Friday, April 25, 2025

Mark Kellner

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Plug-In: Americans favor religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccine mandates — sort of

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Plug-In: Americans favor religious exemptions for COVID-19 vaccine mandates — sort of

What a difference a year makes.

Or not.

Fifty-two weeks ago, this news topped Weekend Plug-in.

Sound familiar?

Trump calls COVID-19 vaccine ‘a medical miracle,’ but many religious people are skeptical

Guess what? Many religious people remain highly skeptical of the vaccines, despite their strong effectiveness at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

Which leads us to this week’s news: a new public opinion poll on religious exemptions to the vaccines.

Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins reports:

WASHINGTON (RNS) — A new poll reveals most Americans are in favor of offering religious exemptions for the COVID-19 vaccines, yet express concern that too many people are seeking such exemptions. In the same survey, more than half of those who refuse to get vaccinated say getting the shot goes against their personal faith.

The poll, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core and released Thursday (Dec. 9), investigated ongoing debates about COVID-19 vaccines as well as emerging divisions over whether religious exemptions to the shots should even exist.

According to the survey, a small majority (51%) of Americans favor allowing individuals who would otherwise be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine to opt out if it violates their religious beliefs, compared with 47% who oppose such religious exemptions.

See additional coverage of the poll by the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner, a former contributor at GetReligion, and NPR’s Megan Myscofski.


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Define 'evangelical,' please. Alas, many Americans don't think that this is a religious term

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Define 'evangelical,' please. Alas, many Americans don't think that this is a religious term

Here’s a scary thought: Who wants to dress up as an evangelical for Halloween?

Except, exactly what would that look like?

Would it involve wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat? Does the term still have any religious and/or theological meaning left?

Those questions came to mind as I perused some of the week’s big religion stories — both news reports and major analytical takes. Here are five such headlines that caught my attention:

(1) Why ‘evangelical’ is becoming another word for Republican: “Instead of theological affinity for Jesus Christ, millions of Americans are being drawn to the evangelical label because of its association with the G.O.P.,” Ryan Burge, a frequent contributor to ReligionUnplugged.com, writes in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

(2) In a post-Donald Trump world, these pastors are ditching the evangelical label for something new: “They looked to each other to ask, What could it look like to organize as ‘post-evangelicals?’” religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey reports for the Washington Post. “They had at least one thing in common: They were all on some journey of deconstruction, the process of reexamining their long-held beliefs, and they wanted to participate in reconstruction and the building up of something new.”

(3) The evangelical divide: “Political and social issues are splintering American Christians. Can the Church find unity?” asks part one of a three-part series by World magazine senior reporter Sophia Lee.

(4) The evangelical church is breaking apart: “As a person of the Christian faith who has spent most of my adult life attending evangelical churches, I wanted to understand the splintering of churches, communities, and relationships,” contributing writer Peter Wehner explains in The Atlantic. “I reached out to dozens of pastors, theologians, academics, and historians, as well as a seminary president and people involved in campus ministry. All voiced concern.”


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Plug-in: Ransom demands and prayers -- 17 with Anabaptist mission group kidnapped in Haiti

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Plug-in: Ransom demands and prayers -- 17 with Anabaptist mission group kidnapped in Haiti

As a journalist who covers religion, I’ve been blessed to report firsthand from countries such as Israel, Mexico, Nicaragua and South Africa.

As a result, when violence and war flare in those places, the news doesn’t seem a million miles away. Instead, I envision real people and places.

The same is true of Haiti, where I reported on a well-drilling ministry in 2018. We took safety precautions, but I never felt unsafe as I traveled with a U.S. mission team in the capital of Port-au-Prince.

Three years later, circumstances have changed in that impoverished Caribbean nation, rocked in recent months by a presidential assassination and natural disasters.

The latest: a gang’s kidnapping of six men, six women and five children working with Christian Aid Ministries, a global missionary organization based in Millersburg, Ohio. A gang leader has threatened to kill the hostages if a ransom of $1 million per head is not paid.

Coverage of the mission group by the New York Times’ Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias resonates with me.

”Christian missionary workers typically labor in obscurity, running medical clinics, building wells and delivering Bibles without fanfare — until crisis erupts,” Graham and Dias write.

Here at ReligionUnplugged.com, Michael Ray Smith talks to missions leaders about the surging number of kidnappings in Haiti, where gangs have gained control of roughly half the capital.

Other related stories that help explain what’s happening:

• As abductions in Haiti increase, churches and ministries find themselves in the crosshairs (by Jamie Dean, World)

• An around-the-clock prayer effort to save the Haiti hostages (by Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham, New York Times)


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Are we finally witnessing the long-anticipated (by journalists) evangelical crack-up? 

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Are we finally witnessing the long-anticipated (by journalists) evangelical crack-up? 

Those impossible-to-ignore and hard-to-define white " evangelicals" have, for decades, been the largest and most dynamic sector in U.S. religion. Are we finally witnessing an evangelical crack-up as so long anticipated – and desired – by liberal critics?

