GetReligion
Thursday, April 03, 2025

Sarah Pulliam Bailey

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Plug-In: Online churches and virtual spirituality. Can we have a Wordle, please?

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Plug-In: Online churches and virtual spirituality. Can we have a Wordle, please?

Is online church good for your soul?

Can real fellowship be attained through virtual reality?

Amid a global pandemic, why has Wordle — yes, the online game — become a ritual for so many?

Compelling questions tied to faith and technology top this week’s religion headlines.

Check out these high-tech must-reads:

1. Streaming online has been a boon for churches, a godsend for isolated: “There’s been a lot of bad news about churches in recent years,” Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana reports. “Online church has been one bright spot.”

Smietana’s piece follows Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren making the case in a viral New York Times column that churches should drop their online services.

“Online church, while it was necessary for a season, diminishes worship and us as people,” Warren argued, igniting debate on social media and drawing rebuttals from writers such as Religion Dispatches’ Daniel Schultz.

For more insight, see this Wall Street Journal column from last October, asking, “Are internet services as good as church?” Read a more in-depth version here at ReligionUnplugged.com.

2. Faith in the metaverse: A VR quest for community, fellowship: The Associated Press’ Luis Andres Henao writes about “many Americans — some traditionally religious, some religiously unaffiliated — who are increasingly communing spiritually through virtual reality, one of the many evolving spaces in the metaverse that have grown in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Ranging from spiritual meditations in fantasy worlds to traditional Christian worship services with virtual sacraments in hyperrealistic, churchlike environments,” Henao reports, “their devotees say the experience offers a version of fellowship that’s just as genuine as what can be found at a brick-and-mortar temple.”


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Plug-In: Best religion-news writing of 2021, as volunteered by scribes coast to coast

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Plug-In: Best religion-news writing of 2021, as volunteered by scribes coast to coast

This week, I’m sipping hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies.

Rather than pick the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith, as I normally do, I asked some of the nation’s top religion writers to share the favorite story they wrote during 2021.

It’s a holiday week, so I didn’t catch up with everybody. But I sure appreciate my Godbeat colleagues who responded.

P.S. The Religion News Association announced its top religion stories of 2021 this week. Check out the RNA list.

Power Up: The Year’s Best Reads

Journalists who write about religion pick their top story of 2020.

• Liam Adams, The Tennessean: Inside the Southern Baptist Convention's battle over critical race theory and what it says about the denomination, published Dec. 13.

• Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Washington Post: Caught in a culture war, this multiracial family navigates a predominantly White evangelical world, published June 1.

• Cheryl Mann Bacon, Christian Chronicle: Afghan mission becomes a race to save lives, published Sept. 14.

• Adelle M. Banks, Religion News Service: 9/11 became a catalyst for interfaith relations and cooperation, published Sept. 9.

• Deepa Bharath, Orange County Register: ‘It’s about finding a way,’ mourners say as they’re forced to change rituals amid coronavirus pandemic, published Jan. 29.


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Plug-in: Supreme Court questions inmate's demand for vocal prayers in Texas death chamber

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Plug-in: Supreme Court questions inmate's demand for vocal prayers in Texas death chamber

Last week, we set the scene for the U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing of a religious freedom case involving a Texas death-row inmate.

This week, we summarize the mixed response justices gave in that inmate’s case.

Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman lays out the plot aptly:

If you give a man in a Texas execution chamber the right to a prayer, is he entitled to two?

Can he ask for candles?

Or Communion?

If the United States Supreme Court says a condemned man has the religious right to have his pastor touch his foot while the state injects a lethal dose of chemicals into his veins, then will the court also have to allow a pastor to touch a man’s hand, his head, or even the place where the needle pierces the skin?

The justices quizzed attorney Seth Kretzer about the slippery slope of death penalty prayer on Tuesday morning, as they weighed whether the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), passed by Congress in 2000, give 37-year-old John Henry Ramirez the right to have his pastor lay hands on him and pray aloud when the state of Texas puts him to death.

The high court was skeptical of the inmate’s “demand that his pastor be allowed to pray out loud and touch him during his execution,” according to The Associated Press’ Jessica Gresko.

Justice Clarence Thomas raised concerns “about inmates ‘gaming the system’ by asserting dubious religious claims that served to delay their executions, notes the Wall Street Journal’s Jess Bravin.

The court “seemed divided,” explains the Washington Post’s Robert Barnes, who produced a “deeply reported and evocative” advance piece on the case, reporting from Corpus Christi, Texas.


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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: 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: Lots of news about Southern Baptists, U.S. Catholic bishops and even a modern Jonah

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Plug-In: Lots of news about Southern Baptists, U.S. Catholic bishops and even a modern Jonah

One.

Two.

This makes three straight weeks that the Southern Baptist Convention’s big meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, has topped Plug-in.

Want an impossible challenge? Try highlighting the best coverage out of the plethora of headlines produced in Music City this week.

Some of the big news:

• The surprise election of “moderate” (if you’re OK with that term from the SBC past) pastor Ed Litton from Alabama as the SBC’s president.

Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana, the Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt, the New York Times’ Ruth Graham, The Associated Press’ Travis Loller and Peter Smith and ReligionUnplugged’s own Hamil R. Harris all offer insightful coverage on that. (Even the Los Angeles Times weighs in, via Atlanta bureau chief Jenny Jarvie.)

• The skirmish over critical race theory, which Chris Moody describes in an in-depth narrative piece for New York Magazine.

Also, don’t miss The Tennessean’s Wednesday front-page report by Katherine Burgess, Duane W. Gang and Holly Meyer.

For more on the CRT angle, see Adelle M. Banks’ RNS story and Greg Garrison’s Birmingham News coverage.

