The first Weekend Plug-in of 2024 looks ahead to the yearās 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) Last year, I wrote about the troubling findings from American Bible Societyās annual āState of the Bibleā report. Every study since 2011 has shown that Bible users accounted for around 50% of American adults. However, in 2022, things changed. There was a sudden 10% decrease in Bible users, indicating that ānearly 26 million Americans reduced or stopped their interaction with Scripture in the past year.ā
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(OPINION) A few years ago, a friend shared a Bible verse with me that has become my annual new yearās resolution. But it comes with a caveat.
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In a special year-end edition, Weekend Plug-in counts down the Top 10 most popular ReligionUnplugged.com stories of 2023.
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(OPINION) Parents in pews rarely turn to Rolling Stone for advice about pop-culture morality. But the magazine's expose about āThe Idolā ā a summer HBO series about a romance between a pop starlet and an edgy cult leader ā produced waves of viral quotes.
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(OPINION) Iāve long predicted that eventually scientists will identify a fundamentalist gene inherent in some people, just as some folks have biological predispositions toward intelligence, heart disease or tallness. Researchers will find this gene blocks its carriers from perceiving philosophical grays, much less a full-color spectrum. Such people have, in effect, spiritual color-blindness. They see everything in stark blacks and whites; they canāt help it.
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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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A special year-end edition of Weekend Plug-in highlights the best religion journalism of 2023.
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(OPINION) Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI declared that āart and the saints are the greatest apologetic for our faith.ā A movement was launched to transform painters into ātacit preachers,ā wrote Gabriele Paleotti, archbishop of Bologna. The term tacit means wordless. Tacit preachers sought to move viewers in deeper ways than mere argument. Art provided a way to draw people together instead of tearing them apart.
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(OPINION) If you knew nothing about a woman whoās the subject of a Post profile, you might imagine sheās enjoyed every advantage ā sheās pretty, young, White, popular. You might envy her. If youāre of a certain turn of mind, you might even resent her. And youād be wrong.
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(OPINION) Octoberās terrorist attack by Hamas and Israelās overwhelming response unleashed a humanitarian nightmare thatās gripped the world. Real-time images flood our electronic devices. War shapes our lives, sometimes encouraging violence, verbal and physical. Outside war zones, ordinary citizens find ourselves drawn into taking sides. How can we create a better future for our children, ourselves ā even for those we donāt know?
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This weekās Weekend Plug-in highlights the top religion news of 2023, as voted by the Religion News Association. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) For decades, TV producer Norman Lear described himself as a cultural Jew who didn't practice any traditional form of faith. Over the years, however, the television icon became more and more intrigued with religious faith, both as a force in American life and as a topic ignored by Hollywood.
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(OPINION) By now, Iām sure most people have heard of Ayaan Hirsi Aliās conversion. Not only because of her fascinating reflection on it, but also because of the countless responses from many different sides.
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(OPINION) In many ways the Palestinians are victims, and my strong support for Israel does not stop me from grieving over the suffering of the Palestinian people. They have been victims of decades of bad leadership. Victims of lifelong anti-Israel propaganda. Victims of the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967.
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(OPINION) More than anything else, I seem to hear from people who grew up in evangelical Protestant churches, as I did. They were taught a rigid set of doctrines to which they were expected to adhere unquestioningly. Often, these folks tell me the faith they were baptized in hasnāt held up for them. Theyāve become disillusioned. Theyāve quit believing in God.
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This weekās Weekend Plug-in looks at Hanukkah amid the Israel-Hamas war. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) Advent began Sunday. Most Christians know what Advent signifies: a time of penitence and preparation. And they know how it signifies these two: four Advent wreath candles. But why do we observe Advent? Dallas Willard had a āwhyā you might find surprising.
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(OPINION) As an abundance of odes to Rosalynn have reminded me, the Carters proved themselves Christians in the truest sense of the word, unlike so many Bible thumping politicians today. Before they reached the White House, while in it and across their post-presidential decades, they never used their faith as a cudgel with which to bludgeon or belittle their adversaries, but as a motivation for their innumerable good works.
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(OPINION) There is no question that hatred of the state of Israel, and more broadly, hatred of the Jewish people, helps animate the pro-Palestinian cause. If people really cared about the Palestinians themselves, there would not be Palestinian refugee camps in countries like Lebanon and Syria, and the Palestinians would have been granted full citizenship in the surrounding Arab countries at some point after the 1948 war.
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