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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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Raquel Welch: The bombshell who became a quiet, sincere Presbyterian church lady

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Raquel Welch: The bombshell who became a quiet, sincere Presbyterian church lady

The statuesque film legend didn't call attention to herself as she shared a pew with other conservative Presbyterians in their small church not far from Hollywood.

She was articulate when discussing theology and church matters and, from time to time, would offer advice on finances. She had learned a lot in the movie business.

Raquel Welch wasn't trying to hide, during the later decades of her life when she faithfully attended Calvary Presbyterian Church in Glendale, California. She was simply looking for people she could trust.

"She was careful. … She wasn't going to one of those 2,000-member churches where everyone would look at her. That wasn't her style," said the Rev. Christopher Neiswonger, who grew up in that congregation and attended nearby Fuller Theological Seminary. He now leads Graceview Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Southhaven, Mississippi.

"She also wasn't trying to stick her thumb in the eye of a Hollywood culture that she knew would denigrate this kind of faith commitment. … She was Raquel Welch, but she just wanted to be part of our church family."

Welch died on Feb. 15 at the age of 82, inspiring waves of tributes focusing on her iconic beauty in "Fantastic Voyage," "100 Rifles," "The Three Musketeers" and dozens of other movies and television programs. The legendary poster from "One Million Years B.C." framed her as a bombshell babe image for the ages.

In a Facebook tribute shared with other believers, Neiswonger called Welch a "wonderful lady and a fine Christian" whose "faith grew more powerful and practical with age. It's often true that the most important things become the most important to us as we've matured personally."

At the end of her 2010 memoir, "Raquel: Beyond the Cleavage," Welch described the hard questions she asked after the death of her mother, a faithful Presbyterian, and a sister's struggle with cancer. After decades away from church, Welch offered an "awkward inept prayer" to the "God of my childhood and, lo and behold, he was still there."


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Why do Southern Baptists and many like-minded Protestants still bar women pastors?

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Why do Southern Baptists and many like-minded Protestants still bar women pastors?

THE QUESTION:

Why do Southern Baptists and like-minded Protestants bar women pastors?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Why? Simple. Because they believe that’s what the Bible teaches.

But other conservative evangelical groups see female clergy as biblically proper, for example the Assemblies of God, Evangelical Covenant Church, Free Methodist Church and Salvation Army, along with many independent congregations.

The question is timely because the June 13-14 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, will be a landmark on this. The gathering will decide whether to expel any congregation with a women pastor, thus affirming the SBC Executive Committee’s February expulsion of five such congregations.

Among them is one of the Baptists’ biggest and most influential, Saddleback Church in California, long led by popular author Rick Warren. (See this recent GetReligion post and podcast for more information: “Women in ministry remains a hot topic in SBC life, especially at the pulpit level.”)

Among Baptists, a local congregation ordains clergy, and the SBC upholds the total decision-making independence of each local congregation, so each is free to ordain women. However, the June meeting could establish a new nationwide policy that defines women’s ordination as such a doctrinal heresy that fellowship must be severed.

Across history, Christianity has largely been led by men, as with other world religions and with most societal institutions in most times and places, Protestants have been changing that.

In the U.S., a few U.S. Protestant women were ordained beginning in the 19th Century, including by evangelical churches. In the decades after World War Two, major “mainline” Protestant denominations ended their gender barriers. Women now make up 35% of the students at campuses in the Association of Theological Schools.

Though the SBC now anchors the men-only side in the ongoing debate among evangelicals, this was not always the case.


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Podcast: When is preaching a 'news' story? Ah, the temptation of ChatGPT sermons

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Podcast: When is preaching a 'news' story? Ah, the temptation of ChatGPT sermons

When is preaching newsworthy?

News consumers of a certain age may remember this famous Associated Press headline: “Priest Told Children That Santa Claus Is Dead.”

More recently, a Catholic priest in County Kerry made headlines around the world when he dared to preach a sermon defending centuries of Catholic teachings on abortion, marriage and sex — while reminding the faithful that the concept of “mortal sin” is serious business. His bishop was not amused.

Thus, controversial sermons are news, in part because editors don’t expects sermons to be controversial?

The act of preaching can also become “newsy” when it is linked to a trendy subject in modern life. That’s the equation: Old thing (preaching) gets hitched to hip new thing.

Right now, one of the hot topics in the public square is the rise of artificial intelligence and, to be specific, the ChatGPT website. Thus, this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) focused on several “newsy” angles of the recent Associated Press story that ran with the headline, “Pastors’ view: Sermons written by ChatGPT will have no soul.”