That's a big theme for the media to affirm or deny.

To begin, The Religion Guy is well aware that millions of these conservative Protestants quietly attend weekly worship, join Bible and prayer groups, try to help those in need, fund national and foreign missions and are oblivious to discussions of this sort on the national level.

For years we've seen a telltale slide of membership and baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention, that massive and stereotypical evangelical denomination. At the same time, it’s clear (follow the work of Ryan Burge for background) that many of those Southern Baptists have simply moved to independent, nondenominational evangelical megachurches of various kinds.

But more than numbers, analysts are pondering insults to cultural stature, which greatly affect any movement's legitimacy, respect, impact and appeal to potential converts, especially with younger adults.

The Scopes Trial to forbid teaching of Darwinian evolution nearly a century ago continues to shape perceptions of evangelicalism and its fundamentalist wing, especially due to the fictionalized 1955 play and 1960 movie "Inherit the Wind." No doubt ongoing evangelical enthusiasm for Donald Trump has a similar negative impact among his critics, but this is not merely a political story but involves evangelicalism's internal dynamics. The Trump era exacerbates divisions that already existed despite unity in belief.

Turn to former GetReligion writer Mark Kellner, who is already making his mark (pun intended) as the new "faith and family" reporter for the Washington Times. Here is an essential recent read: “After scandals, is evangelical Christianity's image damaged?"

The immediate cause behind the question was an odd little incident that spoke volumes, the sacking of Daniel Darling as spokesman for National Religious Broadcasters (NRB).


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What collapse of the Afghan gov't means for Christians and other religious minorities

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What collapse of the Afghan gov't means for Christians and other religious minorities

On Oct. 19, 2001, as I drove to a prayer breakfast in the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, the radio crackled with news of U.S. special forces on the ground in Afghanistan.

This was not a particularly shocking development since air and missile strikes in retaliation for 9/11 had started 12 days earlier.

Then religion editor for The Oklahoman, I quoted the breakfast’s keynote speaker — Steve Largent, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member then serving in Congress — in the story I wrote.

“We have been sent a very important wake-up call," Largent said that Friday morning. "Let's not go back to sleep."

All of us — at that point — felt an urgency about the war in Afghanistan and the effort to destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network.

Nearly 20 years later, my attention had diverted elsewhere until Afghanistan burst back into the headlines — in a major way — this past week.

It’s impossible to keep up with all the rapid-fire developments, but these stories delve into compelling religion angles:

• Young Afghans speak out about rapidly changing life under the Taliban (by Meagan Clark, ReligionUnplugged)

• Refugee aid groups criticize Biden for stumbles in evacuating ‘desperate’ Afghans (by Emily McFarlan Miller and Jack Jenkins, Religion News Service)

• Taliban begins targeting Christians while cementing control over desperate Afghans (by Mindy Belz, World)

• Afghan-American scholar agonizes over homeland, lashes out at Taliban, U.S. (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)

• Afghanistan’s Christians, small in number, have gone underground, expert says (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)


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Plug-In: Worship gatherings are safe again? Alas, the Delta variant raises new concerns

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Plug-In: Worship gatherings are safe again? Alas, the Delta variant raises new concerns

ORLANDO, Fla. — At the Equip Conference last weekend, most people saw no need to wear a mask.

Fully vaccinated myself, I enjoyed the feeling of normalcy as nearly 1,000 worshipers sang and prayed in a Central Florida hotel ballroom.

“It’s great, especially being vaccinated, to feel safe to shake hands with everyone, to give hugs, to talk and be in close proximity,” church planter Roslyn Miller told me at the regional gathering of Churches of Christ. “I’ve seen so many old friends and people I’ve known for years.”

Since then, concerns that vaccinated people may spread COVID-19’s highly contagious delta variant have kept rising.

“The war has changed,” according to an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document cited Thursday night by the Washington Post and early today by the New York Times.

Oh boy, here we go again.

Houses of worship “are weighing the benefits and potential backlash of mandating masks again,” the Post‘s Sarah Pulliam Bailey reports. However, some religious leaders remain skeptical of the virus.

White evangelical Christians “are more resistant to getting the vaccine than other major religious groups,” the Wall Street Journal‘s Ian Lovett notes in a story on new survey data.

On the positive side, “America’s religious communities have played an important role in upping acceptance of vaccines designed to thwart COVID-19,” the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner explains, quoting the same Public Religion Research Institute study.

While some houses of worship contemplate a return to COVID-19 safety protocols, others never ceased such measures, The Oklahoman’s Carla Hinton points out.

In an open letter to fellow Christians, a Missouri church elder makes a biblical case for getting the vaccine.

When will this pandemic finally end?


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Plug-In: Pastors and plagiarism -- why a very, very old story is making new headlines

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Plug-In: Pastors and plagiarism -- why a very, very old story is making new headlines

Two decades ago, while serving as religion editor for The Oklahoman, I investigated allegations of plagiarism and faked endorsements by a prominent Baptist pastor who had written a book.

