Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

OKLAHOMA CITY — I have vivid memories of voting in my first presidential election in 1988, when Republican George H.W. Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis.

As a junior journalism major at Oklahoma Christian University, I reported on a variety of campaign stops that fall — including Oklahoma City rallies by Bush and Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen.

On the other hand, I recall little about my inaugural time casting any ballot two years earlier. That non-presidential election came in the middle of Ronald Reagan’s second term. The big news in 1986: Democrats regained control of the Senate and strengthened their majority in the House.

Alas, midterms tend not to leave the indelible impression of presidential years. But they, too, are consequential. That’ll no doubt be the case as Americans go to the polls Tuesday.

Religion will, of course, play a role, from mobilizing participation to seeking precinct integrity to influencing voter decisions.

Here are five faith-related questions to watch:

1. At a time of deep unpopularity for President Donald Trump, will evangelicals turn out to support Republican candidates?

“Trump’s approval ratings among members of every religious group we can study are among the lowest of his second term,” the Pew Research Center reported earlier this month. “Even religious groups who have traditionally been his strongest supporters see him less favorably than they used to.”

Evangelicals represent “the Republican Party’s core voting bloc — and a crucial player in President Donald Trump’s rise to power,” Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins noted. Leaders such as Ralph Reed, head of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, “are rushing to ensure evangelicals still turn out with their usual gusto — or at least vote enough to limit conservative losses.”

Republicans worry that evangelicals sitting out the midterms could cost them in key races, according to CNN’s Lauren Fox and Morgan Rimmer:

In 2016, 2020 and 2024, roughly 8 in 10 White evangelicals cast ballots for President Donald Trump nationally. While they make up only 13% of the country’s population, they vote in such large numbers that they often account for roughly 20% of the electorate in any given election, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

“The evangelical vote is Trump’s strongest coalition. Thirty-eight percent of his voters were White evangelicals. [Republicans] cannot win — I don’t care where you are in the country — without the evangelical vote,” said Ryan Burge, a professor at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

But at a moment when gas and grocery prices are high, the president’s approval rating is underwater, and enthusiasm among Republicans is tepid, the 2026 election could be a critical test of whether White evangelicals still have enough faith in the GOP to turn out in full force on Election Day.

The Wall Street Journal’s Damien Paletta wrote that “Democrats’ stealthy advance into the South” — read: the Bible Belt — “during this midterm cycle could end up being the story of the year.”

2. How will culture war issues — including ballot measures in 10 states on abortion, sex and gender policy — fare at the ballot box?

The nonprofit Ballotpedia News outlined the specific state questions:

All 10 statewide measures that voters will decide on Nov. 3 on abortion, sex-based requirements for school sports, medical procedures for transgender minors, and parental review and notification in education are part of our top 50 measures.

Measures in Idaho, Nevada, and Virginia would establish a constitutional or legal right to abortion. Missouri Amendment 3 would repeal the reproductive freedom amendment, prohibit abortion with exceptions, and prohibit certain medical or surgical procedures for transgender minors. Colorado Proposition 135 would also prohibit certain procedures for transgender minors.

Measures in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Washington would establish sex-based requirements for school sports participation. Washington Initiative 1 would address parents’ rights to review educational materials, receive notifications, and opt their children out of sexual-health education.

Religion News Service’s Ellie Ashby and Aleja Hertzler-McCain reported:

Officially, abortion is still a top policy priority for many religious leaders. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops calls preventing abortion its “preeminent priority,” and prominent conservative evangelicals continue to mobilize their voters around the issue.

But as Idaho, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia prepare to vote on abortion-related measures in the midterm elections, polling suggests it is less of a priority for voters than in other recent election cycles.

Republicans are emphasizing transgender ads in midterm campaigning, putting cultural issues over voters’ economic anxiety, according to The Associated Press’ Steve Peoples and Aaron Kessler.

3. Will Michigan voters elect a sharp critic of Israel as the first Muslim American ever to serve in the U.S. Senate?

I mentioned Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s Senate bid in my recent story on America’s war of words over Muslims:

El-Sayed has said his faith instructs him to do good and seek justice. But his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, has characterized El-Sayed’s identity as a hindrance and possibly even a danger to America. President Donald Trump has described Democratic candidates in the midterm election as “jihadists.”

Religion Unplugged’s Clemente Lisi produced an analysis piece on “Muslims, The Upcoming Midterms And America’s Political Future.”

Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron delved into another aspect of El-Sayed’s candidacy:

The race points to the deep divisions among Michigan Jews over El-Sayed. The Senate candidate who has said he would vote to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel, and earlier this week said he did not consider Israel an ally, has created a rift among Jews there, one few voters wanted to talk about publicly.

It pits Jews for whom Israel is a big part of their identity against other Jews for whom it isn’t.

El-Sayed’s campaign test, according to RNS, is this: “Can he win over Black and Jewish voters?”

In the campaign’s final weeks, El-Sayed has faced attacks on his faith and family ties, as explained by the New York Times’ Reid J. Epstein, Brian M. Rosenthal and Michael Kruse.

An interesting twist, via the Times’ story:

He has featured his grandparents in advertisements, including one that began airing on Tuesday in which they declared, “We’re Presbyterians.”

Sen. Gary Peters, the two-term incumbent Democrat, did not seek re-election.

4. Can a Methodist megachurch pastor defeat a Republican incumbent to become Kansas’ first Democratic U.S. senator since 1932?

I first mentioned Adam Hamilton in a Plug-in column in May on pastors running for Congress.

Hamilton leads Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, about 10 miles southwest of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. That’s the largest United Methodist Church in the nation.

In a Religion News Service profile of Hamilton, Jack Jenkins wrote:

Hamilton’s style — ambitious yet conciliatory — feels almost archaic in an era dominated by strident political rhetoric. But supporters, including members of his church, say it’s precisely what has built him so much goodwill among his fellow Kansans and Methodists — and what may make him an unusually difficult target for his political opponents.

As noted by USA Today, Hamilton faces embattled Republican incumbent Roger Marshall as he seeks to snap the longest Democratic losing streak in U.S. Senate history.

Earlier this month, New York Times religion writer Ruth Graham opened her profile of Marshall this way:

In the race for U.S. Senate in Kansas, the Democrat quotes the Bible from memory on the campaign trail and has described voting as “an act of Christian discipleship.” He is the pastor of the largest church in the state.

His Republican opponent derides him as a “megachurch C.E.O.”

With just a few weeks until Election Day, the race appears neck and neck in a state that has sent only Republicans to the Senate since 1932.

Campaigning for Marshall in Topeka this week, Vice President JD Vance told voters: “If elected, Adam Hamilton would use our faith and your vote as Kansas senator to launder a political ideology that despises the way that Kansas lives. This man is a lab creation of Washington operatives and far-left activists who don’t know a thing about you or what you care about.”

5. Which brand of Christianity — Ken Paxton’s evangelicalism or James Talaricos progressivism — will prevail in Texas’ tight U.S. Senate race?

For Religion Unplugged, Luke Reinkensmeyer reported:

As a member of the Presbyterian Church and a seminarian at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Talarico is part of a broader form of Christianity that aligns most closely with progressive values. Often characterized as a mainline Christian, these are denominations that are typically concerned with justice and equality and tend to be more politically liberal on abortion and sexuality.

Historically, they have struggled to retain members and have had few clergy members in political office. But Talarico’s emergence, along with that of several other mainline Protestant candidates, reflects a membership that is still flickering and a public willing to vote for these type of Democrats.

In coverage for Christianity Today, Liam Adams quoted Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, a megachurch in Plano, Texas, north of Dallas. Graham is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Adams noted:

Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for US Senate in Texas, has been a Prestonwood member, though he hasn’t received Graham’s endorsement. However, another group called “Pastors for Paxton” recently announced its support for the Republican nominee. The group, formed by 27 pastors who signed a letter, hope to challenge Democratic candidate James Talarico’s well-known progressive Christian platform. Talarico holds an advantage over Paxton in most polls.

As the Wall Street Journal put it earlier this month, Trump “backed the scandal-plagued Paxton in one of the riskiest bets of the midterms.” Sen. John Cornyn, the four-term incumbent, lost in the GOP primary after the president endorsed Paxton.

Just this week, the New York Times’ Lauren McGaughy introduced readers to “The Christian Influencer at the Center of Ken Paxton’s New Life”:

She is all but invisible on the campaign trail for U.S. Senate in Texas, seen only briefly in bystander videos, never mentioned in ads and whisked away from the prying eyes of the political press.

Tracy Duhon, an aspiring Christian influencer, came into Ken Paxton’s life just before he announced his Senate run and is building a life with him — traveling abroad and celebrating holidays together.

