Ahead of the Super Bowl, this weekās Weekend Plug-in highlights the rise of sports betting and people of faithās stance on it. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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It was a New York Times headline that created tremors online: āAs Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.ā But hereās the question that was at the heart of this weekās āCrossroadsā podcast: Why was this Pamela Paul essay in the opinion section, as opposed to being a hard-news report out front?
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(OPINION) Godās pruning is more painful than pleasant, but it is an act of love, making us less for the moment ā sometimes quite radically less ā in order to make more of us in the future.
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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) Love sure didnāt save the ā60s, but wouldnāt it be nice to imagine love might save us now? Yeah, I know itās too much to ask. Humans by and large arenāt geared that way. But an old man can dream just as easily as a 9-year-old can. I think sometimes that part of what keeps love from winning on this troubled planet is that most of us donāt even understand what true love looks like.
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This weekās Weekend Plug-in opens with the top headlines from the International Religious Freedom Summit. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and big news in the world of faith.
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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) I finally got the coronavirus. But thanks to the luck of not getting it in 2020, say, and thanks to the hard work of public health officials, and thanks to vaccines and antivirals, I knew I wasnāt likely to end up on a ventilator or in a coffin, even though Iām an at-risk patient.
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This weekās Weekend Plug-in features a retrospective from columnist Bobby Ross Jr. on his 25 years on the Godbeat. Plus, a major new study on ānonesā ā and, as always, all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) It seems to me that the pro-life movement has lost its way. Sure, there are outward signs of success. Roe v. Wade was overturned. Roe was a bad decision, and overturning it was a good thing. But ā as I have written elsewhere ā we are now discovering that how one wins is as important as what one wins.
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(OPINION) With its digital homage to the late Paul Harvey's āSo God Made a Farmerā soliloquy, the āGod Made Trumpā video drew roars of support at key Iowa rallies for Donald Trump. āAnd on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, āI need a caretaker,ā so God gave us Trump,ā said the majestic voice.
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(OPINION) When it comes to the term āevangelical,ā it is not so much that it is a potentially ambiguous term (like āChristianā) as it is a misleading term ā a term that has become cultural and political more than spiritual.
Read More(OPINION) The teachings of most religions and denominations encourage, if not command, followers to care for Godās creation. Since the first Earth Day in 1970, many houses of worship have taken the message of environmental sustainability to heart. They tend to start with improving the day-to-day behaviors of their congregations.
Read More(OPINION) An article by Kelsey Dallas in the Deseret News asks, āCan you be a Christian and play a sinful character on TV?ā Dallas then notes that, āAlan Ritchson, the star of āReacher,ā says you certainly can, and heās unhappy with āsupposed Christiansā who have a problem with him taking on a āmorally ambiguousā role.ā
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(OPINION) If you ever get a wild hair to try something really spiritual, try this. Think of the people whoāve done you dirty. We tend to keep a long list somewhere in our heads of people whoāve royally messed us over, bad guys weād love to see get theirs.
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(OPINION) A church in my neighborhood has a cell phone tower in its parking lot. Some neighbors objected to its construction, but the church, perhaps driven by financial concerns, prevailed. The cell phone tower may be a prophetic witness to the religion of the future, which according to historian Yuval Noah Harari is likely to be data driven.
Read More(OPINION) Misinformation has become an avalanche, burying us all in conspiracy theories, doctored images, and most recently, false claims about the Israel-Hamas war. It challenges us because our decisions as individuals and as a society are only as solid as the information we base them on. How do we make decisions that are good for ourselves and for our communities when misinformation pervades the news and information we consume?
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This weekās Weekend Plug-in highlights plans for the annual March for Life, expected to draw 100,000 abortion opponents to the nationās capital. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
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(OPINION) With all thatās 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 āSouthernā monicker is no longer accurate. Then thereās unfortunate history to overcome in which the name is enmeshed with slavery.
Read More(OPINION) If youāre still considering making a New Yearās resolution, try kicking the bucket list. Iād never heard of a ābucket listā until the 2007 movie āThe Bucket Listā was released.
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