I still remember how angry the 2002 story made some church members — at me for reporting it.

“One thing great preachers enjoy about traveling is that they can hear other people preach,” Terry Mattingly wrote in a 2003 “On Religion” column on plagiarism and the pulpit. “But the American orator A.J. Gordon received a shock during an 1876 visit to England. Sitting anonymously in a church, he realized that the sermon sounded extremely familiar — because he wrote it.”

While plagiarism by pastors falls under the category of “nothing new under the sun” (see Ecclesiastes 1:9), the subject is making timely new headlines.

Prominent among them: a front-page “Sermongate” story this week by New York Times religion writer Ruth Graham.

Credit questions over past sermons by Ed Litton, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, for the fresh interest in the subject.

Last week’s Weekend Plug-in pointed to related coverage by Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner. Check out, too, Mattingly’s recent GetReligion podcast on the topic.

Even before the Litton controversy, Smietana produced an excellent story earlier this year headlined “‘If you have eyes, plagiarize’: When borrowing a sermon goes too far” with a related piece on “Why some preachers rely on holy ghostwriters and other pulpit helps.”


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Thinking about Little Richard: Mark Kellner with a Seventh-day Adventist look at rock pioneer

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As folks in his native South would say, Little Richard was a piece of work.

One way or another, Richard Wayne Penniman always stressed that he was a work in progress and that, one way or another, God was the author of this story.

This was a man who was driven to shout and scream about all kinds of things. The same rock ‘n’ roll genius who exploded out of radios in the ‘50s, singing songs with lyrics that had to be cleaned up the masses, also went to seminary and devoted decades of his life to preaching, evangelism and Gospel music. He openly struggled with issues of sexual identity, yet never shied away from talking about sin as well as sensuality.

When the news broke about his death, at age 87, I wondered if mainstream obituaries would dig into all of that. I’m pleased that they did. Here’s a key chunk of the obit at The New York Times (the Gray Lady also ran a tribute essay discussing Little Richards’ contributions to popular culture, which discussed his faith):

Little Richard, delving deeply into the wellsprings of gospel music and the blues, pounding the piano furiously and screaming as if for his very life, raised the energy level several notches and created something not quite like any music that had been heard before — something new, thrilling and more than a little dangerous. …

Art Rupe of Specialty Records, the label for which he recorded his biggest hits, called Little Richard “dynamic, completely uninhibited, unpredictable, wild.”

And all the people said, “Amen.”

Little Richard burned red hot through the mid-1950s and the retreated from mainstream music. The Times obit clearly describes why:

He became a traveling evangelist. He entered Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Ala., a Seventh-day Adventist school, to study for the ministry. He cut his hair, got married and began recording gospel music. For the rest of his life, he would be torn between the gravity of the pulpit and the pull of the stage.

“Although I sing rock ’n’ roll, God still loves me,” he said in 2009. “I’m a rock ’n’ roll singer, but I’m still a Christian.”

With all of that in mind, please note the following Adventist Review tribute by former GetReligionista Mark Kellner — a veteran mainstream journalist who has also served as a Seventh-day Adventist press aide. Here are two samples of that:


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Church flipper: Why this pastor has a passion for finding the new faithful for old houses of worship

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All too often, shuttered houses of worship are converted into nightclubs, restaurants and even condominiums, as former GetReligion contributor Mark Kellner noted in a Religion News Service story back in September.

Kellner’s report highlighted “a growing desire to keep houses of worship within the tradition in which they were originally established, even if the founding congregation has diminished.”

A few months earlier, our own tmatt commented on a New York Times article from Quebec with this provocative headline: “Where Churches Have Become Temples of Cheese, Fitness and Eroticism.”

Now, via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, comes a feature on a “church flipper.” Pastor Paul Marzahn, it seems, is the “Fixer Upper” of houses of worship.

The Star-Tribune’s lede:

Pastor Paul Marzahn is best known as the founder of several south suburban churches. But he’s gaining a new reputation for an unusual side job he’s juggling — as a church flipper.

The Methodist minister scouts for “For Sale” signs on churches with an eye toward rehabbing the buildings and selling them back to new faith-filled owners. He’s also a consultant to clergy looking to sell or buy.

Marzahn’s nonprofit, for example, purchased the historic Wesley United Methodist Church in downtown Minneapolis and last year turned it over to a fresh congregation. His own Lakeville church bought an aging Inver Grove Heights church, rehabbed it, and made it an auxiliary campus.

He’s now helping a ministry serving the homeless revamp a former Catholic Charities building.

“I drive by these church buildings for sale and think, ‘Who do I know who would be a good fit into this building?’ ” said Marzahn, senior pastor at Crossroads United Methodist Church in Lakeville. “That’s my calling. To see churches or nonprofits save some of these great buildings.”

It’s a really fascinating piece.


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