Aides to Mr. Paxton, whose wife, Angela, has filed for divorce on “biblical grounds,” take pains to keep Ms. Duhon away from the Senate race, where he has struggled to draw support from independents and even some fellow Republicans. Mr. Paxton, the state’s attorney general, now trails his Democratic opponent, James Talarico, in most polls.

But it is clear that Ms. Duhon, now deep in the inner circle of one of the most powerful politicians in Texas, has brought Mr. Paxton close to a world of online influencers and Christian self-help, where vulnerable public admissions and promises of redemption come in social media posts.

The Michigan, Kansas and Texas races are among seven that either party could win, according to the Washington Post’s Amber Phillips.

In Phillips’ analysis, it’s “possible … but far from a guarantee” that Democrats could retake the Senate, just as they did in 1986.

Inside The Godbeat

I was pleased to win first place for outstanding column/commentary in the Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists’ 2026 annual contest.

The SPJ honored my April 19, 2025, column for Religion Unplugged on the 30th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Winners were announced this past Friday in Tulsa.

The Final Plug

Earlier this year, I explored country star Ella Langley’s Baptist upbringing and how she found salvation at a Judgement House.

From that piece:

In the case of Langley, how do we confirm — 100% — her Bible Belt street cred?

For me, that moment came when she asked (podcast host Theo) Von if he ever went to Judgement Houses.

“No, what was it?” he replied.

“It’s like, they do it around Halloween,” she explained. “It’s like a haunted house for Christians, I guess. Very scary. I remember our youth group took us. You get in there, and it’s like this car crash scene, and it’s pretty much like convincing you that, yes, you could die the second you walk out of here. So you better settle up.”

“You better get saved, huh?” Von said.

“You better get saved,” Langley confirmed.

Given that Halloween is Saturday, I thought I’d mention that column again, just in case you missed it.

Happy Friday, everyone! If you can afford it, be sure to give the neighbor kids lots of candy this weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

I caught up via Zoom this week with Wes Woodell, a Tennessee-based ministry technology strategist who founded Connect My Church.

I wanted to talk about artificial intelligence.

“Is AI going to kill us all?” I asked, pointing to recent news coverage of that possibility.

I’ll share Woodell’s response in a moment. But first, a bit of background: The 46-year-old cybermissionary first developed a love for technology while watching “Star Trek” as a child.

He’s pursuing a Ph.D. in intercultural studies through the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Through that program and a website he launched called Ask Bible Questions, he’s working to develop AI tools to advance the spread of Christianity globally.

Ministries such as Sunset International Bible Institute in Lubbock, Texas, have used solar players — handheld, sun-powered audio devices — to take the Bible to remote places.

“So my question is, what if we could put something out like that which didn’t just play a recording?” said Woodell, who lives in Columbia, 45 miles south of Nashville. “What if you could actually ask it questions, and it would give you answers? … You know, it’s not the open internet. It’s just an enclosed set of resources that we can put on there, and that’s essentially what we’re building.”

Woodell’s work — in cooperation with the Renew.org Network — to create such tools intrigues me.

But given his expertise, I felt compelled to inquire, too, about more general AI matters.

Life-and-death matters, you might say.

So I asked about AI killing us.

Woodell smiled at the question. He didn’t seem overly concerned. Then again, he didn’t dismiss the premise entirely.

“There’s a lot of people afraid of that, and there are some real destructive capabilities when you think about security, when you think about where we’re going in the future with new technology,” Woodell said.

“For instance, humanoid robots,” he added. “If those things are deployed and successful, and now there are a million humanoid robots in 10 or 15 years, or maybe even sooner than that, what if something could hack all of those things at the same time?” he added. “What if a foreign, hostile government could take over those things and make them start karate-chopping people and kicking people in the head?”

I missed the examples he gave after that because I was busy trying to think of a place to hide. That’s dark humor, by the way, because my AI program transcribed every word.

But Woodell was just pointing out, he explained, that “the caution and the fear are not completely unfounded.”

He didn’t mean to be a doomsayer.

“What you also have to think about is, there are people using the same tools — advanced tools for defense and for securing systems and for keeping people out — that are employed, too,” he said. “And so, I think, in terms of our national security, it’s important that we stay at the forefront. This is way more important than the space race was in terms of security.”

My next question moved from the physical to the spiritual.

After reading a recent piece by John Mac Ghlionn here at Religion Unplugged — headlined “AI might be conscious. If so, God help us” — I was curious about Woodell’s take.

“Does AI have a soul?” I asked.

“I don’t think it can,” he replied. “This idea of supreme intelligence, I think, is a misnomer. When we’re talking about AI, we’re talking about a complex math equation. It doesn’t process thought. It doesn’t think. It processes. It’s a computer program.”

That said, Woodell acknowledged that not everyone would agree with him.

“There are people in Silicon Valley who are not believers in God,” he said. “They believe they can create God. They’re humanists, and they believe in something called transhumanism. They believe the best contribution they could make to the world is to advance technology to the point where humans could merge their consciousness with a machine, thereby living forever. They want to achieve immortality.”

Full confession: I Googled “transhumanism” and got an AI overview of it.

Woodell kept talking, offering more insight than I have space to share.

In response, I replied simply, “That’s fascinating.”

And I meant it.

Woodell wrote an article for the Christian Standard, an independent Christian Churches publication where he serves as digital strategist, on how believers can use AI to expand their reach.

Before our conversation ended, I asked him to offer advice on how houses of worship can use AI to help fulfill their missions.

“Right now, there are certain busy work tasks that AI could really help with,” said Woodell, who attends the Harpeth Christian Church in the Nashville suburb of Franklin. “For example, I’m developing a tool … for churches to get their sermons online and get all of that search engine optimized on their website, so that they can use their sermon content to connect with their local community in online searches. That’s something that AI can greatly simplify.”

On the administrative side, AI can help with tasks such as scheduling, social media posts, bulletin work and letter drafting.

“What frightens me a little bit are preachers using AI to write their sermons for them,” Woodell said. “That has become a thing, and I don’t think that’s healthy.

“AI can help give some feedback that’s helpful sometimes,” he added. “But I would not have it just draft the sermon for you. I think that’s very dangerous and also just not good for a preacher’s heart.”

Just this week, the evangelical research organization Barna Group posted an article asking, “In a crisis, should AI hand off to a human?”

You don’t have to ask a chatbot to know such questions seem likely to remain timely.

Inside the Godbeat

In last week’s Plug-in, I asked: “Does old-fashioned reporting still matter to Christianity Today?”

This week, New York Times religion writer Ruth Graham delves deeper into the turmoil inside “the pillar of Christian journalism,” as the Times’ headline characterizes the evangelical publication. Half of the magazine’s staff members have left or been laid off over the past 14 months, Graham’s piece notes.

By the way, the Godbeat pro is not related to the late Rev. Billy Graham, who founded Christianity Today in 1956.

The final plug

For the first time in 44 years, a World Series game will be played tonight in Milwaukee.

Neither the host Brewers, established as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 before relocating to Milwaukee in 1970, nor the visiting Tampa Bay Rays, who began play in 1998, has ever won the MLB championship.

Sophie Carson, who covers religion for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, profiles the Rev. Jerry Herda, a Catholic priest and longtime Brewers fan who serves as the team’s chaplain.

As I’ve noted in my coverage of MLB faith nights, the Brewers host an annual Ballpark Day of Faith.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

Peers in both the faith-based and mainstream press recognized Andy Olsen’s journalistic excellence earlier this year.

The Evangelical Press Association awarded first place for reporting to Olsen, a nearly 10-year veteran of Christianity Today, for his 2025 story on “An American Deportation.”

That honor came not long after Olsen captured second place in the Religion News Association’s Supple Award for Excellence in Feature Reporting contest — behind only Elizabeth Dias, the New York Times’ national religion correspondent.

How did Christianity Today, the prominent evangelical magazine founded by the late Rev. Billy Graham in 1956, celebrate Olsen’s accolades?

That’s unclear, but it does not appear the powers that be were overly impressed: The magazine recently laid off Olsen and multiple other outstanding journalists.

Olsen announced the personal news on LinkedIn:

This week I wrapped up nearly 10 years at Christianity Today. No one in journalism thinks themselves immune to layoffs. But because we humans are always a little bit in denial, it still catches you off guard — and then just like that CT loses half of its staff writers and editors.

What a gift this decade has been! To get to report so deeply on some of the most important stories of our time: immigration, Haiti, and the pandemic. To edit truly some of the best magazine writers of faith covering just about every imaginable subject. To cheer as many of those writers won awards and secured book deals and, in some small way, changed the world.

