This week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights the winners and losers in the 2022 midterm elections. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) Just over half of churchgoing American Protestants went into the tense midterm elections believing that the people in the pews around them would vote the same way they did, according to a Lifeway Research online survey.
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(OPINION) Many of us feel stuck. It’s hard to believe that most individuals paying attention to the daily avalanche of disconcerting news are not similarly stuck. Buddhism has a term for this state. It’s called the “bardo” and it’s being referenced repeatedly in Buddhist conversations these days.
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This week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights five key religion angles in the 2022 midterm elections. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) The “Chain of Discipleship” image showing five Catholics celebrating at a church, including a woman in priest’s vestments and a person in a rainbow-lettered “PRIDE” shirt, rocked Catholic social media — especially when it appeared on the Synod of Bishops Facebook page, linked to the ongoing Synod on Synodality that began in 2021.
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(OPINION) In January 2022, Hong Kong authorities arrested 53 pro-democracy politicians and activists, on suspicion of “subversion,” namely, of undermining the power or authority of the central government. In August 2022, media reported that the prosecution had named five of the defendants as “major organizers,” facing up to life in prison, and 47 facing being prosecuted for “conspiracy to commit subversion.”
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(OPINION) It turns out women feel disheartened, dishonored and coerced by this supposed “freedom,” and they have good reason to be, says Britain’s Louise Perry in her spirited book “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century” (Polity Press). She assails so-called “liberal feminism” for routinely handing countless women a raw deal.
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(ANALYSIS) Turnout will likely play an outsize role in the 2022 midterms, too, as voters determine what political party will have control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate in January 2023. If the data is any guide, there are two key communities political analysts often overlook: atheists and agnostics.
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(OPINION) Ten months of Putin’s war in Ukraine have seen a litany of atrocities including summary executions, unlawful confinement, torture, ill-treatment, rape and other sexual violence, forced displacement of people, removal of children and illegal adoptions, among others. Over recent months, yet another aspect of the atrocities came into the spotlight, the issue of the so-called filtration camps.
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(OPINION) As Iran protests persist, what women’s clothing does Islam require? There’s always been vigorous discussion of the complexities about exactly what attire is properly modest and thus faithful to Islam.
Read More(OPINION) Disney’s motto “Discover the Magic” reminds us that we live in a post-Christian age. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis saying there are two equal and opposite errors regarding devils. One is to have an unhealthy interest in them. The other is to see nothing beyond the natural world.
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(OPINION) After the historically brief leadership of Britain's Liz Truss, Conservative Party members of Parliament this week agreed on Rishi Sunak, a Hindu, to succeed her as prime minister at a moment of severe economic and political turmoil.
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(OPINION) The generations come and go, thrive and suffer and die out. Ultimately they’re forgotten, except for names on tombstones or signatures on ancient deeds and wills. Who they were, what they thought, who they loved, what they feared — it all vanishes into the ether. And nobody but God knows what it all means.
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(OPINION) A ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month served as an urgent reminder that Congress must do far more to meet this calling. On Oct. 5, a federal judge affirmed a lower court’s decision that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is unlawful. While current DACA recipients can still apply for renewal, this protective program is now in deep peril.
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This week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights the winners of the Religion News Association’s 2022 Awards for Religion Reporting Excellence. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) While battles over sexuality make headlines, along with years of lawsuits over church properties and trust funds, the Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison said the dividing lines among Episcopalians and Anglicans are usually linked to a single controversial word — “sin.”
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(OPINION) It may sound contrived to say one song you listened to 35 years ago changed you. But hearing “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” I realized you could be from places such as Loretta and I were from and cherish them as gifts, not curse them as barriers. You didn’t have to fix the way you talked — it made you different, but not inferior.
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This week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights five finalists for the Religion News Association’s Story of the Year honor. Plus as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) Lynn vowed to tell the truth about both sides of her life. She loved to sing hymns and gospel music, while critics hailed the rhinestone feminism of her hits such as “You Ain’t Woman Enough,” “The Pill,” “Rated ‘X’” and “You’re Lookin’ at Country.”
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(OPINION) When evangelicals of all people fail to live up to the the New Testament’s commandments, our failure is far more glaring. It smacks of hypocrisy. Here, then, I offer six virtues the New Testament requires of all pilgrims who would be disciples of Jesus Christ:
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