David Crary

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Plugged-In: Amid challenges for pro-lifers, thousands still elected to March For Life

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Plugged-In: Amid challenges for pro-lifers, thousands still elected to March For Life

A new report covered by Christianity Today’s Jayson Casper highlights “the 50 countries where it’s hardest to follow Jesus in 2024.”

Last week’s Plug-in focused on Iowa evangelicals and Donald Trump ahead of the caucuses.

After the former president’s big win in that state, The Associated Press’ Josh Boak and Linley Sanders, CT’s Harvest Prude and the Washington Post’s Dan Keating, Adrian Blanco and Clara Ence Morse analyze the critical role evangelicals played.

The New Hampshire primary is Tuesday, and Clemente Lisi details “everything you need to know about the candidates” at Religion Unplugged.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith.

What To Know: The Big Story

What motivates pro-lifers: The crowd at today’s annual March for Life in the nation’s capital could top 100,000, organizers predict.

Fifty-one years after Roe v. Wade — and a year and a half after its overturning — “evangelical activists see a bigger fight to change Americans’ minds on abortion.” That’s the synopsis from Christianity Today’s Harvest Prude.

A different mood: If last year’s rally marked a celebration for the anti-abortion movement, the 2024 event reflects “formidable challenges that lie ahead in this election year.”

So notes The Associated Press’ David Crary, who quotes a leading activist:

“We have undeniable evidence of victory — lives being saved,” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life. “But there is also a realization of the significant hurdles that our movement has right now in the public conversation.”

Crary explains:


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Plug-In: More Moore on values voters and what appears to be a permanent Trump effect

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Plug-In: More Moore on values voters and what appears to be a permanent Trump effect

Among the week’s intriguing headlines: Pope Francis is hurrying to bolster his progressive legacy as his health problems increase, the Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca reports.

In Israel, the political rise of ultra-Orthodox Jews is shaking the nation’s sense of identity, the WSJ’s Dov Lieber and Shayndi Raice note. A related major vote is expected as soon as Sunday.

In the U.S., a crowded field of GOP presidential candidates is vying for the Christian Zionist vote as Israel’s rightward shift spurs protests, according to The Associated Press’ Tiffany Stanley.

Also, “the Robert F. Kennedy boomlet is over,” Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin opines. Before it ended (or not, since he isn’t that interested in mainstream press views), the Democratic presidential candidate gave an exclusive, nearly 40-minute interview to Jewish News Syndicate’s Menachem Wecker.

The King’s College in New York is canceling fall classes and laying off faculty but insists it’s not closing, as Emily Belz at Christianity Today and Meagan Saliashvili at Religion News Service explain.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with former President Donald Trump’s lingering hold on right-wing voters.

What To Know: The Big Story

More of the same: “One of former President Donald Trump’s most steadfast evangelical critics said he expects Trump to be the Republican nominee in 2024, and that the years since Trump’s election in 2016 have been an ‘apocalypse.’”

“There’s a wide-open choice, and still you have a majority in the Republican primary behind Trump,” Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore tells Yahoo News’ Jon Ward. “I would be shocked if he’s not the Republican nominee.” Moore has a new book, ”Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America,” which releases July 25.


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Latter-day Saints back proposed same-sex marriage law, but other flocks remain concerned

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Latter-day Saints back proposed same-sex marriage law, but other flocks remain concerned

More than a decade ago, I wrote a piece for Christianity Today headlined, “Should the marriage battleground shift to religious freedom?”

In that article, University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock made the case that Christian conservatives who opposed same-sex marriage should shift their focus to fighting for their First Amendment religious-liberty rights.

I was reminded of that discussion when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — in what the Salt Lake Tribune characterized as “a stunning move” — “gave its support to a proposed federal law that would codify marriages between same-sex couples.”

The story by the Tribune’s Tamarra Kemsley and Peggy Fletcher Stack notes:

The Utah-based faith’s doctrine “related to marriage between a man and a woman is well known and will remain unchanged,” the church stated in a news release. “We are grateful for the continuing efforts of those who work to ensure the Respect for Marriage Act includes appropriate religious freedom protections while respecting the law and preserving the rights of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.”

At Religion News Service, Bob Smietana traces the Latter-day Saints’ surprise backing of the federal law to the fallout from the church’s 2008 support for Proposition 8. That California ballot measure was aimed at banning same-sex marriage.

Smietana writes:

Voters narrowly approved Proposition 8, but their victory proved short-lived. A California court ruled that any ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

The church’s public image took a beating, said Benjamin Park, a scholar of Mormonism at Sam Houston State University. “Church leaders recognized the writing on the wall,” said Park.

The defeat led LDS leaders to back the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill that would protect same-sex marriage that Congress is now expected to pass this week with bipartisan support. In Wednesday’s 62-37 vote in the U.S. Senate to end debate on the bill and advance it, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah was among the yeas.