Journalists really are the best coworkers you could ask for. A huge thank you to the many, many folks who invested in me and allowed me to invest in them. We made so much great stuff together — and I suspect, in time, we’ll continue to do so.

Meanwhile, the publication itself sent out a news release earlier this month headlined “Christianity Today Announces New Editorial Leadership Team as the Ministry Celebrates Its 70th Year.

That release noted:

CT president and chief executive officer Nicole Martin announced the appointment of Erik Petrik as chief content officer and incoming editor in chief. Petrik, who previously served as chief creative officer at CT since 2020, is the founder of CT Media, where he executive produced CT’s acclaimed podcast series The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. Petrik’s stint at CT has also included developing other popular podcast programs, including The Bulletin, Be Afraid, Wonderology, Being Human, and more; leading CT’s award-winning visual rebrand; and expanding the organization’s work across print, digital, audio, and video.

Petrik’s background spans journalism, film, pastoral ministry, and entrepreneurship. Study at Dallas Theological Seminary under evangelical stalwarts like Howard Hendricks and Darrell Bock informed his time as an ordained clergyman. Later at DTS, he helped pioneer spiritual formation as a field of study. Petrik has written, produced, and directed thousands of creative projects and is one of the founders of bulb Digital Portfolios, providing multimedia digital portfolios for the education market. He and his wife, Kelli, live in Colorado and have five adult children.

“With a media landscape dramatically changed over the last decade and promising more changes ahead, it was hard to imagine that we could find a leader with expertise in print, film, podcasts, church engagement, and art direction. But that’s what God has given us in Erik Petrik,” Martin said.

This transition follows the leadership of Marvin Olasky as editor in chief. Olasky, who stepped out of a previous retirement to serve the ministry at a crucial season of transition, will retire from CT in mid-October.

“When we asked Marvin to help as editor in chief last year, I was hoping he would give us at least six months of his one-of-a-kind expertise,” Martin said. “I was overjoyed that he instead gave us eighteen and that he accomplished so much in that time.”

While the release touted a “new editorial leadership team,” Petrik was the only person mentioned by name. The magazine’s positive spin on the changes failed to mention the layoffs of key journalists such as Olsen and the talented Harvest Prude, Christianity Today’s national political correspondent for the past three years.

Daniel Silliman, Christianity Today’s former senior news editor, left the magazine late last year, publicly voicing “both practical and philosophical” disagreements with its leadership.

About the same time, Kate Shellnutt, editorial director for news, resigned from the magazine after nearly 13 years to become managing editor at Praxis.

Other prominent, longtime Christianity Today journalists who have departed in recent years include Jeremy Weber, the former global editorial director, and Ted Olsen, the former executive editor. (Andy Olsen and Ted Olsen are not related.)

In a Sept. 27 post on his “Transient Ground” Substack, Silliman made note of the recent reduction in force:

Christianity Today laid off another 14 people this week. At least one more quit. That’s on top of dozens in the last year who have quit (like me, last November) or been fired. The recent cuts include people who’ve given years to the institution and two news reporters who were just hired a few months ago.

You don’t have to have any inside information to deduce that doesn’t sound like the execution of a plan.

A year ago, when Russell Moore stepped down as editor-in-chief, he described the magazine’s new leadership as “titanic.” I thought at the time it was concerning that no one found that word choice concerning.

Now all I can say is, it’s a hell of a way to celebrate 70 years.

In a text message exchange this week, Silliman — now senior reporter/editor at The Roys Report — told me, “​​CT has an amazing legacy of journalism, going back to David Kucharsky, the United Press International reporter hired in January 1958 to report on denominational debates and Billy Graham crusades.”

But that legacy has taken a hit since last year, Silliman said, indicating “that the leadership no longer sees reporting as an important part of the CT mission.”

Warren Cole Smith, president of MinistryWatch.com, published a piece this week titled “Chaos at Christianity Today.”

Arguing that the magazine’s Petrik announcement “glosses over the chaos in the organization,” Smith wrote:

Even from the outside, the chaos is not hard to see. Petrik’s appointment is in some ways a symbol of the chaos. It means that CT — in less than a seven-year span — has had six editors in chief: Mark Galli, Daniel Harrell, Tim Dalrymple, Russell Moore, Marvin Olasky and Erik Petrik.

The Oct. 2 announcement also did not say that simultaneous to Petrik’s appointment, the magazine was laying off 20% of its staff and 40% of the editorial team. Among those hit by the layoffs was Andy Olsen, an award-winning journalist and the editorial director for news at CT. Further, in the wake of these layoffs, Deputy Editor Bonnie Kristian announced her resignation. This recent round of layoffs followed two rounds of staff reductions in 2025 (in March and September), which shed another 20 people.

These disruptions at Christianity Today should be of interest to all those who care about evangelicalism in this country. The magazine was, after all, founded by evangelical icon Billy Graham and (arguably) the 20th century’s foremost evangelical theologian, Carl Henry. CT has been both a leader of and a chronicler of the post-World War II evangelical movement since the beginning.

Smith said he reached out to Martin for answers.

More from his piece:

To put the matter bluntly, do they know what they are doing, or are they just trying things to see if something sticks?

Martin said, “The recent changes bring our projected expenses in line with our projected income going into FY 2027 and beyond. This also gave us an opportunity to accomplish a strategic shift sooner than anticipated.” She then said something worth pausing on: “Historically CT has hired staff editors, which then allowed us to source great writers from the wider evangelical community. We are returning to that model.”

That’s a strange comment, since it means rejecting and undoing Olasky’s vision for a team of journalistically trained staff writers. The magazine will in the future depend on writers that may or may not have reporting experience. Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with that strategy. Other publications use freelancers that include academics and theologians. But it is a reversal of the strategy that brought Olasky to the magazine in the first place, less than two years ago.

I would also add that opinion writing is not a scarce commodity in today’s media economy. Hard-hitting, boots-on-the-ground journalism is. It is odd in the extreme that CT is jettisoning the very capability that differentiated it from virtually all other Christian publications.

I can’t say it any better than Smith did.

Old-fashioned journalism still matters, even if it costs more than hot takes from theologians and has fewer bells and whistles than podcasts.

I’m praying that Andy Olsen, Prude and other CT alums looking for work land in places where they can use their journalistic talents to their full potential.

Inside the Godbeat

Speaking of the Evangelical Press Association (which I mentioned earlier), its members recently approved the Christian Communicators Network as the organization’s new name.

Of 244 ballots cast, 57% supported the change, 42% opposed it, and 1% abstained.

Why the change?

As noted in a previous Plug-in column, EPA’s directors cited an expanded mission beyond the longstanding name. They also voiced concerns about “political, cultural, and sociological meanings that often obscure” the “theological intent” of the term evangelical.

The final plug

Years ago, a South Dakota church broke in two. A reunion seemed highly unlikely.

But then leaders started talking — and praying.

I traveled to Sioux Falls to delve into the details of the unexpected merger. Check out my recent story.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Four years before Oklahoma became the 46th state, a woman named Dora Wright was executed in frontier territory in 1903.

Wright paid the ultimate price for killing a young girl, as she and another convicted murderer, Charles Barrett, were hanged side by side.

In imposing the sentences in June 1903, U.S. District Judge William Henry Harrison Clayton urged both defendants to make themselves right with God and confer with a gospel preacher.

“I do not want to add anything to your present lamentable condition, but simply to say to you that if I were you I would make all preparation for the great change that will shortly come to you,” the judge told Barrett.

In similar remarks to Wright, Clayton informed her, “It will not be long until you will have to meet your God, to face your Maker. You have from now until the 17th day of July in which to prepare yourself.”

I researched the details of Wright’s death a quarter-century ago while covering state prisons for The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City’s daily newspaper.

At the time, I was preparing to serve as a media witness at the lethal injection of Wanda Jean Allen — a two-time killer who on Jan. 11, 2001, became the first woman executed in Oklahoma since statehood in 1907.

In my coverage of Allen’s death, I wrote:

In the moments before the execution, a chaplain read aloud from the Bible. A playful Allen, wearing a gray inmate shirt with a white sheet covering most of her body, turned her head toward her attorneys and spiritual advisers.

She then smiled and stuck out her tongue.

David Presson, a member of Allen’s legal team, flashed the “I Love You” sign at her.

She replied, “Bet that.”

“It’s wrong,” the Rev. Robin Meyers, minister of the Mayflower Congregational Church, said after watching Allen’s last breath.

