mass shootings

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Plug-In: At least six dead, plus unborn child, in Jehovah's Witnesses shooting In Germany

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Plug-In: At least six dead, plus unborn child, in Jehovah's Witnesses shooting In Germany

Good morning, Weekend Plug-in readers!

Among the stories we’re following this week: A South Carolina church held a prayer vigil after two members of its community were abducted and killed by a Mexican drug cartel, as WPDE-TV’s Jenna Herazo reports.

Here in my home state of Oklahoma, voters trounced — somewhat surprisingly — a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana. Given the millions of dollars spent by the pro-marijuana side, a faith coalition leader who fought the initiative calls the outcome a “David beats Goliath” victory. I report that story at ReligionUnplugged.com.

Every weekend, Plug-in rounds up the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.

We start this edition with tragic news out of Germany.

What to Know: The Big Story

Mass shooting at house of worship: “A former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses shot dead six people at a hall belonging to the congregation in the German city of Hamburg before killing himself after police arrived, authorities said Friday. Police said an unborn baby also died, without clarifying whether the baby’s mother was among the dead. Eight people were wounded, four of them seriously.”

That’s the lede at this hour from The Associated Press’ Pietro de Cristofaro and Geir Moulson.

The shooting is “a rare kind of attack in a country where gun ownership is severely restricted,” the Wall Street Journal’s Georgi Kantchev notes.

More from the Journal:

The Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany association said the community was “deeply saddened by the horrific attack on its members.” 

Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination, have some 175,000 members in Germany, including 3,800 in the state of Hamburg, according to the organization. 

The attack took place around 9 p.m. on Thursday at a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall building in the northern part of the city after a service.

Motive emerging: Authorities are investigating the background of the shooting, according to news reports.


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Plug-In: Listening to the voices of Holocaust survivors -- while we still can

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Plug-In: Listening to the voices of Holocaust survivors -- while we still can

Good morning, my friends!

I’m your Weekend Plug-in columnist, and I need to let you know I’ve checked all my files. I didn’t find any classified documents from that time I toured the White House. Whew!

So let’s dive right into the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

It’s Jan. 27, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Today’s commemoration marks the 78th anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The United Nations “urges every member state to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism.”

Telling their stories: Toby Levy, now 89, was one of only 31 survivors in the town of Chodorow — then a part of Poland, now Ukraine.

“Like my father said, ‘God needed witnesses’” to the horror, Levy tells the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner. “That’s why I don’t say ‘no’ to anybody, as tired as I am,” she says of opportunities to relate her experience.

Like Levy, David Schaecter, 93, knows he is running out of time, Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron reports:

So this week he agreed to a weeklong recording of his life story using a new technology that will allow future generations to interact with a hologram-style likeness of him.

That story will form the base of an exhibit at Boston’s future Holocaust museum, which is scheduled to open in 2025.


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Friday Five: El Paso and Dayton, RNS on scene, Liberty's J-school, whopper correction

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Do we really need to know what makes a mass murderer tick?

It’s a question we’ve contemplated previously here at GetReligion. I’ve noted that I personally tire of reading about crazed killers who go on shooting rampages.

After Saturday’s massacre at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the Dallas Morning News provided extensive coverage.

However, here’s what the Dallas newspaper didn’t do: mention the gunman’s name on the front page.

“Though the shooter’s name would be online and inside the paper, we would not identify him or show his photo on the front page,” Editor Mike Wilson said of the purposeful decision. “Even in the digital age, what we run on 1A is an important expression of our values.”

It’s a small, mainly symbolic gesture, but I like it. Kudos to Wilson and his team.

Meanwhile, let’s dive into the Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: The mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, dominated headlines this week, and rightly so.

In a post Thursday, I praised an emotional, heart-wrenching story on one victim’s family published by the Los Angeles Times. I declared that the front-page news-feature just might be “the best religion story you’ll read all year.”


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This El Paso report is emotional, heart-wrenching and maybe the best religion story you'll read all year

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Los Angeles Times national correspondent David Montero’s front-page feature on the parents of an El Paso, Texas, shooting victim is not perfect.

But it’s pretty darn close.

It just might be — in terms of the mixture of storytelling prowess and attention to faith details — the best religion story you’ll read all year.

However, be sure to grab a tissue before clicking the link and becoming engrossed in the narrative. Trust me on that.

Montero opens with this powerful scene (it’s a big chunk of text, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut it off any quicker):

EL PASO — The pastor had never prayed so fervently.

Michael Grady had just learned that his 33-year-old daughter was lying in a pool of blood at Walmart.

Shot three times, Michelle Grady had managed to dial her cellphone to call her mother, Jeneverlyn, who jumped in her car and kept her on the line until she reached the store.

His wife called him from the store, and Michael Grady raced to join them. The drive from his house to the Walmart normally takes about seven minutes. It felt longer.

When he finally arrived, the parking lot was already taped off. He saw his wife’s car by the theater next to the store. He parked. He ran.

But his 65-year-old body, which had endured a quadruple-bypass heart surgery a few years prior, couldn’t move nearly as fast as he would’ve liked.

Grady prayed.

Keep reading, and Montero quotes Grady — in the father’s own words — on exactly what he was praying. And later in the piece, he does so again.


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Thoughts, prayers and Christian nationalists: News coverage after mass shootings in Texas and Ohio

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I’m back home in Oklahoma after 10 days on the West Coast and catching up on my reading.

Here is one of those “quick” summer posts that tmatt — enjoying time with his grandchildren in Colorado — referenced earlier this week.

Religion figures in a lot of coverage of the Texas and Ohio mass shootings.

Here are five links related to that:

1. The Atlantic’s Emma Green is always worth reading.

Here, she explores “What Conservative Pastors Didn’t Say After El Paso.”