In a way, this whole AI preaching topic is linked to another “preaching that is news” trend that shows up every now and then — plagiarism in the pulpit. Overworked, stressed-out pastors have been known to cut a few corners and use material from other preachers, without letting the faithful know what they were doing. But that’s actually a very old story. See this On Religion column that starts with a case study from 1876.

During the podcast, I riffed on the whole issue that different kinds of technology can shape the content of communications in different ways. If ChatGPT sermons have a sense of “soul,” it would be a “soul” that is defined by the creator of the software and the tech platform.

This made me think back the early 1990s, when I was teaching at Denver Seminary and asking future pastors to think about the many ways that mass-media messages shape the lives of their flocks and, of course, the unchurched people around them (here is an essay on that seminary work).

During that time, I read an article — on paper, alas — about how the creation of studio microphones changed the content of American popular music, even at the level of lyrics in love songs.

Think about Frank Sinatra. As a young big-band singer, he belted out bold, strong, LOUD songs about commitment and romantic love that would never die. He had to be heard over that big band. But give Sinatra a microphone and, well, these songs turned into smooth, soft, seductive messages — urgent whispers of desire.

I wondered: How did microphones affect the style and theological content of preaching?


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With alarming new reports on American youth, what should religious leaders be doing?

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With alarming new reports on American youth, what should religious leaders be doing?

Religion writers, like many other Americans, doubtless find a February report on the well-being of American teens from the federal Centers for Disease Control (.pdf here) nothing short of alarming.

There are religion-beat angles in these numbers. The question is whether religious leaders have figured that out yet. As we say here at GetReligion: Hold that thought.

Meanwhile, many news reports focused on the reported plight of teen-aged girls. The CDC survey in 2021 found that 57% persistently feel hopeless and sad, a 60% increase over the past decade and double the rate for boys, while 31% considered taking their own lives. The incidence of girls suffering sexual violence increased 20% in just the four years since 2017. Also, attempted suicide afflicted 22% of “LGBQ+” students.

Meanwhile, the media have lately put new emphasis on the troubled situation of boys and men.

Last August, Psychology Today said young and middle-aged men are more lonely than they’ve been in generations. A major consideration is that men are typically “happier and healthier” when married or “partnered.”

Internet dating is now a huge source of romantic connections, but 62% of users are men because “women are increasingly selective.” Men’s lack of “relationship skills” is said to produce less dating, more singleness, and thus less contentment.

That’s buttressed by a February 22 article from The Hill: “Most young men are single. Most young women are not.” New York University psychology professor Niobe Way’s view contrasts with the CDC, saying young adult men’s “social disconnect” means their suicide rate is quadruple that for women. And we all know distressed teen and young adult men are responsible for much of the national epidemic of mass shootings.

Young women, better-educated than men, “are getting more choosy” and are less likely to settle for problematic mates. Meanwhile, millions of young men have great relationship skills — with their digital screens.


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Got news? Concerning a boring AP story that ignored info about controversial cardinal

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Got news? Concerning a boring AP story that ignored info about controversial cardinal

Want to read a really boring Associated Press news story?

You know, the kind of short hard-news, nothing-but-facts AP report in which an important person — Pope Francis, in this case — releases a list of appointees to some inside-baseball this or that, people who are either unknown or vaguely familiar to a dozen or so readers who are into that kind of thing?

In this case, one ends up with a boring headline — sure to appear in a few newspapers — that reads like this: “Pope renews cabinet of cardinal advisers, adds new members.” Here’s the riveting overture:

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has renewed his cabinet of cardinal advisers from around the world, naming a handful of new members Tuesday and reconfirming others to help him run the Catholic Church.

Francis instituted the Council of Cardinals one month into his papacy, on April 13, 2013, with a primary goal of advising him on the reform of the Vatican bureaucracy. After nearly a decade of consultation, Francis issued a new blueprint for the Vatican bureaucracy last year.

Nevertheless, the Jesuit pope clearly appreciated the regular opportunities to consult with a small number of hand-picked cardinals representing the church on nearly every continent, and decided to keep the cabinet alive, albeit with some new members.

Now, would that story be a bit more interesting — “newsy” even — if it noted that one of the new members of this papal “inner ring” was a cardinal who, at this moment in time, may be the world’s most controversial prince of the church?

I mean, in this case we are talking about a cardinal who said the following, in an interview with KDA, a German news agency:

"The Church's positions on homosexual relationships as sinful are wrong. … I believe that the sociological and scientific foundation of this doctrine is no longer correct. It is time for a fundamental revision of Church teaching, and the way in which Pope Francis has spoken of homosexuality could lead to a change in doctrine. …


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Mainstream outlets ignore anti-Catholic angles in Merrick Garland's Senate testimony

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Mainstream outlets ignore anti-Catholic angles in Merrick Garland's Senate testimony

It’s almost always news when a public official testifies before a congressional committee. Such was the case when Attorney General Merrick Garland faced the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

As expected, it was an important, and often heated, four hours of testimony that was highlighted by the back-and-forth exchanges between Garland and Republican senators on the panel. You can read Garland’s opening remarks on the DOJ website. 