“It’s wrong,” agreed the Rev. Walter Little, pastor of the Redeemer Lutheran Church in Oklahoma City. “Sitting there and reading the Scripture and committing murder.”

• • •

LAST WEEK, Tennessee attempted to make Christa Pike — sentenced to death for a 1995 murder she committed at age 18 — the 19th woman executed nationally since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

That number compares with 1,666 executions of male inmates in the past 50 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The latest inmate put to death: 46-year-old Jamaal Howard in Texas on Wednesday night.

Pike’s death would have marked Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in 200 years.

Instead, the state botched its lethal injection of the 50-year-old Pike, who regained consciousness Tuesday, six days after the failed attempt to kill her.

This shocking news caused me to reflect on the role of spiritual advisers at executions, including in Pike’s case.

In a minute-by-minute timeline of Pike’s experience, Associated Press media witness Kim Chandler noted:

Her spiritual adviser was standing beside the gurney near her head. He spoke to her. They sang a song. The lyrics were not audible, but included repeating the phrase — “I love you.” The spiritual adviser stroked her forehead.

Minutes ticked by. She raised her head and looked around; she smiled. Then she said her arm was hurting and asked a prison official in the room if it was supposed to feel that way.

Ten minutes in, at 7:37 p.m., she sighed, the IV in her arm fed from a control room adjacent to the death chamber, separated by a ledge. At 7:41 p.m., a rock or paper weight about the size of a golf ball was placed on the ledge. Prison officials have not confirmed what it means, but its placement appeared to coincide with a direction in the protocol that says after the drugs are administered, a five-minute countdown begins until the curtain is closed.

At 7:46 p.m., officials closed the curtain, blocking the witnesses’ view of the death chamber. Pike’s spiritual adviser left the chamber and sat briefly with her attorney in the media witness room.

WPLN, Nashville’s National Public Radio station, reported last month:

Pike’s spiritual advisor, Rev. Mikey Noechel, is a Buddhist teacher who will be with her as she’s executed for her part in the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. She’s scheduled to be put to death on Sept. 30.

Rev. Noechel recently met with This is Nashville’s Tasha A.F. Lemley to explain how he pictures that day. He explained the Buddhist practice of Metta, or loving kindness meditation.  He introduced that to Christa Pike early on in their relationship more than two years ago. It’s what he and Pike plan to be actively practicing on their way to her death and through the execution process.

The conversation between Rev. Noechel and Lemley took place at Wild Heart Meditation Center in East Nashville.

Listen to the full interview.

In Tennessee’s execution chamber, spiritual advisers often give last prayers.

In a story before Pike’s scheduled Sept. 30 execution, The Tennessean’s Molly Davis explained:

Each person condemned to die in Tennessee is allowed a spiritual adviser. They are one of the few allowed to visit the inmate in the 14-day period leading up to the execution, known as death watch. At times, these advisers are everyday people who began by volunteering with prison ministry groups. Their lives are changed by what they find.

Since executions in the state were restarted in 2025, advisers have been allowed in the death chamber throughout much of the process. Sometimes they are a member of the clergy. Often, they are grappling with the same faith-related questions as the person inside prison walls.

After death, spiritual advisers walk out of prison and into their everyday lives. Despite the emotional weight of being there for someone’s final moments, they believe it’s an important role.

• • •

IN A CASE decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas inmate John Henry Ramirez fought to have Southern Baptist pastor Dana Moore pray and touch him at his 2022 execution — and won.

In 2021, attorney Daniel Chen with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty spoke with Robert Dunham, the Death Penalty Information Center’s executive director, about that case.

The history of audible clergy prayer at executions goes back centuries, even before the founding of the United States, Chen told Dunham.

Physical touch is a little different, the attorney noted.

“For most of history, the methods of execution used by the government made it physically impossible for clergy members to touch a condemned person at the time of death,” Chen said. “So if you think hanging, firing squad, electrocution or the gas chamber, it’s really infeasible to have a clergy member or spiritual adviser by your side, holding your hand, touching your shoulder, offering you some solace.

“But I will say, even with these methods of execution, clergy typically engaged in physical touch up until the last possible moment,” he added.

Despite the legal precedents, practices involving inmates and spiritual advisers vary from state to state, according to The Marshall Project’s Katie Moore. The journalist delved into Missouri twice denying spiritual advisers to condemned inmates in their dying moments.

Moore reported earlier this year:

The presence of spiritual advisers at executions has been a question in several states. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has favored religious freedoms inside and beyond prison walls. In its 2022 ruling in Ramirez v. Collier, the court said a condemned man in Texas could have a spiritual adviser who was allowed to lay hands on him and pray out loud while he was put to death.

The court’s 8-1 decision was rooted in the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which provides religious protections for incarcerated individuals. The justices urged states to adopt policies streamlining the process for allowing spiritual advisers into execution chambers.

The Missouri Department of Corrections ignored the court’s advice and has not updated its execution protocols, which were last adopted in 2013.

• • •

IN SOUTH CAROLINA, convicted murderer Brad Sigmon was executed by a firing squad last year after voicing concerns about the lethal injection process.

The Rev. Hillary Taylor, a United Methodist pastor and executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, served as Sigmon’s spiritual adviser.

Taylor spent two hours with Sigmon before the execution and witnessed his death from behind bullet-resistant glass.

In a 2023 story, the New York Times’ Emma Goldberg detailed how an atheist chaplain, Devin Moss, ministered to an Oklahoma death row inmate named Phillip Hancock, an atheist himself:

There is an adage that says there are no atheists in foxholes — even skeptics will pray when facing death. But Hancock, in the time leading up to his execution, only became more insistent about his nonbelief. He and his chaplain were both confident that there was no God who might grant last-minute salvation, if only they produced a desperate prayer. They had only one another.

An Arkansas preacher named Jeff Hood has witnessed more than a dozen executions in at least five states, including the Aug. 18 lethal injection of William Frances Silvia Jr. in Florida.

Hood’s death row ministry has drawn praise as well as criticism.

“What you’re being called to do in that room is to stand there and comfort someone as they’re murdered,” he told the Miami Herald. “My job is to die with them. There is a piece of me left inside the chamber every time.”

Inside the Godbeat

“Forecast: God reigns and the Son shines.”

“Honk if you love Jesus, text if you want to meet him.”

“Too hot to keep changing sign. Sin bad. Jesus good. Details inside.”

Aren’t church signs fun? Associated Press religion writer Giovanna Dell’Orto highlighted the ones above in a recent feature. Dell’Orto contributed to a creative AP series called “American Objects,” which celebrates the nation’s 250th birthday.

A few of the other objects featured so far: the remote control, the bobblehead and — via AP religion writer Luis Andres Henao — the Gideon Bible.

The final plug

Back in August, the Chicago White Sox gave away 40,000 miter-shaped hats in honor of the team’s most famous fan, Pope Leo XIV.

As Major League Baseball’s playoffs roll along, the surprising White Sox — who lost at least 100 games each of the previous three seasons — remain alive. Next up: a winner-take-all Game 5 of the American League Division Series vs. the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday night.

“We’ve got the high power of prayer,” Chicago fan Nick Schmit told USA Today this week.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

DEARBORN, Mich. — On the 25th anniversary of 9/11 last month, I found myself in this Detroit suburb.

I came to work on a story related to America’s ongoing war of words over Muslims and their place in U.S. society.

While coincidental, the timing struck me as ironic.

That’s because — on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — I wrote a story for The Oklahoman, where I then served as religion editor, on Muslims’ fears of a backlash:

A distraught Muslim woman called the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City on Tuesday morning as terrorist attacks rocked the nation.

“She’s completely terrified,” said Suhaib Webb, imam of the society’s mosque. “She’s a single woman. She’s like, ‘What if someone tries to kill me?’

“She’s worried that society is going to blame her for this killing.”

American Muslim groups rushed Tuesday to condemn the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They cautioned other Americans not to blame followers of Islam until investigators determine who was responsible.

As we all know now, the Islamic extremist group al-Qaida perpetrated 9/11.

But President George W. Bush refused to cast blame on all Muslims, calling Islam a religion of peace.

Since that time, though, public attitudes toward Muslims have grown even more negative — by some measures — than immediately after 9/11, as the Pew Research Center notes.

I explore that trend in my story from Dearborn, published today and focusing on how one Christian congregation embraces its Muslim neighbors:

DEARBORN, Mich. — An anti-Islam rally promoted as a “Christian Crusader March” drew hundreds of demonstrators and counterdemonstrators to this majority Arab American city of 110,000.

A few participants carried assault rifles as police in riot gear patrolled.

The Sunday after the recent protest, minister Wayne Beason felt compelled to speak up for his Muslim neighbors.

