(OPINION) One reason the media often fail to “get” American evangelical Protestantism is that it’s a complex mashup of elements, not simply an alliance of conventional church bodies. This overlapping empire is important, and over the decades it rallied prominently at trade shows for retailers and broadcasters and the annual National Prayer Breakfast.
Read More(OPINION) A New York Times piece was an example of what dialogue between church folks and the secular media can look like if people on both sides check their preconceptions, remain open and speak civilly. They might not form a merger, but they can come to know each other.
Read MoreEastern European Mission, a ministry founded in 1961 by seven young couples from Abilene Christian University in Texas to distribute Bibles, is expanding its first-ever relief efforts, which were launched after Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago.
Read More(OPINION) The refiner’s fire has come to the church of America in the last few years, bringing our impurities to the surface for the world to see. And those fires will continue to burn in our land, bringing us to deeper repentance. But the Spirit is also being poured out as well.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights the opening of the $50 million Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine in Oklahoma City. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read MoreDays after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated communities in Turkey and Syria, Christians gathered at the Antalya Bible Church for an evening of prayer. The official death toll in Turkey topped 35,000 and was expected to keep rising, the Turkish government reported on Feb 14. Deaths in Syria had climbed to about 3,700.
Read More(OPINION) When popes talk about sex, it tends to make headlines. This was certainly true when Pope Francis told The Associated Press last month the Catholic Church opposes criminalizing homosexuality and that “we are all children of God, and God loves us as we are.” The pope then noted that homosexual activity is “not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin.”
Read More(REVIEW) In his new book coming out in April called “American Ramble,” Neil King Jr. has crafted a travelogue fit for a reporter and a monk, built on paying close attention during a 26-day walk he took to New York City from Washington, D.C. in the spring of 2021.
Read More(OPINION) Apparently hoping to draw further congressional attention to its politicization, the FBI is reportedly warning of “radical traditionalist Catholics” who might become White supremacists. An FBI field office in Virginia compiled its intelligence bulletin using the discredited and professional grifting organization the Southern Poverty Law Center. It also cited an Atlantic article that referred to the rosary, a set of prayer beads, as a “weapon.”
Read More(REVIEW) Erwin Blumenfeld was the perfect fashion photographer. The Museum of the Art and History of Judaism in Paris is showcasing this work in over 180 photographs with the temporary exhibit “The Trials and Tribulations of Erwin Blumenfeld, 1930-1950.” It spans Blumenfeld’s most active and influential period.
Read More(OPINION) In the first part of life, we’re controlled by the fear-based preoccupations of the lizard brain. This is natural. Then, at some point, something happens — usually a cataclysmic fall. Such a fall can destroy us if we let it. But it also can serve as an upward call.
Read MoreA picture of Tyre Nichols in his hospital bed greeted a recent assembly of the Coleman Avenue Church of Christ. The same big screen displayed photos of five Memphis police officers charged with murder in the 29-year-old Black man’s death.
Read More(OPINION) Artificial intelligence technologies are bad when they become an artifice, which means contrived or false. The artifice of intelligence makes people “see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imagining what they will undo.”
Read MoreIn the unusual tradition of Ma’nene in South Sulawesi of Indonesia's Toraja region, families lovingly clean, dress up and even put cigarettes in the mouths of the exhumed bodies of their dead relatives. This photo essay and video offers ReligionUnplugged.com readers a glimpse of this unique religious and cultural ceremony.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Marking the two years of the Tatmadaw in power, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reported that, to date, the military coup has led to the death of around 3,000 civilians as well as the destruction of villages and houses of worship in various parts of the country.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Now, missiologists — the people who study missionary efforts and their effectiveness — are weighing in on the He Gets Us campaign, and they’re finding flaws, or at least gaps, in the Jesus the campaign is pushing.
Read More(OPINION) The goal of aid is to end situations that lead to aid. It is estimated that the West has given $1.2 trillion in aid and development assistance to Africa since 1990 according to Greg Mills in the book “Expensive Poverty.” Much of that aid came from the U.S. But sadly the foreign aid has had little or no impact on bettering the lives of poor Africans.
Read MoreThis week’s Weekend Plug-in highlights the religion angles in this weekend’s Super Bowl. Plus, as always, catch up on all the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
Read More(OPINION) The establishment was shocked when players and coaches from Denver and Washington, D.C., held a prayer meeting on the eve of the 1988 Super Bowl. But the electric wave of prayer that swept America after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin’s heart-stopping injury was a “critical mass” moment and a sign of changing times — maybe.
Read More(REVIEW) Ever get the sinking feeling that your friends don’t like you? That every time you talk, they’re just wishing you’d shut up — that they’re even timing how long you talk? Or worse: have you always thought you had a friend until, one day, they just told you they didn’t like you anymore? That horrifying premise is the driving force behind Martin McDonagh’s heartbreakingly bloody friendship breakup “The Banshees of Inisherin.”
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