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) Good morning, Weekend Plug-in readers!

Among the news we’re watching: Jehovah’s Witnesses, a global denomination of 8.6 million, are resuming their large conventions for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, as Religion News Service’s Alejandra Molina reports.

Meanwhile, a real longshot has paid off in Las Vegas — aka Sin City, according to Crux’s John Lavenburg:

This temple to secular hedonism, where even the airport has slot machines, and where a 2020 study of the ratio of residents to restaurants found the answer to be the classically diabolical number of 666, became the first new Roman Catholic Archdiocese in America in 19 years.

Whoa, that’s some kind of lede!

This is our weekly roundup of the week’s top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We begin with a long-awaited trial in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

What To Know: The Big Story

Fight for killer’s life: As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s religion editor, Peter Smith was a key part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting, which claimed 11 lives.

Now with The Associated Press, Smith is providing must-read coverage of the federal trial in the case that started this week:

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Robert Bowers carried out the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history when he killed 11 people and injured seven others by storming a Pittsburgh synagogue and shooting everyone he could find. On that, everyone agrees.

Even though Bowers’ defense acknowledged at the outset of his federal trial Tuesday that he was the gunman, they hope to spare the suburban truck driver from a possible death sentence over the Oct. 27, 2018, massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue.

Bowers “shot every person he saw” that day in the building, his lead lawyer, Judy Clarke, said in her opening statement. But she questioned whether Bowers had acted out of hatred, as prosecutors contend, or an irrational belief that he needed to kill Jews to save others from the genocide he claimed they were enabling by helping immigrants come to the U.S.

Show of defiance: In compelling testimony Wednesday and again on Thursday, survivors recounted the fear they experienced and the heroism they witnessed during the attack.

At several moments, Smith noted, witnesses “used the opportunity to educate the jury about their faith — a show of defiance before the man who tried to destroy them and who has expressed little emotion while seated at the defense table.”

Tracking antisemitic threats: The Tree of Life shooting “led to arguably the most ambitious effort ever undertaken to protect Jewish institutions in America.”

In a front-page piece for the New York Times this week, Campbell Robertson details the expansion of “the Secure Community Network, the closest thing to an official security agency for American Jewish institutions.”

Like Smith, Robertson is covering Bowers’ trial, as is the Wall Street Journal’s Kris Maher.

Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads

1. School prayer fight: “Buoyed by the right-wing Supreme Court, Christian groups are laying the groundwork for public schools to veer back toward the 1960s.”

Linda K. Wertheimer, who has extensive experience covering education and religion, goes “Inside the Christian legal crusade to revive school prayer.”

Her story is a joint project for the New Republic and the Hechinger Report.

2. After the flames: “When the world’s most recognizable cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris, burned on April 15, 2019, the toppling of its spire was the catastrophe’s defining moment — a dreamlike loop endlessly replayed, a stuttering stop-time interval that seemed, improbably, to last forever.”

Four years later, the Los Angeles Times’ Laura King reports, “the spire is slowly rising again.”

At The Associated Press, Jeffrey Schaeffer explains that the fire-ravaged roof is being rebuilt using medieval techniques.

3. $150 million lawsuit: “A group of former followers of Dave Ramsey has sued the Christian finance guru and radio host, along with his company and a marketing firm, for endorsing a failed timeshare exit company that allegedly defrauded customers out of millions.”

That’s the latest from Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana — who got doxxed by Ramsey’s company after doing a lengthy investigative piece on it in 2021.

More Top Reads

What does it mean to be “credibly accused?” The Oklahoman’s Carla Hinton explores that question as it relates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s sex abusers database. … Rick Warren says Southern Baptists are “in crisis,” the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner notes. … Some worshippers are switching congregations as the United Methodist Church splits over LGBTQ issues, according to The Associated Press’ Peter Smith and Holly Meyer. … Two attacks rattled an Orthodox Jewish family in Milwaukee, as the Journal Sentinel’s Sophie Carson explains. … U.S. Slavic churches are booming with Ukrainian war refugees, Christianity Today’s Emily Belz writes. … The Catholic Church in California is grappling with more than 3,000 lawsuits alleging child sex abuse, Religion News Service’s Alejandra Molina reports. … Illinois will provide halal and kosher meals to schoolkids, The Guardian’s Jessica Terrell notes. … Fewer students are training to be preachers, The Christian Chronicle’s Cheryl Mann Bacon finds. … And for all the talk about evangelicals, non-churchgoers now rule the GOP, argues the Washington Post’s David Byler.

Inside The Godbeat

For Interfaith America, Ken Chitwood shares lessons he learned from reporting on religion and climate change.

Chitwood, who has written several pieces for ReligionUnplugged.com, is the president of the Religion News Association.

Charging Station: ICYMI

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

I missed this a few weeks ago, but it’s still worth a read.

Kim Lawton highlights “Turkey’s Christian sites: Visiting seven churches from the Book Of Revelation.”

Lawton is the former managing editor of the acclaimed PBS series “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”

The Final Plug

A shoutout for ReligionUnplugged.com senior editor Clemente Lisi, who does excellent analysis and reporting on sports and faith.

His recent pieces touch on subjects such as a new Lebron James biopic, Los Angeles Dodgers drag-nuns and five baseball players who became pastors.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for ReligionUnplugged.com and serves as 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 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.