“There’s a lot of talk about Muslim Americans and Arab immigrants right now, and a lot of it is pretty hurtful and deceptive,” said Beason, who preaches for the Parkside Church of Christ in Dearborn Heights, a Detroit suburb that borders Dearborn.

Dearborn Heights has a population exceeding 60,000 — with about 2 in 5 residents of Middle Eastern or North African descent, most of them Arab.

Beason, a 39-year-old Michigan native, told his congregation he’d heard from out-of-state Christians concerned about the disturbing images on the news.

“I have a hunch,” he said, “that many of us are wondering what we can do, how we can respond to the fear and hatred that’s being directed at our neighbors by people claiming to follow the same Jesus we follow.”

I’d invite you to check out the full story.

Besides my piece, delve deeper with these recent informative reads:

— Here at Religion Unplugged, Umar Ibrahim Agaie reports on “How American Muslims are responding to rising hate.”

— 25 years after 9/11, Besheer Mohamed, a senior researcher for the Pew Research Center, provides “a portrait of Muslim Americans.”

— The Associated Press’ David Crary details the pushback from Muslim Americans as “Republican politicians stoke anti-Sharia rhetoric.”

— The New York Times digs into what it characterizes as “Islamophobia’s rise in Texas.”

I will say that Islamophobia is a loaded word, in my opinion.

Merriam-Webster defines it an “irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against Islam or people who practice Islam.”

My preference would be that journalists save “Islamophobia” for direct quotes by named sources and not take it upon themselves to characterize people or groups as Islamophobic.

My advice: Simply report what people or groups do or say — and let readers decide if that terminology fits.

Inside the Godbeat

Do any Christian billionaires happen to read this column?

If so, MinistryWatch’s Warren Cole Smith has a request: He’d like you to endow a journalism school.

“A Ph.D. program in journalism at a Christian college would help repair a major cultural breach,” Smith writes in a column republished by Religion Unplugged.

In a related note on LinkedIn, Phil Cooke of Cooke Media Group suggests: “Christian universities are dropping the ball on journalism. We don’t just need Christians going to Hollywood; we need them going to The New York Times and The Washington Post. I think Christian journalists could play a much greater role in shaping culture today than Christian film directors. And yet, Journalism programs at Christian schools are shrinking or disappearing…”

The final plug

I left a $20 tip at Waffle House over the weekend.

Partly for the extraordinary service and partly because my mom worked at Waffle House to help support our family while my dad finished his Bible degree in the early 1980s — and I remember how much a little extra meant.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — My amazing friend Garth Pleasant texted me a few months ago.

“Bobby, I can get tickets for the Oklahoma game,” he informed me. “Are you in?”

Let’s see: Pleasant’s Michigan Wolverines vs. my Oklahoma Sooners at the Big House on a picture-perfect Saturday in September.

Of course I was in!

So I made the 1,000-mile journey from my home in Oklahoma City and joined the crowd of 111,240 — including Pleasant, his son Klint and our friend Randy Harris from Abilene, Texas — who witnessed last Saturday’s battle of college football blue bloods at Michigan Stadium.

Regular readers may recall my 2024 column on Pleasant, a legendary small-college basketball coach who won 720 games and four national championships in 38 seasons at Rochester Christian University, north of Detroit.

I love spending time with Pleasant — who was featured in the documentary “COACH: Make the Big Time Where You’re At” — and soaking in his simple wisdom.

While hanging out with me last weekend, he indulged my request to share life lessons from his 77 years on planet Earth.

To make it easier, I asked him to reflect on five roles where he’s excelled:

1. As a preacher

This past Sunday, I got to hear Pleasant deliver his next-to-last sermon as a regular minister.

After a half-century in various pulpits, he’s retiring this weekend as the preacher for the Horton Road Church of Christ in Jackson, Michigan, and moving to Florida with Pat, his wife of 55 years.

“I don’t consider myself a theologian,” Pleasant stressed to me. “I don’t have a master’s in theology or anything like that.”

Which is why he found it strange when he heard a prominent biblical scholar encourage ministers to leave congregants wondering, “What in the world did he just say?”

“So there was a question-and-answer period, and I raised my hand,” Pleasant recalled. “I can’t believe I did it.”

But he took issue with the scholar’s advice, noting his own situation at the time:

“I said, ‘I’m in the pulpit, and I’ve got this husband and wife to my left whose son is incarcerated in Texas. And then back here to the left is a lady with her two young boys whose husband just left her. And over here to my right, I have a mother and a father and a daughter, and the daughter is dying of brain cancer. Why do I want them to go home thinking, “What in the world did he say?”’

RELATED: Small-college coach Garth Pleasant never made excuses — and he became a legend

“I always said, ‘I’m preaching to myself.’ I tried to talk on topics that I thought people might be struggling with. I’m really bad at exegesis, and that’s probably because of not being trained. I always tried to begin with a story that led into the sermon. I always tried to have a little humor and make a point that would help people with what they were going through. I didn’t want to go over people’s heads.”

2. As an educator

For about 50 years, Pleasant taught courses at Rochester — formerly known as Michigan Christian College — in areas such as sports and society, and principles and practices of sports administration.

“First of all, I’ve loved the classroom,” he told me. “I love the classroom more than anything in education.

“Somebody told me recently that they were in a class, and when they got to the final exam, the instructor really hadn’t covered anything. He said, ‘Just read my book.’”

Pleasant, on the other hand, focused more on interpersonal communication and experiences — such as field trips to explore sports arena management — than lectures and book learning.

“First of all, I was always there before anybody else was there, and I was always singing some crazy song,” he said. “And then I tried to make my class where students wanted to learn. Like, in my principles and practices class, I spent a lot of time on critical thinking. I feel like (too often) in education, we don’t teach kids the critical thinking — we indoctrinate them.”

3. As a coach

“You have to understand, coaching has changed dramatically from when I started to what it is now,” Pleasant emphasized. “I used to run drills that I would not run at the end of my coaching career. I had the NBA — No Babies Allowed. It was a brutal drill. At the end, I didn’t run that.”

He changed, too, in the enforcement of his “Don’t come to practice late” mantra:

“A boy came late to practice, and I said, ‘Leave.’ He said, ‘But coach.’ I said, ‘Leave.’ Well, he came in late because his dad had a heart attack, and he had to take him to the hospital. Now, do you think I changed my philosophy? Yeah, I changed my philosophy.

“I (originally) was a coach who was a dictator. I became a coach who let players get involved and things like that. Now, that happened gradually.”

One thing stayed the same: Coaching was always about more than basketball:

“I said, ‘I’d rather be with all of you in heaven and not win national championships than win national championships and not be with one of you.’ I always tried to teach lessons. I didn’t allow profanity.

“I also never quit learning. There was a high school girls’ program that was tremendous at 3-point shooting. I went over to their practice and watched their 3-point drills. Another girls’ team was great at defense. They had a great coach, and I’d go over and watch his drills.

“Even at the end, I went to a coaching clinic. And I walked out, and there was a young kid that was in his second year of coaching. I said to him, ‘You learning a lot?’ He said, ‘Nah, I know most of this stuff.’ And I had taken copious notes. But, you know, I was probably like him my second year of coaching.”

4. As a family man

“Basketball never came before my family,” the husband, father and grandfather said.

That focus was part of why he coached at Rochester Christian for four decades and never pursued fame or accolades at a larger, more prestigious university.

“I took my family with me,” Pleasant said of out-of-town games. “My boys rode on the bus with me. I’d get them out of school, and it was a family affair. Wins should not come before your family. Now, I was in a position where I probably wasn’t going to get fired if I didn’t win. That’s why it was such a great job.

“And then, don’t take out your frustrations of the game on your family. I walked in the house one day after a tough loss, and I yelled at my daughter. So then (after that) I had a bush at our house that was my whooping bush. And I took everything out on the bush before I went in the house.”

“I have too many friends in coaching who climbed the ladder of success, but they don’t have their family.”

5. As a sports fan

I didn’t include this one just so I could mention that — besides the Oklahoma-Michigan tickets — Pleasant snagged us seats two rows behind home plate at last Friday night’s Detroit Tigers game.

I mean, that wasn’t the only reason.

As a young man, Pleasant remembered, he’d take his favorite teams’ wins and losses too seriously.

“I was a Michigan fan, and it would kill me — it seemed like every year they lost one game they shouldn’t have lost,” he told me. “You can probably empathize with that.”

RELATED: A pitch to follow Jesus: Baseball fans embrace players’ faith testimonies

Yes, after my friend’s Wolverines defeated my Sooners, 17-10, I definitely understood what he was saying.

