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) For 120 years, Canada took Indigenous children from their families and forced them into residential schools run by Christian denominations — a practice that didn’t end until 1996.

Now, the discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves at two former residential schools have rocked America’s northern neighbor, and the aftershocks have spread to the U.S.

Last month, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced that it had found the remains of 215 children near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.

And this week, the Cowessess First Nation reported locating more than 600 unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

The discoveries have brought a national reckoning over what Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterizes as “a dark and shameful chapter” of the nation’s history.

“I’m ashamed as a White Christian. I’m ashamed of what we did,” Kevin Vance, a minister in Regina, Saskatchewan, told me earlier this month. “I’m ashamed of all the racism and genocide that we concocted and that we did it in the name of Jesus. That’s just unbelievable to me.”

READ: Churches In Canada Confront Their Past After The Remains Of 215 Children Found

But the dark history isn’t limited to Canada: The news there “has magnified interest in the troubling legacy both in Canada and the United States,” according to The Associated Press.

As AP’s Susan Montoya Bryan reports, the U.S. government “will investigate its past oversight of Native American boarding schools and work to ‘uncover the truth about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences’ of policies that over the decades forced hundreds of thousands of children from their families and communities.”

In the U.S. — as in Canada — Christian denominations are an important part of the story, notes veteran religion writer G. Jeffrey MacDonald, who wrote about American church-run boarding schools in 2018.

“The churches were not just complicit. They were participatory,” Christine Diindiisi McCleave, chief executive officer of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, told MacDonald then. “They received federal funding and helped carry out the policy.”

In a opinion piece for Religion News Service this week, Kaitlin Curtice, a Potawatomi author and speaker, makes the case that the American church “will not be able to hide from its history of complicity in the treatment of Indigenous peoples.”

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. For one L.A. Catholic church, meeting indoors is ‘historic’ after wave of COVID-19 deaths: Religion News Service’s Alejandra Molina reports on the reopening of a Spanish-speaking congregation that during the winter hosted at least one coronavirus-related funeral each week.

For a different Southern California take, the Orange County Register’s Susan Christian Goulding delves into the “Holy haircut!” of Steve Ranney, a Presbyterian pastor who avoided a trim while his congregation met online.

“People joked that I looked like Jesus, if he’d lived a lot longer,” Ranney, 62, tells the Register. Now it’s back, the newspaper says, to what he calls his “business-style look, right above the ears.”

2. ’The rabbi said it was OK’: Hasidic mother of 10 becomes doctor: Dr. Alexandra Friedman “believed that pursuing medicine would augment her spirituality, not detract from it,” writes the New York Times’ Corey Kilgannon writes.

“In Judaism, there’s a belief that if you don’t use the gifts given to you by God, you’re not really honoring God,” Friedman tells the Times.

3. No more ‘Evangelical Vatican’: Christians rebuild relationship with Colorado Springs: In a fascinating feature for Christianity Today, Colorado-based writer Liam Adams explores “the story of evangelicalism in Colorado Springs, the city of 464,000 that celebrates its 150th birthday this July.”

“Evangelicals were really successful in the city starting in the 1980s, earning it the title of the ‘evangelical Vatican’ as Colorado Springs became a platform for high-profile Christian leaders,” Adams explains. “Then there were some broken appliances — some dislodging — and the city’s evangelicals rediscovered the importance of caring for their local community.”

More Top Reads

• France’s Macron pushes controls on religion to pressure mosques (by Noemie Bisserbe and Stacy Meichtry, Wall Street Journal)

• Catholic priests from around U.S. gather at George Floyd Square (by Alex Chhith, Star Tribune)

• Can a tender-hearted president solve the Southern Baptists’ trust problem? (by Bob Smietana, Religion News Service)

• A World Series MVP's marriage crashes and his pastor is more than a role player in the drama (by Terry Mattingly, GetReligion)

• In pandemic, drug overdose deaths soar among Black Americans (by Claire Galofaro, Associated Press)

• Messianic Jews say ‘fake rabbi’ was wrong way to reach the ultra-orthodox (by Jayson Casper, Christianity Today)

• The GOP’s pool of potential religious supporters is more diverse than you think (by Mya Jaradat, Deseret News)

• States readying laws as abortion gets court study (by Frank E. Lockwood, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

• How pastors and health experts are struggling to close the vaccine gap among White evangelicals (by Kim Bellware and Drea Cornejo, Washington Post)

• The fight for religious freedom isn’t what it used to be (by Andrew R. Lewis, The Atlantic)

• Emanuel shooting survivor, slave trader’s descendant take civil rights road trip together (by Jennifer Berry Hawes, The Post and Courier)

Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines

After just more than a month on the religion beat at the Washington Times, Mark A. Kellner already is cranking out stories at an amazing pace (eight bylines so far this week, by my last count).

Reporting from the National Religious Broadcasters’ meeting in Grapevine, Texas, this week, he covered trends in Christian broadcasting, interviewed entertainer Pat Boone and author Joel C. Rosenberg and reported on a speech by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Also, my sources tell me Kellner ate his first Whataburger while in Texas and loved it. No surprise there, right?

Charging Station: In Case You Missed It

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

• Saving ‘friendless’ churches from demolition in England and Wales (by Terry Mattingly)

• Croatia’s soccer team gets its kicks while their coach keeps the faith (by Clemente Lisi)

• The exhibit 'Otherwise/Revival' at Bridge Projects explores impact Of Azusa Street Revival In L.A. (by Angela Groom)

• A survivor debunks myths some Christians believe about sex trafficking (by Elsa Cruz)

• U.S. Catholic churches need to ‘be more aware’ of the migrants among us (by Clemente Lisi)

• Supreme Court unanimously uphold religious freedom for foster parents (by Chelsea Langston Bombino)

• Catholic bishops vote to draft communion guidelines: what happens next? (by Clemente Lisi)

• ‘Authoritarian’ laws in India’s Arabian Sea Islands anger local Muslims (by Hanan Zaffar and Shaheen Abdulla)

The Final Plug

I try to end Plug-in on a lighter note.

This week, I’ll give you a choice of kickers:

A. The 10-year anniversary of the pastor who ended his NASCAR prayer with "In Jesus' name, boogity, boogity, boogity, amen" (by Joseph Spears, The Tennessean)

B. The 10 best Christian dating apps and sites of 2021 (by Lizz Schumer, Good Housekeeping)

C. Pope Francis meets Spider-Man, or depending on one’s perspective, Spider-Man meets Pope Francis (by The Associated Press)

D. All of the above

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! Catch you again next week.

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.