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) Like everybody alive then, I remember what I was doing the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

At the time, I was religion editor for The Oklahoman, the metro daily in Oklahoma City. I was running a few minutes late that Tuesday because I stopped at Walmart to buy a new pair of cleats for a company softball team starting the fall season that night. As it turned out, we didn't play.

As I flashed my company ID at the security guard outside the newspaper building, he asked if I'd heard about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York. I had not. Minutes later, after I arrived in the ninth-floor newsroom, my colleagues and I watched on television as a second plane hit the twin towers. Almost immediately, ABC anchor Peter Jennings likened the attack to Pearl Harbor. That's when I grasped the significance.

The rest of that day is a blur. Like my reporter colleagues all over the nation, I immediately put aside any personal feelings and operated on journalistic adrenaline. I wrote four bylined stories for the next day's paper: one on the religious community's response, one on Muslim fears of a backlash, one on Oklahoma City bombing victims' reactions and one on an eyewitness account by an Oklahoma professor's daughter.

Like many (most?) Americans, I tossed and turned that night.

In the days and weeks after 9/11, I recall interviewing religious leaders and ordinary congregants as they looked to God and sought to explain the seemingly unexplainable.

Twenty years later, faith remains a big part of the story.

Some of the must-read coverage:

• Shrine to replace church destroyed on 9/11 nears completion (by Peter Smith, Associated Press)

• Generation 9/11 (by Emily Belz, World)

• Young Sikhs still struggle with post-Sept. 11 discrimination (by Anita Snow and Noreen Nasir, AP)

• Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias (by Mariam Fam, Deepti Hajela and Luis Andres Henao, AP)

• Ministering to the 9/11 first responders who never had to be told to ‘never forget’ (by Kathryn Watson, Christianity Today)

• 9/11 became a catalyst for interfaith relations and cooperation (by Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service)

• Explainer: What was, and is, al-Qaida? (by Jon Gambrell, AP)

• How 9/11 changed American Muslims’ relationship with religious liberty (by Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News)

• She was captured by the Taliban in 2001. But God gave her a bigger story (by Rebecca Hopkins, Christianity Today)

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. Christian couple dedicate their lives to caring for Afghans: A 9-year-old girl named Lamia inspired retired Air Force Gen. John Bradley and his wife, Jan, to build schools and clinics and otherwise work to improve lives in Afghanistan.

Cheryl Mann Bacon’s in-depth profile of the Bradleys for ReligionUnplugged.com is a terrific read. (Full disclosure: I assigned the piece and worked with her on it, so I might be a little biased.)

2. ‘A private matter’: Joe Biden’s very public clash with his own church: “Becoming president has brought Biden into direct conflict with conservative Catholics on the most polarizing issue of the moment: Abortion,” notes this story by Politico Magazine senior staff writer Ruby Cramer.

This is, of course, not breaking news. But Cramer offers a thoughtful, interesting take.

3. How the Texas anti-abortion movement helped enact a near-complete ban: “Texans are almost evenly divided on abortion, but a combination of Republican control, conservative judicial appointments and cultural shifts helped the state’s anti-abortion movement find success,” reports Ruth Graham, Dallas-based national religion writer for the New York Times.

At the Dallas Morning News, faith and religion writer BeLynn Hollers (yay, the Morning News has a faith and religion writer again!) explores how the role of religion in Texas’ abortion battle became more prominent after Roe v. Wade.

BONUS: I’m going to recommend a package hidden behind a paywall (I was able to read it in my local library’s free database).

In related pieces, Columbus Dispatch religion writer Danae King shares the story of an Ohio man who was raped by a priest and is now seeking legal reform.

More Top Reads

• As church attendance declines, evangelical counterculture bets on revival (by Julia Duin, Newsweek)

• Supreme Court blocks Texas execution for inmate who wants pastor’s touch (by Jess Bravin, Wall Street Journal)

• Prayer and politicking: Churches become a center of the California recall campaign (by Faith E. Pinho, Los Angeles Times)

• Can heaven wait? Best-selling author says ‘no’ (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)

• For a second year, Jews mark the High Holy Days in the shadow of COVID (by Liam Stack, New York Times)

• The power of the Latin Mass (by Francis X. Rocca, Wall Street Journal)

• Houston synagogue hosts Ida evacuees from Louisiana for Rosh Hashanah celebration (by Sam González Kelly, Houston Chronicle)

• Max Lucado diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm, asks for prayer (by Kate Shellnutt, Christianity Today)

Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines

Mark A. Kellner, the national religion writer for the Washington Times, recalls his personal experience with 9/11 for Signs of the Times, a Seventh-day Adventist publication serving readers in Australia and New Zealand.

“It is said in the days following the attack that Americans turned to houses of worship more than at any other time in recent memory; churches, synagogues and even mosques were packed with congregants,” Kellner writes. “Muslims in America — and those such as turban-wearing Sikhs mistakenly believed to be Muslim — were attacked in incidents of hatred. But while some turned to hate, many turned to God — or their individual conception of Him — for solace and guidance.”

Charging Station: In Case You Missed It

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

• Inside a summer drama: Why everyone expected Pope Francis to resign (by Clemente Lisi)

• Catholic pilgrims killed in South Sudan latest victims of violence (by Juma Peter)

• Are Churches Part Of The Solution To The Affordable Housing Crisis? (by Rick Reinhard)

• Reporters should understand the rigid form of Islam that dominates Afghanistan (by Richard Ostling)

• Christian adoption center splintering over allowing LGBTQ families (by Steve Rabey)

• The religious freedom impacts of the Texas abortion Law (by Chelsea Langston Bombino)

• Why is the U.S. government blocking refugee flights from Afghanistan? (by Lela Gilbert)

The Final Plug

The headline on Aaron Earls’ story for Lifeway Research is simple enough: “COVID-19 causes a church name change.”

The name change itself has made me chuckle all week:

The pandemic forced churches across the country to make significant changes, but none were quite like the one at Stony Fork Community Church, formerly known as Outbreak Church.

If you’ll excuse me a moment, I’ll try to regain my composure.

Happy Friday, everybody! Remember the heroes.

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.