But Pleasant has mellowed in his sports fandom.

“I think it’s an age thing,” he said. “Sometimes I might just watch half the game. I turned on Texas and Ohio State (on Saturday night), and at the end of the first quarter, I switched to ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”

I know a few Buckeyes fans who might wish they’d done the same.

Inside The Godbeat

In last week’s column, I recounted the 9/11 experiences of Religion Unplugged’s editors and contributors.

After I filed my piece, Associated Press religion writer Peter Smith shared his 25th anniversary memories with me:

I was working for the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. That morning, I had planned to cover a presbytery meeting, but I headed into the office instead once the news of the attacks came in. I recall the shock and the sickening feeling as the enormity of the attacks became clear.

I interviewed clergy and others from various faith communities, who were wrestling with a range of issues — rage, grief, the desire for vengeance, the questioning of why God would allow such an attack. I went to at least one vigil, at the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville. ‘It’s hard to know what to do and say,’ the archbishop said, and that seemed to sum up a lot of reactions.

Several of my colleagues attended other services in the region and sent me feeds for an article rounding up religious reactions to the attacks. The vigils were packed with people looking for solace, or at least to be in community with others.

The days and weeks to come were busy covering various religious angles on the post-9/11 world, but those are some of my memories of working on that day.

Thank you, Peter!

In case you missed it, check out all of Religion Unplugged’s 9/11 anniversary coverage.

The final plug

In a special report for Religion Unplugged, Maddy Fry and Kate Salmon go inside an unconventional Anabaptist group’s “third way” Christianity.

Kudos to them as well as illustrator Andrea Levy, executive editor Clemente Lisi and project manager and designer Cassidy Grom for a fantastic story and presentation.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

Clemente Lisi was a 26-year-old general assignment reporter for the New York Post on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Every day you’d get up, and you didn’t know what you were gonna do,” Lisi, now Religion Unplugged’s executive editor, told me last year. “One day it was covering a fire. The next day you’re covering a murder.”

On that Tuesday, he was told that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

“So I went downtown, and I got pretty close to the scene, but the subways were all backed up,” Lisi recalled. “So I started walking, not knowing that one tower had already collapsed, because we lived in a world where the cell phone wasn’t a thing yet.

“And I didn’t know what was happening,” he added. “And the second tower collapsed, and I was pretty close to that, and I had to basically run away — run for my life. And I was locked down in Manhattan all that day, all that night, interviewing people.

“And then I was there, basically, for three more months in Lower Manhattan, talking to people about what had happened.”

At the 25th anniversary of the nation’s worst terrorist attacks, Lisi explains for Religion Unplugged readers how the world that made 9/11 still casts a shadow.

He writes:

The 9/11 attacks are often remembered as a single event. That morning, 19 terrorists turned commercial airliners into weapons and the modern era of terrorism began.

A total of 2,977 people died in the terror attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania — the deadliest to ever take place on U.S. soil.

That recollection, however true, obscures more than it reveals. The attacks were not something that occurred out of the blue. They were the product of decades of decisions, alliances, betrayals and unintended consequences stretching from the mountains of Afghanistan to the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the corridors of Washington, D.C.

In a separate essay, Lisi looks back on the attacks and reflects on faith, memory and hope a quarter-century later:

He concludes:

Twenty-five years after the attacks, we remember those who died, those who survived, those who served and the families who continue to carry the burden of loss. We remember the darkness, but we also remember the light that appeared within it.

Amen!

• • •

LIKE LISI, almost everybody alive then remembers what they were doing the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, as the Pew Research Center notes.

Cassidy Grom, now Religion Unplugged’s managing editor, was a 5-year-old enrolled in a half-day kindergarten program in Mount Washington, Kentucky.

Her reflections:

I remember that day mostly because the adults were acting so strange. The teachers kept leaving the classroom to watch something on the TV that was on a rolling cart in the hallway. They seemed really worried. Lessons stopped, and parents began coming to the school, checking their kids out. Our class dwindled one by one. I think the teachers tried to distract us with games.

Since it was a half-day program, my day usually ended around noon anyway. But instead of catching the bus as usual, my mom came and picked me up in her car — which was really different. And she also stopped at a gas station on the way home, which was very unusual. I didn’t understand what was going on at the time, and only later learned it was because of a big event in New York.

People in our area were very concerned because we lived near Fort Knox, which held a large portion of the nation’s gold reserves. They were worried there would be another attack, and this time, Fort Knox would be targeted — that explained my mom stopping for gas. She was worried our area would fall into chaos, too, and we would need a full tank to be able to get around or survive in a rural area.

I pieced together the bigger picture as I grew up and saw footage of the day. I remember the new airport security being a talking point those first few years when we would go to visit my grandparents in Arizona.

My school had a big patriotic streak for the following years. Either a year or two later, on the 9/11 anniversary, our elementary school had us make a giant American flag using our handprints. When I visited about a decade ago, it was still on display.

In a lot of ways, I’m grateful I got those first 5 or 6 years of childhood in the optimistic 1990s. I don’t remember it much, but it seemed stable and hopeful. People just a few years younger than me were born into a more chaotic and fearful nation.

• • •

RICHARD OSTLING is an 86-year-old Godbeat legend who still writes a biweekly column for Religion Unplugged.

Then a New York-based national religion writer for The Associated Press, Ostling found himself on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 11, 2001.

He shares these memories:

My late wife, Joan, and I were on vacation in London, turned on the TV and were overwhelmed by the unimaginable news.

I felt immediately we had entered a new era in world affairs and world religion.

The Beeb (aka British Broadcasting Corp.) covered nothing but the attacks for days, including an extended feature from our town of Ridgewood, New Jersey, a couple days in. At an internet cafe we found it comforting that our church in Ridgewood emailed a summons to a prayer meeting that night for victim families and for domestic and international peace.

Brits on the subway heard our American accents and expressed condolences. Mountains of flowers were placed at the FDR statue across from the U.S. Embassy with long lines to sign the condolence book. They remember 1940-45 with gratitude.

I was pulled off our vacation for a day to work on a religion analysis at AP’s London bureau. As with obstetricians and volunteer firefighters, people are surprised that for three decades with Time magazine and AP, my 24/7/365 whereabouts had to be on file with the headquarters news desk.

Amazingly, our return flight took off for NYC as scheduled. Back home, I learned 34 regular commuters from our Ridgewood train station had been murdered. Our news agent (remember newsstands?) thoughtfully set up a small shrine for us to post flowers and condolences.

• • •

MY 9/11 EXPERIENCE? I was religion editor for The Oklahoman, the metro daily in Oklahoma City, on Sept. 11, 2001.

I was running a few minutes late that Tuesday because I stopped at Walmart to buy a new pair of cleats for a company softball team starting the fall season that night. As it turned out, we didn’t play.

As I flashed my company ID at the security guard outside the newspaper building, he asked if I’d heard about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York. I had not. Minutes later, after I arrived in the ninth-floor newsroom, my colleagues and I watched on TV as a second plane hit the twin towers.

Almost immediately, ABC anchor Peter Jennings likened the attack to Pearl Harbor. That’s when I grasped the significance.

The rest of the day is a blur. Like my reporter colleagues all over the nation, I immediately put aside any personal feelings and operated on journalistic adrenaline.

I wrote four bylined stories for the next day’s editions: one on the religious community’s response, one on Muslim fears of a backlash, one on Oklahoma City bombing victims’ reactions and one one an eyewitness account by an Oklahoma professor’s daughter.

Like many (most?) Americans, I tossed and turned that night. And I was roughly 1,500 miles from the collapsed towers.

I can’t imagine the real-life nightmare of those like Lisi, who chronicled the aftermath up close.

Lisi, who later taught journalism at the since-closed Kings College in New York, reflected on his experience in 2018 remarks at the College Media Association’s annual conference.

“I don’t consider myself a 9/11 survivor,” he said in the speech. “I am not. I was just a journalist doing his job.”

Inside the Godbeat

Elise Ann Allen has decided to step away from Crux and her role as its Vatican correspondent, as she details in a farewell column.

Charles Collins, Crux’s editor-in-chief, tells readers:

The death of John L. Allen, Jr., our editor and friend and Elise’s husband, hit all of us very hard, and it hit Elise hardest of all.

We were amazed at her grace — and her work ethic – during that painful time, and we felt her absence when she stepped away on sabbatical after Pope Leo XIV’s trip to Spain earlier this year.

We’ll continue to feel it, but we understand her decision comes from a place of deep discernment, and we wish her all the best.

John Allen died Jan. 22 after a long battle with stomach cancer.