Some crucial paragraphs:

Christianity in America is wildly diverse, but this question, perhaps more than any other, has become a dividing line for churches today: In the midst of rising hatred, Christians cannot agree on what their prophetic role should be, and whether there are political solutions for America’s apparent recent uptick in overt violence and bigotry.

Some pastors, like Morriss, forcefully argue that America’s most powerful leaders, including President Donald Trump, have to be held responsible for their rhetoric and ideas, including vilifying Hispanics and immigrants, the very people mentioned in the manifesto allegedly connected to the El Paso shooting. “If you look at the current propaganda coming from Washington, you might believe that dark-skinned people, and certainly immigrants, ‘bad hombres,’ are the dangerous ones,” Morriss said. “This is not a foreigner issue. This is not an immigrant issue. This is the violence we have made a home for.”

But other pastors, including several influential mega-church leaders who have been strong supporters of the president, have pushed back on what they call the politicization of this and other shootings. “I think it is wrong to assign blame to any party or any candidate for this problem,” Robert Jeffress, the head pastor at First Baptist Church in Dallas and a member of Trump’s evangelical advisory council, told me. “This is the problem of evil.”


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Friday Five: Dallas clergy abuse, God and abortion, Colorado hero, 'Whiskeypalians,' Tenn. execution

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Here’s your periodic reminder that — from “Save Chick-fil-A” legislation to the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandals — the Dallas Morning News sure could use a religion writer.

When police this week raided Diocese of Dallas offices related to allegations of sexual abuse by priests, the Texas newspaper — to which I subscribe — put a team of reporters on it and produced two front-page stories (here and here).

The team included a projects/enterprise writer, two police/crime reporters and a city hall writer/columnist. A Godbeat pro on the team? Sadly, the Dallas Morning News doesn’t have one, despite the importance of religion in that Bible Belt city. (There’s another Page 1 report today, again by a public safety reporter.)

Ironically, the paper’s initial coverage included an opinion piece (“Why it's good Dallas police ran out of patience with the Catholic Diocese on sex abuse”) by metro columnist Sharon Grigsby. Those of a certain age will recall that in the 1990s, Grigsby founded the Dallas Morning News’ award-winning religion section (now defunct) and oversaw a team of six religion writers and editors.

Those were the days!

Turning from the Big D, let’s dive into the Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: Alabama’s passage of a law banning abortion in almost all cases tops the week’s headlines.

Since my post pointing out the holy ghosts in much of the news coverage, the religion angle has received major treatment from the New York Times (here and here) and showed up in The Associated Press’ headline on the state’s governor signing the anti-abortion bill into law.


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Big news on Godbeat: President of Religion News Association wins Pulitzer for Tree of Life coverage

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One of my favorite religion writers just won a Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious award in journalism.

Mega-congrats to Peter Smith of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette!

The Post-Gazette staff — including Smith, president of the Religion News Association — earned the Pulitzer for Breaking News Reporting.

That paper was cited for “immersive, compassionate coverage of the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue that captured the anguish and resilience of a community thrust into grief.”

I liked what David Shribman, the Post-Gazette’s executive editor and vice president, told his newsroom: “There isn’t one of us in this room who wouldn’t exchange the Pulitzer Prize for those 11 lives.”

But when the massacre occurred, they did what journalists do: They wiped their tears and reported the news as fully and compassionately as possible.

Among the 10 links on the Post-Gazette’s winning Pulitzer entry are two stories by Smith. This was the lede on the first one, by Ashley Murray and Smith:


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Friday Five: New Zealand, Houston drag queen, Trump as Bible's Esther, Elizabeth Warren's faith

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Oh, the joys of life over 50 …

I got my first colonoscopy this week. Then I ate Chick-fil-A. So I either survived or died and went to heaven.

But enough about me and my fun times.

Let’s dive into the Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: Today marks one week since 50 worshipers were slain at two mosques.

The Associated Press reports that New Zealanders observed the Muslim call to prayer today, the first Friday after an act that an imam told the crowd of thousands had left the country broken-hearted but not broken.

“I could not have brought enough Kleenex for this,” tweeted one of the AP reporters covering the story. “So moving.”

2. Most popular GetReligion post: Julia Duin’s post on “Houston’s drag queen story hour” is our most-clicked commentary of the week.

Duin noted that there are so many questions and so few journalists asking them:


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'Dad did not make it and is in heaven with Jesus': There's a strong religion angle after Aurora shooting

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As you probably heard, a workplace shooting in Aurora, Ill., claimed the lives of five people on Friday.

One of the victims was a husband and father named Josh Pinkard.

Now, a moving Facebook post by Pinkard’s grieving wife, Terra, is making national headlines. And yes, there’s a strong religion angle. By the way, be sure to grab a tissue before reading the rest of this post.

I learned of the wife’s post when I saw a tweet this morning by Daniel Darling, vice president for communications for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

“Unbelievably tragic story,” wrote Darling, linking to a compelling Chicago Tribune report.

Amen!

The Tribune — like national media such as CNN and USA Today — opens with the gripping revelation that Josh Pinkard texted his wife in his final moments:

For Terra Pinkard, the nightmare began with an ominous text from her husband: “I love you, I’ve been shot at work.”

Pinkard would soon learn that her husband, Josh Pinkard, was among the five people killed when a co-worker who was being terminated from Henry Pratt Co. opened fire. Pinkard, 37, was the manager of the plant, where water valves are made.

In a Facebook message posted on Sunday, Terra Pinkard said it took her “several times reading it for it to hit me that it was real.”

Keep reading, though, and the wife’s Christian faith becomes readily apparent. After describing the wife’s various attempts to find out information about her husband‘s status, the Tribune notes that she ended up at a staging area for victims’ families:


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