• The major action to confront sexual abuse in the denomination, as the Houston Chronicle’s Robert Downen, CT’s Shellnutt, the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s Burgess and RNS’ Smietana detail.


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#SBC2021, CRT and sexual abuse: Are compromises possible in this complex showdown?

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#SBC2021, CRT and sexual abuse: Are compromises possible in this complex showdown?

When most journalists, and thus most news consumers, think of Southern Baptists it’s highly likely that “compromise” is not one of the first words that leaps to mind.

But think about this for a moment. The current firestorm surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention’s national meetings in Nashville (tomorrow and Wednesday) centers on recent efforts by the convention’s leaders to find working compromises on two explosive issues in church life — racism and sexual abuse. In both cases, forces have pulled at convention leaders to move further to the right or to pursue more “progressive” options that would clash with realities in SBC life and polity.

Consider the hellish realities of racism and, in particular, the complex secular doctrines of “Critical Race Theory.” The SBC could praise CRT and embrace it or totally reject this school of thought. A compromise? That would stress listening to conservative Black church leaders and saying that CRT makes some points about racism in America that are valid, but that it also contains secular views of evil and race that do not mesh with traditional Christian beliefs. Hold that thought.

On sexual abuse, there are progressives who want the SBC to start some kind of national agency that would be granted powers to yank abusive clergy and congregations into line. This would clash with Baptist teachings on the autonomy of local churches. At the same time, others say SBC leaders have already gone to far while trying to create a centrist, compromise, stance — providing some guidelines for churches facing accusations of sexual abuse, as well as best-practices materials on how to help victims.

So, here is the journalism question to ponder in the next few days: Can national-level religion reporters find a way to avoid the classic two-army, left vs. right, template that dominates most news coverage of clashes of this kind? This would allow readers to see the larger picture — the attempt to find compromises between two extremes that please enough conservatives to prevent a damaging explosion in SBC life.


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Plug-In: How hot will SBC meetings get in Nashville? Sexual-abuse fights are Round 1

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Plug-In: How hot will SBC meetings get in Nashville? Sexual-abuse fights are Round 1

Look for a little thunder today, but I don’t see any rain in the Nashville, Tennessee, forecast for next week.

That’s probably a good thing because I’m not sure how many more leaks the Southern Baptist Convention can take.

The heat will be turned up, though, as 16,000 Baptist messengers converge on Music City for the denomination’s (yes, I’m going to use that word) biggest annual meeting in a quarter-century.

Last week’s Plug-in set the scene, but the headlines just keep coming.

The new developments start with Washington Post religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey’s scoop last Saturday on a leaked letter detailing allegations that Southern Baptist leaders mishandled sex abuse claims.

Next up: That would be the leaked audio Thursday of SBC officials showing reluctance to take action against churches accused of mishandling abuse, as The Associated Press’ Peter Smith and Travis Loller, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana and Adelle M. Banks and The Tennessean’s Holly Meyer report.

More to read:

• Pressure mounts for an independent investigation of SBC Executive Committee handling of abuse (by Bob Smietana, RNS)

• Tensions erupt among Southern Baptists ahead of their big meeting in Nashville. Here's why (by Holly Meyer, The Tennessean)

• Sexual abuse pushed to top of agenda for Southern Baptist Convention (by Terry Mattingly, Universal syndicate columnist)

• Southern Baptist pastors demand inquiry into handling of sex abuse cases (by Yonat Shimron, RNS)


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That SBC powderkeg: Clearly, executive committee is bitterly divided on sexual-abuse issues

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That SBC powderkeg: Clearly, executive committee is bitterly divided on sexual-abuse issues

Several decades ago, early in the media coverage of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandals, a veteran Catholic educator gave me some sobering advice.

When dealing with stories about sexual abuse, he stressed, the usual doctrinal and cultural labels do not apply. There wasn’t a “left” or a “right” side of the story because there were people hiding their sins on both sides. When dealing with sexual abuse, most conflicts centered on issues of honesty and integrity and, most of all, a willingness to repent and admit that these sins and crimes were real.

I thought of that the other day when reading the Religion News Service story that started dominos falling in America’s largest non-Catholic flock: “Leaked Russell Moore letter blasts SBC conservatives, sheds light on his resignation.” (I apologize for getting to this story late, due to a week of travels with family, followed by a painful health crisis that has me rather drugged and could return me to an emergency room at any moment.)

Journalists and SBC insiders were not surprised that RNS scribe Bob Smietana was involved in breaking that story, in part because of his years of experience in the Nashville market at The Tennessean, as well as five years with Lifeway Research, an organization linked to Southern Baptist life. This is one of those cases in which a reporter can build on years of experience and contacts in a complex, massive organization and, thus, Smietana has been landing one SBC scoop after another in recent years. It’s crucial that this RNS story was supported by a post featuring the full text of the 4,000-word Moore letter.

The next key story, by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, ran in The Washington Post: “Newly leaked letter claims Southern Baptist leaders 'covered up' sex abuse allegations.” Click here (.pdf file) for a full text of this second Moore letter. It’s packed with material from crucial voices on both sides of this conflict, with most of them speaking on the record. This is another MUST read report.

The ink will be flying fast and furious, I imagine, as combatants prepare for the 2021 national Southern Baptist Convention, which will be held June 15-16 in Nashville, with preliminary gatherings two days earlier.

As Moore stated in the letter posted by RNS, many people will assume that this conflict centers on his highly public opposition to the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. However, he stressed that he is convinced the main lightning rod was his efforts to fight sexual abuse inside the SBC, along with his bridge-building efforts to Black congregations, a growing and strategic network in the convention.


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