The final plug

One more 9/11 note: St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a small Greek Orthodox parish, was destroyed when the World Trade Center’s south tower collapsed.

Twenty-five years later, the church stands as a place of peace, Angelina Ispir writes for Religion Unplugged.

Check out all of Religion Unplugged’s special 9/11 anniversary coverage.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

Christianity and pornography don’t mix.

Except that they often do — whether believers and church leaders want to talk about it or not.

Over half of practicing Christians report consuming porn with some level of frequency, and most say no one helps them avoid it, according to a Barna Group study.

“In my opinion, it’s the biggest threat to Christians families in the U.S. there is. Period,” said David Rhyne, chief operating officer for Ever Accountable, a digital accountability software company with 40,000 subscribers.

Rhyne, a Reformed Baptist who lives in Manassas, Virginia, speaks from personal experience.

Now 35, he grew up in a Christian household with no R-rated movies or Playboy magazines — but the football cheerleaders he saw on TV and the lingerie ads in department store catalogs that came in the mail caught his attention at an early age.

“I knew I liked something there, but I didn’t know what was going on,” Rhyne said.

By age 15, he gained access to the internet and began watching porn online.

“It was all too easy to find some privacy and look at stuff that was wrong, and I hated it,” he said. “I was full of shame and full of guilt. I had prayed and prayed and cried and cried and cried. But I was so ashamed that I kept it completely secret. I did not tell a soul.”

He tried and failed to quit porn more times than he could count.

This pattern repeated itself until — in Rhyne’s early 20s — a friend became aware of his struggle. After that intervention, his porn usage declined.

But Rhyne did not find true freedom from porn, he said, until embracing Ever Accountable and its focus on online transparency and human connection with an accountability partner.

He loved the digital platform so much that he left his product design job earlier this year and went to work full time with Ever Accountable. Other major accountability software providers include companies such as Covenant Eyes and Accountable2You.

“Many people find blocking or reporting software to be helpful in their recovery,” said Steve Holladay, founder of Ultimate Escape, a Tennessee-based ministry associated with Churches of Christ. “Having said that, many of those same people report that they find ways around the software or habitually uninstall, act out and then reinstall the software.”

Holladay first detailed his “escape from sexual addiction” in a 2006 interview with me.

“Commitment to ‘rigorous honesty’ within a 12-step group or healthy accountability group is vital to long-term recovery,” he said in a text message this week. “Proactive accountability, looking at the days ahead and identifying potentially challenging situations and making plans to deal with them, can be a game changer in the recovery process.”

• • •

LIKE RHYNE, Austin Rohm, a Wesleyan pastor in Columbus, Indiana, found he could not overcome porn with willpower alone.

He needed accountability.

“I was born on a Thursday, and I was in church the following Sunday,” Rohm said of his upbringing. “You know, the Lord saved me out of a bunch of different things. I never picked up cigarettes. I never picked up alcohol. I never went to any crazy parties. But I did struggle with pornography.”

Now a coach for Ever Accountable, Rohm, 34, expects to celebrate 10 years of freedom from porn in November.

“Just having that knowledge that somebody was going to be able to see the things that I was doing on my device really helped pull me out of it,” he said.

The software alone is not enough, he emphasized.

“It’s just what enables an accountable relationship to start, right?” Rohm said. “And it just puts everything out there, right? Like, there’s someone looking over your shoulder 24/7 on your device, and just that little bit of extra friction gives you the time to make the right choice.”

• • •

AS A BOY, Robbie Anderson was exposed to his father’s porn magazines, which kept arriving even after his dad got drunk and died in a single-vehicle accident.

The first-generation Christian fell victim, too, to sexual abuse by relatives.

“As a very young man, I got very addicted to pornography,” said Anderson, 45, a Pentecostal ministry leader who lives in Springfield, Missouri. “It became an escapism for me of pain, hurt, frustration.”

Now a father of two happily married for over two decades, he said he overcame his porn problem by bringing the darkness into the light of a Christian community.

“I love to tell people from any stage that I get to stand on that freedom can be had, first from the Scriptures and then also from the covenant community that the body of Christ is,” he said. “Ever Accountable is simply a tool that helps bring people into a place of freedom.”

Anderson said he and his family — including his teenage children — have weekly accountability discussions.

“I’m grateful for just the extreme accountability that he lives under,” said Jessica Anderson, Robbie’s wife. “That just kind of trickles over into all areas of our life. … He’s real careful with purity in our home and purity in our devices and purity in our technology. And what we watch and what we intake. And our children, too, what they watch and what they listen to and all that.”

• • •

FOR CHRISTIANS STRUGGLING with porn, Rhyne offers this simple message: There is hope.

It’s a lesson he learned firsthand.

“I genuinely believed I’d never be free,” said Rhyne, the Ever Accountable COO. “That’s a lie of the enemy, or at the very least, a mistake in your belief system.

“If I can get free, anybody can … and it starts with being radically transparent,” he added. “We all think that if somebody knew I watched pornography, they’d be shocked, and they’d hate me. But the honest truth is that, if you’re walking in a Christian community, it’s going to be the complete opposite. They’re going to embrace you.”

Most are going to acknowledge that they struggle with porn — or have struggled — themselves, Rhyne said. Instead of rejection and shame, confession will bring a closer bond with that person, he suggested.

That said, he advises discretion in choosing the person to hear the admission.

“I’m not saying share it with your boss or even necessarily your wife without talking to a professional or maybe somebody experienced first,” he said. “But go to your brother in Christ and say, ‘Hey, I need support,’ and then find a group.

“And it starts, I think, with getting really transparent with your online activity so you’re not living with a black box again — walking around with cocaine in your pocket 24/7 and hoping you never do drugs.”

Inside the Godbeat

It’s time for a name change, Evangelical Press Association leaders have decided.

The organization’s directors explained their unanimous recommendation to become the Christian Communicators Network:

For more than 75 years, the Evangelical Press Association has served as the premier professional association for evangelical publishers, editors, writers, journalists, and ministry communicators. Through professional development, fellowship, ethical standards, and recognition of excellence, EPA has strengthened Christian journalism and publishing for generations.

That legacy remains one of our greatest strengths.

Over the past year, however, the Board of Directors has engaged in an extensive process of prayer, research, strategic planning, and discussion regarding the future of the organization. Through the Vision Casting Retreat, industry analysis, comparative research, and member feedback, one conclusion became increasingly clear: Our mission has expanded beyond what our current name communicates.

Read the full statement.

EPA members will vote on the proposal this month. In a Christian Post op-ed, member Mark A. Kellner outlined his opposition to the change.

The final plug

Have we devoted enough ink to Dolly Parton’s life and legacy?

Impossible, right?

In last week’s Plug-in, we focused on how Parton lived out her personal faith. For more insight on her spiritual journey, check out Terry Mattingly’s latest column.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

Like Jesus urged his followers to do, Dolly Parton loved her neighbors.

But what about loving her enemies, another biblical commandment?

I’m guessing the entertainment icon, whose death Tuesday at age 80 sent shockwaves around the world, found that more difficult to do.

Why?

“The thing about Dolly was that she seemed to have no enemies,” The Dispatch’s Michael Reneau wrote in a tribute headlined “Dolly Was a Real One.” “Even if you didn’t quite get her, it was impossible not to like her.”

In his New York Times obituary of Parton, Bill Friskics-Warren described the country music queen as “quintessentially, a uniter of people.” The writer referenced a 2019 Times story that featured this headline: “Is There Anything We Can All Agree On? Yes: Dolly Parton.”

Since Bryan Seaver, Parton’s nephew and head of security, revealed the news that she “is in the arms of Jesus,” I’ve joined countless millions of fans in reflecting on her life, her legacy — and yes, her faith.

I’ve found myself listening to songs such as “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” which Parton performed with her old friend Kenny Rogers, who died in 2020 at 81.

In the wake of Parton’s passing, these lyrics require a tissue:

When Saint Peter opens the gate

And you come walking in

I’ll be there just waiting for you

‘Cause you can’t make old friends

Equally poignant is “When I Get Where I’m Going,” Parton’s duet with Brad Paisley:

Yeah, when I get where I’m goin’

There’ll be only happy tears

I’ll shed the sins and struggles

I have carried all these years

And I’ll leave my heart wide open

I will love and have no fear

Yeah when I get where I’m goin’

Don’t cry for me down here

We’ll try not to cry, Dolly.

Well, not too much anyway.

