method of Tidying by Meagan Clark

Remember that wildly popular Netflix show with a tiny Japanese woman who delights in tidying messes? Marie Kondo draws from Japan’s pre-historic religion Shintoism that’s now popularly diluted to cultural customs. Here’s how she translates Shinto ideas into tidy habits and why her show didn’t quite catch on in Japan.

10. Hindu extremists are banning Christian churches across India by Surinder Kaur Lal and Meagan Clark

Religion Unplugged talked to 26 pastors, lay people, lawyers and activists in India to find that although violence against Muslims and Christians has risen there, Hindu extremists have begun leveraging laws to shut down churches across the country.