As GetReligion.org disbands, something like this website has never been more needed. Will anyone again provide informed running assessments of this complex and emotion-laden journalistic beat?
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(OPINION) Evangelicalism may be confusing in terms of organizations and fiefdoms, but since World War II it has developed into the largest and most dynamic force in American religion, striding into the hole in the public square created by the decline of the old mainline. Also, evangelicalism has been the most disruptive, and certainly one of the evident, influences within the Republican Party.
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(OPINION) With all that’s going on in The Southern Baptist Convention, one matter is being ignored. But given the current squabbles and embarrassments, this would seem a good time for the denomination to rebrand itself with a new name. For starters, the “Southern” monicker is no longer accurate. Then there’s unfortunate history to overcome in which the name is enmeshed with slavery.
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The first Weekend Plug-in of 2024 looks ahead to the year’s expected big news. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) When it comes to religion news, what ultimately mattered in 2023? The Guy observes that we have no idea whether U.S. hatreds are a temporary sickness that will subside, or whether anything can really alter the essential questions in the decades-long Middle East conflict. Thus, The Guy leans toward the importance of permanent changes in direction as depicted below.
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(ANALYSIS) Pope Francis’ extraordinary Synod of Bishops, consisting of two meetings last October and the concluding session next October, is dealing with “synodality.” What? The media and Catholic activists are all energized about such topics as letting women be deacons, or married men be priests, or softened LGBTQ+ policies, or allowing Communion for divorced members who remarry, or for Protestants.
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(ANALYSIS) White Catholics’ move toward the Republicans is one of the era’s most important political developments (and, as our own tmatt has stressed for years, something appears to be brewing with Hispanic Catholics). Their margin for the GOP is modest but increasingly dependable, and in states like Florida that really matters.
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(ANALYSIS) Reconquista strategists want the mainline’s remaining conservative members to stay put. They argue that these grand old denominations have future potential and that parishioners must restore the vast valuable assets “hijacked” by the doctrinal left to the purposes intended by past generations of faithful donors.
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(OPINION) Never assume that America’s third parties don’t matter. Especially in a topsy-turvy political season like this one. After all, some figure that Jill Stein’s 1% in three swing states produced Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, or that Ralph Nader’s 1.6% in Florida elected Bush 43 in 2000, or that Ross Perot’s 19% elected Clinton over incumbent Bush 41 in 1992.
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(ANALYSIS) With all-important developments in the Middle East and Ukraine, it seems off-kilter to state that another major international story is being severely neglected and has long been so. But such is The Guy’s opinion about mainstream media neglect of the waves of evidence for ongoing global persecution of Christians, on which we now have a Nov. 1 news peg.
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(ANALYSIS) Journalists should be aware that 2023 turns out to be big for the much-discussed “secularization theory” framed by the 19th century founders of sociology. The nub of theory claims that economically advancing societies with improved education inevitably become more secular, largely because modern science explains matters formerly left to the religious realm.
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(OPINION) The Supreme Court soon takes up Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which has interested the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Christian Employers Alliance. Meanwhile, the court could decide this term to take up four disputes that are pending in the pipeline with religion implications.
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(OPINION) There’s no better indicator of how fraught things have become in the upper echelons of the Catholic Church than Pope Francis’ surprising last-minute decision to clamp strict secrecy upon his all-important Synod of Bishops. This Vatican assembly, very likely the major event of his reign, is running through Oct. 29 with a second, concluding session a year from now.
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(ANALYSIS) What with Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine raging unabated and now Israel’s retaliation after extensive Hamas terror attacks from Gaza, it’s understandable that journalists, their audiences and politicians have paid little attention to a massive ongoing humanitarian crisis in interior Asia, where Western media lack observers on the ground.
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(OPINION) Is Ukraine a “just war”? The good news for Russia’s Vladimir Putin: A significant national leader announces that his invasion of Ukraine is a “just fight” that will end with “a great victory in the sacred struggle.” The bad news: The speaker is North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, so what’s “just” is defined by probably the most despised despot on the planet and what’s “sacred” by an atheist who works to exterminate all religion.
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(ANALYSIS) Until the 1960s, more than half of Americans identified with the “mainline” Protestant churches that “have played an outsized role in America’s history,” says a Sept. 13 report from the Public Religion Research Institute. No longer, as is well known among clergy and parishioners who pay attention, scholars and religion journalists.
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(ANALYSIS) Why did the Bible accept slavery? There’s been intense discussion of this never-ending issue in 2023, as we’ll see. In essence, defenders of the Bible explain that slave-holding was a fundamental aspect of society as far back as the earliest written annals we have, well before biblical times.
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(ANALYSIS) During the formative first centuries of Christian history, there were some 40 texts in circulation that could be considered “gospels,” according to one scholar, while another counted as many as 70. Marvin Meyer of Chapman University decided a dozen such nonbiblical gospels merited inclusion in a 2005 anthology, while others have proposed different listings.
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(ANALYSIS) The Guy cannot recall any “legacy media” coverage of Scott Hahn, the influential U.S. Catholic lay theologian. If you haven’t done a feature on this fascinating Ohioan, here’s the ideal news peg — Pope Francis’ Synod of Bishops that begins at the Vatican Oct. 4.
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(ANALYSIS) The upshot, according to Pew demographer Conrad Hackett, is that by available measures, China is — on the surface — “the least religious country in the world.” That’s not surprising when media and public meetings are restricted and the government forbids religious education while subjecting children to intensive atheistic propaganda at school.
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