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Podcast: Can the AP Stylebook team slow down the creation of new Godbeat 'F-bombs'?

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Podcast: Can the AP Stylebook team slow down the creation of new Godbeat 'F-bombs'?

Words matter, especially when covering a topic as complex as religion.

That concept has, of course, been one of the core doctrines of GetReligion for nearly 20 years and it was the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). This episode discussed a few of the religion-language changes in the evolving Associated Press Stylebook — an update project that involved both Godbeat patriarch Richard Ostling and Bobby “Are the Rangers playing today?” Ross, Jr.

I am gung-ho about making stylebook improvements. Carry on!

But I have my doubts about whether these changes will have a major impact, when it comes to the butchering of religious language, information and history when complex religion subjects are covered by reporters (especially political-desk stars) with zero training and experience on this beat. After all, we already know that religion-news coverage radically improves when editors hire qualified writers and editors.

Thus, The Big Question, for my entire career, has been: Why don’t more newsroom managers show respect for religion news by hiring religion-beat pros?

So, will the improved AP bible help? Well, consider the many GetReligion posts over the years praising the stylebook entry for “fundamentalist,” while noting that way too many reporters ignore that advice. Why does this happen? Here is some material from an “On Religion” column I wrote on the topic (“Define fundamentalist, please”). First, the classic stylebook language:

"fundamentalist: The word gained usage in an early 20th century fundamentalist-modernist controversy within Protestantism. ... However, fundamentalist has to a large extent taken on pejorative connotations except when applied to groups that stress strict, literal interpretations of Scripture and separation from other Christians.

"In general, do not use fundamentalist unless a group applies the word to itself."

Alas, for reporters and academics, one person’s "evangelical" is another's "fundamentalist” and “fundamentalist” is basically and F-bomb.


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Religious liberty at SCOTUS, again: Touch, comfort and the prayers of clergy at executions

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Religious liberty at SCOTUS, again: Touch, comfort and the prayers of clergy at executions

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear religious freedom arguments Tuesday in the case of a Texas death-row inmate named John Henry Ramirez.

Ramirez, 37, wants his Southern Baptist pastor to lay hands on him and pray before and during his execution. The state of Texas won’t allow it.

Time magazine’s Madeleine Carlisle provides a nice overview of the case.

“The job of a minister is not to stand still and be quiet,” Dana Moore, the inmate’s pastor, tells Time. “Prayer is very important. And the power of touch is real. It’s encouraging. It brings peace. It’s significant… Why can’t I hold his hand?”

In an August interview with New York Times religion writer Ruth Graham, Ramirez took responsibility for killing Corpus Christi convenience store clerk Pablo Castro, calling Castro’s 2004 death a “heinous murder.” (As noted by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Ramirez “beat and kicked Castro and stabbed him 29 times with a 6-inch serrated knife.” He and two female accomplices left the scene with $1.25.)

“It would just be comforting,” Ramirez said of wanting Moore by his side at the time of his lethal injection.

At The Associated Press, religion writer David Crary explains that the “ACLU has a long history of opposing the death penalty and also says that condemned prisoners, even at the moment of execution, have religious rights.”

Conservative church-state activists have been involved in this case, and others like it, since Day 1.

“Intriguingly, the ACLU’s position in the Ramirez case is echoed by some conservative religious groups which support the death penalty and are often at odds with the ACLU on other issues,” Crary reports.


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Plug-In: Mourning two amazing people and journalists -- Rachel Zoll and Amy Raymond

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Plug-In: Mourning two amazing people and journalists -- Rachel Zoll and Amy Raymond

In 31 years of full-time journalism, I’ve been blessed to work with some incredible people.

The world recently lost two of the best.

Rachel Zoll was one of The Associated Press’ two New York-based national religion writers — along with Richard Ostling — when I joined AP’s Nashville bureau in 2002.

She was always so kind and supportive of me and my work, as she was with countless others. I last saw her at the 2017 Religion News Association annual meeting in Nashville. I had left AP more than a decade earlier, so I was surprised when she asked how my wife, Tamie, was doing. I had no idea she knew Tamie was battling autoimmune disease. But she did.

Early in 2018, Zoll was diagnosed with brain cancer. She died Friday in Amherst, Mass., at 55.

Her AP colleague David Crary, who called Zoll his “best friend at work,” wrote a truly touching obituary.

Zoll and Ostling were AP’s national religion dream team for five years until his retirement in 2006.

Ostling enjoyed a legendary career with Time magazine before going to work at AP and now, in retirement, with GetReligion. But he told Zoll during her illness that “on a day-to-day basis our work together was the highlight” of his time in journalism.

Amy Raymond and I both got our start working on The Talon campus newspaper at Oklahoma Christian University. I was excited when she joined The Oklahoman staff in 1997, a few years after me.

Although Raymond and I hadn’t worked together in nearly two decades, we stayed in touch via Facebook. We occasionally chatted about religious and political issues.

