U.S. Army soldier. Republican congressman. Executive pastor. That was former U.S. Rep. Steve Russell’s career path before his 2022 recruitment to lead a North Carolina-based international ministry known as JAARS — which stands for Jungle Aviation and Relay Service.
Read MoreWith a record $1.76 billion expected to be wagered on the Super Bowl, more people are asking if legal sports betting is good or bad for America.
Read MoreThe Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minnesota — which has led to confrontations with protesters and two high-profile shooting deaths of U.S. citizens — has dominated national headlines for days and even weeks. Here are key faith angles to follow.
Read MoreSince December, the Department of Homeland Security has deployed about 3,000 federal agents to the state where Minnesotas’s Tim Walz — the 2024 running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris — serves as governor. Over that time, ICE agents have killed two people, unleashing violence and protests across Minneapolis.
Read MoreOn this week’s episode of the podcast, we sat down with Bobby Ross Jr. to discuss not only the news trends he anticipates in the year to come — but his career of 25 years covering faith through on-the-ground reporting in all 50 states and in 20 different countries.
Read More“Why not keep busy?” That’s Richard Ostling’s response when asked why he’s still covering religion at age 85 — after six decades on the Godbeat.
Read MorePerhaps not surprisingly, in a Bible Belt state such as Oklahoma, religion came up even in prison reporting — from Catholic bishops making appeals at clemency hearings to Allen, the inmate whose death I witnessed, declaring in her final statement, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Read MoreTo Gwen Cummings, the late Marshall Keeble was more than a famous traveling evangelist. He was her “Pop.” Cummings shared her personal memories of Marshall and Laura Keeble, her great-grandparents who were more like grandparents to her.
Read MoreNearly six decades after a renowned evangelist’s death, hundreds of Christians lined up at a Nashville, Tennessee, church — where the son of former slaves preached his first sermon in 1897 — to see a new exhibit honoring his legacy.
Read MoreIn a special year-end edition, Weekend Plug-in counts down the Top 10 most popular Religion Unplugged stories from the past 12 months.
Read MoreIt’s the best of the Godbeat, 2025 version. Many of the nation’s top religion journalists pick their top piece of the year.
Read MoreWhen nuns listed a vacant Catholic girls’ school for sale in this sleepy French village in 2017, American Jerry Jones saw an opportunity to expand Christian influence and higher education in Europe. But his British wife, Zoobi Jones, gave a quick, succinct reply to his suggestion that the couple use their savings to buy La Maison de Perrine — “The House of Perrine” in English.
Read MoreIn the afterlife, your wife of 65 years must choose between you and her first husband — a war hero who’s waited 67 years to see her again. That’s the intriguing plot of “Eternity,” a new romantic comedy starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner.
Read MoreA quarter-century ago, the millionaire businessman who brought the NBA’s original Charlotte Hornets to North Carolina’s largest city became embroiled in a sex scandal. Now he has published a book chronicling his stumbles and triumphs.
Read MoreIn 1982, a 3-month-old girl named Rebecca became the 13th child adopted through Lifeline Children’s Services. The Birmingham, Alabama, nonprofit — launched the previous year — grew out of an evangelical crisis pregnancy ministry called Sav-a-Life.
Read MoreIn the early 1960s, Ron Bever paid 50 cents — roughly $5.34 in today’s dollars — for an old religious book at an estate sale. A rare books enthusiast, even Bever didn’t realize at first what a treasure he’d acquired.
Read MoreGod and Google can bring people together in any language. A diverse group of Christians connected on a recent Sunday in Marseille, France.
Read MoreTrunk-or-treating — aka Halloween tailgating — is a growing trend in houses of worship and elsewhere. Plug-in delves into the history of the events as well as why not everyone is a fan.
Read MoreOn lists of most dangerous jobs, professions such as logger, roofer and lineman rank high. Preacher? Not so much. But serving the Lord can be — at least occasionally — difficult on one’s physical health, as David Duncan, Randy Roper and Trey Morgan discovered.
Read MoreA reporting trip to middle-of-nowhere western Idaho got our Weekend Plug-in columnist thinking about the speck-on-the-map places that chasing stories takes him.
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