Beyond his prepared remarks, there were plenty of potential storylines tied to religion that surfaced in the hearing. However, depending on which news organizations one follows, these storylines either made it into the news coverage or they were never mentioned. 

The Garland hearing comes at a time of heightened polarization, something made worse by the Supreme Court decision that rolled back the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. The aftermath of that decision has resulted in increased vandalism of Catholic churches, pro-life pregnancy centers and even a now-retracted FBI memo that targeted some traditional Catholics. 

The content of the coverage of the questions asked and the contents of Garland’s responses depended on what reporters, editors and news organizations deemed important. This has been the case for decades, but the shift has changed dramatically in more recent years as news organizations divide themselves into political camps depending on the beliefs of their faithful audiences. 

Did valid religion angles, especially those involving Catholics, make it into the coverage of national legacy media outlets? 

Here is a hint: Prayers by protestors at abortion facilities appear to be considered much more dangerous, and thus newsworthy, than vandalism, or even arson, at Catholic churches and crisis pregnancy centers. News coverage of this Senate hearing seemed to have been produced by journalists living in parallel universes. Once again, this is the dominant news trend in the Internet age.

Here is the top of the New York Times report on the Garland hearing: 

WASHINGTON — Republicans subjected Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to a four-hour grilling before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, a harbinger of the fights that loom ahead as the party targets the Justice Department in the months leading up to the 2024 election. 


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EV charging sites at churches: Which denominational brands will get government $$$?

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EV charging sites at churches: Which denominational brands will get government $$$?

Let me open this post with a confession: I am part of a growing flock of folks (some say “cult”) that attracts lots of nasty social-media commentary from a fascinating coalition of left-wingers and right-wingers.

In other words, I drive an electric car.

Wait. Anger from left-wingers? Remember these four words: Elon. Musk. Bought. Twitter.

Anyway, I have spent quite a bit of time reading about efforts to build EV-charging networks. Things were totally bonkers during the year or two that the Joe Biden White House was refusing to utter the word “Tesla” and seemed poised to pour billions of tax dollars exclusively into networks that are infamous for the stunningly high percentage of time their chargers are broken.

Now, what does this inside-baseball discussion have to do with religion-beat news?

Maybe you saw this Religion News Service headline that ran the other day: “Could churches be prime locations for EV charging stations? One company thinks so.”

You see, EV charging stations require (#DUH) empty parking spaces, and it helps if these slots are in convenient urban and suburban locations — frequently near a highway exit or two. This leads to the totally logical overture for this timely RNS piece:

As more drivers make the decision to switch from gas-powered cars to electric vehicles, places to power them remain few and far between in large parts of the country. And with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 incentivizing clean energy and electric cars, as well as providing investments for green technology, the demand will only increase.

Churches, with their large parking lots that often sit empty during the week, could help provide a solution.

Now, imagine yourself driving through a typical American city. In your mind’s eye, where do you see empty church parking lots?

Basically, you will find two different kinds of lots and they tend to be located in rather different kinds of places. This is where I see a potential news hook or two.


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Plug-In: No Separation Of Church And State? New York City Mayor Sparks A Furor

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Plug-In: No Separation Of Church And State? New York City Mayor Sparks A Furor

Good morning, Weekend Plug-in readers!

Among the religion news happening now, Catholics in Los Angeles are remembering slain Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell. See photos by Los Angeles Times staff photographer Francine Orr from Thursday’s vigil Mass, before the funeral Mass the next day.

As always, we have a bunch of best reads and top headlines in the world of faith to highlight. Let’s jump right in.

What To Know: The Big Story

Big Apple, big controversy: “Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that at an interfaith breakfast this week — remarks called “unhinged and dangerous” by a rabbi quoted by the New York Times’ Dana Rubinstein.

More from the New York Times:

He went on to suggest that his path to the mayoralty was divinely ordained, saying that when he implements policies, he does so in a “godlike approach.”

At another point, Mr. Adams seemed to suggest that it was a mistake for the Supreme Court to ban mandated prayer in public schools, as it did in 1962. “When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools,” he said.

The phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution, but the First Amendment’s statement that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” has been widely interpreted to dictate such a separation.

‘God bless Mayor Adams’: But not everyone criticized the comments.

In fact, Adams won “a new group of fans: Orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians, whose leaders lauded the liberal Democrat,” according to the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner.


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