On a Zoom discussion Monday night, current and former colleagues kept saying — through tears — how smart and kind she was. That is the absolute truth.

“Amy started as a staff writer but her true passion became apparent as she made her way up the ladder as a copy editor, page designer, and then as night news editor,” my longtime friend and former Oklahoma Christian classmate Steve Lackmeyer wrote in The Oklahoman this week.


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Plug-In with good news: MRI shows no new brain tumor growth for AP's Rachel Zoll

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Like so many of her devoted readers, I miss the stellar journalism of Rachel Zoll, longtime national religion writer for The Associated Press.

But I have positive news to report about Zoll, who was diagnosed with brain cancer more than two years ago.

An MRI last week “showed no evidence of new tumor growth once again,” said Cheryl Zoll, Rachel’s sister.

Rachel has glioblastoma, or GBM, the aggressive and deadly cancer that claimed the life of Sen. John McCain in 2018.

The Religion News Association honored Rachel with a Special Recognition Award at its 2018 annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio. That same year, AP recognized her as one of the winners of the Oliver S. Gramling Awards, the global news service’s highest internal honor.

The reporter’s doctor indicated that in 90 percent of cases, “patients would be showing progressive disease by now,” her sister said.

“While we could, of course, see new growth at any time, Rachel has officially graduated into the class of people who are outliers with respect to survival,” said Cheryl, with whom Rachel is staying in Amherst, Massachusetts. “We'll take all the time we can get!”

Like many people during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rachel has been confined to walking around the neighborhood the last few months. But she has enjoyed receiving calls and notes from friends such as Richard Ostling, with whom Rachel worked on AP’s national religion team for years.


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How will America's religion marketplace change after coronavirus crisis is behind us?

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This evolving COVID-19 story is something like a combination of two earlier national crises that were incomparably worse — or so we assume and hope.

The public health parallel was the vast influenza pandemic of 1918-19. This scourge infected a third of the world population and killed 50 million people. Some 675,000 of the dead were in the United States, out of a national population of 104.5 million (less than a third of the current number.) As currently, there was no vaccine so the spread could only be fought through social separation, quarantines, and meticulous hygiene.

Then came the epic economic disaster of the Great Depression, beginning in 1929. In the U.S., by 1933 industrial production had declined by an estimated 47 percent and the gross domestic product by 30 percent while 20 percent of the population was unemployed and a fifth of the nation’s banks had failed. Economic weakness wore on through the decade.

The news media have a huge responsibility to report right now on both the raging health dangers and the economic damage caused by The Great Lockdown.

However, “social distancing” and “flattening the curve” will — someday — be mere bad memories and America will be able to fully assess the carnage. And, meanwhile, if there’s anything that should send people down on their knees in prayer it’s COVID-19.

But with few exceptions, Americans can only do this as individuals and families because of the massive halt of worship services. Here’s an arresting thought from political scientist Ryan Burge (a contributor to GetReligion): “This coming weekend may represent the fewest people engaging in corporate worship in the last two millennia.”

David Crary of The Associated Press (a former reporting team colleague of The Guy) has taken an early look at what religion is facing.


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A Pew Research Center study on the varying lengths of sermons in Christian churches? That'll preach

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When’s the last time you read a news story on sermon lengths?

Before this week, I mean?

If you follow religion news, you know that the Pew Research Center released a study Monday dubbed “The Digital Pulpit” and analyzing sermons in various Christian contexts.

It’s a fascinating topic, actually.

It’s also one that I don’t recall ever making headlines before. Of course, journalists get in trouble by making statements like that. So please feel free to educate me on past coverage if I missed it. That’s what the comment box is for.

From the Pew report, here is a rundown of the approach:

This process produced a database containing the transcribed texts of 49,719 sermons shared online by 6,431 churches and delivered between April 7 and June 1, 2019, a period that included Easter.2 These churches are not representative of all houses of worship or even of all Christian churches in the U.S.; they make up just a small percentage of the estimated 350,000-plus religious congregations nationwide. Compared with U.S. congregations as a whole, the churches with sermons included in the dataset are more likely to be in urban areas and tend to have larger-than-average congregations (see the Methodology for full details).

The median sermon scraped from congregational websites is 37 minutes long. But there are striking differences in the typical length of a sermon in each of the four major Christian traditions analyzed in this report: Catholic, evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant and historically black Protestant.3

Catholic sermons are the shortest, at a median of just 14 minutes, compared with 25 minutes for sermons in mainline Protestant congregations and 39 minutes in evangelical Protestant congregations. Historically black Protestant churches have the longest sermons by far: a median of 54 minutes, more than triple the length of the median Catholic homily posted online during the Easter study period.

Both the Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey and The Associated Press’ David Crary produced interesting news stories on the study. The New York Times’ Elizabeth Dias did a quick item on the study, asking for reader input for a possible future story.


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