This week’s Weekend Plug-in opens with the 50th anniversary of “The Waltons,” a family drama that incorporated religious stories when the TV networks tended to avoid them. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(ANALYSIS) With Lighten Group and RZIM shut down, important questions remain unanswered. First, how much money went from RZIM to Lighten Group? How was that money spent? How much remains? Meanwhile, American Bible Society has been plagued with turmoil for years. The organization has had five presidents in the past 10 years.
Read More(OPINION) While the queen delivered thousands of public addresses, her Christmas talks — surrounded by family pictures and holiday decorations — were the occasions when she most openly discussed her faith and the challenges facing the nation and even her own family.
Read MoreAlliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal defense group, sent a letter on behalf of 2,000 “pastors, ministers of faith, and leaders of religious nonprofit organizations” asking the U.S. Senate to oppose the Respect for Marriage Act, H.R. 8404, which it said puts churches and ministries in danger of injustice.
Read MoreFormer California pastor of Imperial Valley Ministries Victor Gonzalez, alleged to have locked participants inside IVM “restoration” homes and used their government benefits for personal financial gain, entered his guilty plea along with three others to one count of conspiracy to commit benefits fraud.
Read MoreThe majority of Americans live with less than half of the legal protections of religious freedom available in other states, according to new research by the conservative think tank Center for Religion, Culture and Democracy. CRCD is part of First Liberty Institute, the largest nonprofit law firm in the country solely focused on religious freedom.
Read MoreMary Keitany is one of the finest athletes in the history of the world, with seven major marathon wins. She’s also a Catholic, mother, business owner and nonprofit board member who as a teen in poverty, dropped out of school to work as a housemaid. “God did amazing things for me,” she said.
Read More(OPINION) Author Katelyn Beaty’s new book “Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits are Hurting the Church” diagnoses a problem that’s pretty much absent in mainline Protestantism, Black Protestantism (there are some glaring exceptions in the health-and-wealth world), Catholicism and other U.S. religious bodies. Why is celebrity culture so magnified in White evangelicalism?
Read More(REVIEW) The pro-life, pro-adoption movie “Lifemark” is the latest movie from big-name Christian film producers the Kendrick Brothers. The movie is sweet and wholesome — but it contains almost no conflict, which effectively ruins it as a useful faith-based film.
Read More(OPINION) Britain’s monarchy stands as the world’s only remaining state religious institution. The coronation is more than “mainly a religious ceremony” according to the BBC’s anchor on Saturday, as if that remaindered it for everyone not religious. It is a symbol among much else of the world’s oldest and only global narrative: God’s story.
Read MoreCatholic motivational speaker Chris Slattery opened EMC Frontline in 1984 as New York City’s first pregnancy center. The center aims to save unborn babies and offer free services to pregnant women and girls, especially those in poverty. But critics say organizations like EMC deceive pregnant women searching for all options, including abortion, and these clinics became the latest targets of vandalism, harassment and threats in the fight over abortion rights.
Read More(OPINION) The Scriptures are far more specific about biblical virtues than about biblical justice. The doing of justice — David French calls it the “what” of politics or the specific policies Christians support — can evolve differently in different countries at different times. But the “how” of politics doesn’t evolve at all. The how requires genuine kindness and humility in all places at all times.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in explores religion in the life of Queen Elizabeth II, the 96-year-old monarch who died after 70 years on the throne. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(OPINION) Since the Taliban assumed control in Afghanistan, it has slipped more deeply into a humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by a tanking economy, skyrocketing poverty and widespread unemployment. The Taliban’s ideology and system of government solidifies their view that non-Muslims are disloyal enemies and infidels, which the Taliban use to justify killing and violence.
Read More(REVIEW) We are all consumers of news. Many have shunned the news altogether in recent years. Increasingly, Christians are those people — especially the mainstream media — because they don’t see in it the values that reflect their lives. If you’re one of those people, then a new book out now helps you understand why and how to fix it.
Read MoreBorn in a refugee camp in eastern Sudan to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, Mariam Ibraheem says “danger lurked in every dark corner.” Disease, abuse and poverty plagued her life. In 2013, a Sharia court sentenced Ibraheem to death for marrying a Christian man. She was pregnant with her second child at the time and gave birth to Maya while shackled in prison. Her story since then has sparked international outcry and admiration.
Read MoreA special retrospective “Dakota Modern” exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York City explores the significant of Dakota artist Oscar Howe in American art and religion.
Read More(OPINION) A balanced coalition of leaders in the large United Methodist Church developed a treaty for mutually respectful separation that’s currently degenerating into a wasteful fight like other groups have suffered. The current maneuvers by the North American UMC establishment may well limit the number of dropouts joining the Global Methodist Church.
Read MoreYelp announced last week that it would add a notice stating that pregnancy resource centers “provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.” Google has also joined the move, announcing that it would add labels to search and map functions to identify those clinics that provide abortions and those that don’t.
Read More(OPINION) It isn’t every day that one of the creators of a political thriller gets to ask its real-life protagonist to evaluate the novel’s plot. But that happened when the late Billy Wireman, president of Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, handed the last Soviet Union leader a copy of “The Secret Diary of Mikhail Gorbachev.”
Read More