My favorite Parton song ranks as one of her biggest hits — along with classics such as “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene.” Brought up “dirt poor” in a large Tennessee family, she based “Coat of Many Colors” on the Bible story her mother, Avie Lee Parton, told about Joseph:

My coat of many colors

That my momma made for me

Made only from rags

But I wore it so proudly

Although we had no money

I was rich as I could be

In my coat of many colors

My momma made for me

• • •

PARTON’S MATERNAL GRANDFATHER, the Rev. Jake Owens, was a Pentecostal preacher. Her “daddy’s people” were Baptists. Her husband grew up in the Church of Christ.

Parton herself?

“Dolly’s faith never fit neatly into any standard denominational framework, but she talked often about God, Jesus, scripture, and prayer,” a Missouri pastor named Jason G. Edwards wrote in The Christian Century. “Some of what she said would’ve been difficult to reconcile with the theology of churches she knew, but that didn’t seem to trouble her too much. When once asked how she practiced her faith, she resisted the verb: ‘I don’t practice it. I live it.’”

The Tennessean’s Keith Sharon pointed out:

At age 6, Parton was singing in the Church of God choir at her grandfather’s church, the House of Prayer.

“Gospel was an important part of life in the Smoky Mountains where I grew up,” she told Country Weekly in a 1999 interview, “and religion was a part of everyday life.”

Religion Unplugged’s own Clemente Lisi noted after her passing:

Parton’s Christianity was rooted in the evangelical culture of her Appalachian childhood, but she rarely presented herself as a model of doctrinal perfection.

Instead, she emphasized love, humility, forgiveness and service.

In interviews, she repeatedly returned to the Bible and its command to love one’s neighbor. She once told Vogue magazine: “I really do ask God every single day to let me do something, say something, be something that matters to somebody else. To make somebody feel good. To let people see a spark of love. God is love, that’s the Scripture.”

More from Lisi’s analysis:

Parton’s religious identity also helps explain her unusual ability to appeal across cultural boundaries. She was unmistakably Christian and spoke openly about God, Jesus and prayer. Nonetheless, she was also wary of judgment and repeatedly emphasized acceptance and kindness. She could be embraced by conservative Christians while also maintaining relationships with audiences who did not share her faith.

Parton did not believe that Christianity required her to become less welcoming. Instead, she treated faith as a reason to enlarge the circle of people deserving compassion. Fellow country music star Reba McEntire captured the religious dimension of that legacy in her farewell: “Thank you, Lord, for Dolly.”

The Knoxville News Sentinel’s Tyler Whetstone offered this insight:

Dolly Parton famously grew up singing in church, her first stage inside a Pentecostal church her grandfather pastored.

Homage to this place is incorporated into the fabric of Dollywood, Parton’s family-friendly theme park in Pigeon Forge, with the Robert F. Thomas Chapel, which hosts worship services for guests.

As a business owner and a country music legend, Parton’s own faith journey was the subject of written pieces and speculation. She gave hours of interviews on the topic, and yet, as anyone would tell you, someone’s faith is personal. She was a public person, but private where she needed to be. Like on the subject of her husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, she kept many memories to herself.

More from Whetstone:

Parton’s faith wasn’t a plaything, a way of getting attention or a way to sell albums. It was real and personal. She prayed. She read daily devotions. She tithed. She tried to live a life worthy of the platform she was given.

“I pray every day that God will lead me, guide me and direct me and he’ll bring all the right things and all the right people into my life, take all the wrong things out,” she told the “Jesus Calling” podcast in 2018.

In a 2018 visit, Parton showed actress Reese Witherspoon the personal chapel at her home.

“This is where I have to come when I get overwhelmed with everything else,” Parton told Witherspoon, “or if I just want to pray.”

In a 2014 Entertainment Weekly interview, Parton indicated that she’d like the hymn “If We Never Meet Again” sung at her funeral.

“It’s an old country-gospel church song that talks about if we never meet again this side of heaven, I will meet you on that beautiful shore,” she said. “That was my daddy’s favorite. We did sing it at his funeral, and I would like it to be sung at mine.”

Speaking of her father, Robert Lee Parton, Dolly started the Imagination Library — which has given away millions of books to children — in his honor.

The Los Angeles Times’ Emily St. Martin explained:

Parton understood the novelty of owning your very own book. Growing up in the Great Smoky Mountains town of Sevierville in east Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of 12 kids. Her father, a tobacco sharecropper, couldn’t read or write, and the family lived in a one-room cabin with no electricity. There were no books in the home, aside from the Bible.

• • •

MY CURIOSITY was piqued several years ago when I came across a black-and-white picture of “Mr. and Mrs. Carl Dean” in the 1966 directory of the Radnor Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee.

Mrs. Carl Dean was, of course, better known as Dolly Parton.

In the story that I wrote for The Christian Chronicle, I provided this context:

The 75-year-old entertainment icon talked about her little-known — and apparently brief — connection to Churches of Christ in her 2020 book “Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.”

“I loved my husband’s mother. She was very sweet, and we were like best friends. Her name was Virginia, but everybody called her Ginny,” Parton wrote concerning her mother-in-law, who died from cancer at age 71 in 1991. “Carl’s mother was very religious. She was in church every Wednesday and every Sunday morning.

“The Deans were Church of Christ people. They don’t believe in having any instruments in their church; they just use their voices,” added Parton, who wrote her 1971 song “Lord Hold My Hand” with Ginny Dean. “Ginny had this big, beautiful, ‘church’ kind of voice. Very proper. It sounded totally different from our ‘Holy Roller’ church back home.”

After Carl Dean’s death last year, Parton talked to The Associated Press about relying on her faith:

“I am a person of faith, and I truly believe that I’m going to see him again someday. And I see him every day in my memories and in my heart, and in all the things that we used to do and all the things that we’ve built together,” said Parton. “You just kind of have to learn to kind of make new plans — but that’s the hardest part.”

While I tried, I never got to interview Parton myself.

But Greg Garrison, the longtime religion writer for Alabama Media Group, did.

Garrison reflected on what Parton taught him about faith. He asked her about her Christian faith and whether being a celebrity changed it:

“Well, that faith I had when I was a child has helped me right through everything right now,” Dolly said.

“My grandpa was a preacher, a Pentecostal preacher. My daddy’s people were Baptist. So I’ll have a little chapel in all my places. I have a place where I grew up and I call it the Bapticostal chapel. I just believe that there’s a God. I believe that God helps me, leads me.

“I talk to Him everyday. I’d prefer to believe in God if there wasn’t one, I’d still believe in God, because I believe we need to believe in something bigger and better than ourselves.

“It gives us hope. It gives us strength. I know it does me. My faith is very important.

“I do believe that through God all things are possible. I do believe that Jesus loves me. And I just use that. I’m never ashamed of my family. I’m never ashamed of my religion. I’m not trying to cram it down anyone else’s throat. I just think that everybody’s got to have something to believe in.”

• • •

I OPENED WITH a reference to Parton loving her neighbors.

After her death, I became aware of a specific example involving a couple I know.

In recent years, I’ve written multiple stories — for The Christian Chronicle and Religion Unplugged — about Matt and Macy Collins, whose 4-year-old daughter, Hattie Jo, died in a 2020 tornado that battered Cookeville, Tennessee.

In 2024, I did an in-depth feature on Matt and Macy launching the Magnolia Foundation, a ministry to honor their oldest daughter’s memory and support other parents who lose a child.

Here’s what I didn’t know: Parton helped the Magnolia Foundation — as she did countless other causes.

Matt Collins, a former Church of Christ youth minister, shared the details on Facebook:

The Magnolia Foundation was less than a year old when, on a Friday afternoon in August, I got a knock on the door. I was getting some mail — the kind you have to sign for. When I opened the envelope up, I was blown away. I was holding a check from Dolly Parton in support of Magnolia.

Magnolia was new, and I was still wondering if it was a good idea to quit the real job I had and start this foundation. Dolly’s support wasn’t just financial — it was validation and encouragement to keep going. Dolly, without ever meeting us in person, has proven to be uniquely important to our family. Dollywood has been a place where we celebrate and grieve our daughter, Hattie. We will be there in 2 weeks for Hattie’s 11th birthday. Her support on that August afternoon meant more than the amount on the check. Dolly considered Magnolia a worthy cause to invest in — she cared about us and the people that we have the opportunity to serve.

If Magnolia has ever impacted your life or the life of a loved one, I want you to know that, directly or indirectly, Dolly was behind it. If you’ve ever supported Magnolia as we serve families, I want you to know that Dolly stood beside you in that effort.

A remarkable life. Thank you, Dolly.

Yes, thank you, Dolly.

For everything.

Inside the Godbeat

The same day the world lost Dolly Parton, a 17-year-old Tennessee boy named Mitchell Boles succumbed to cancer.

International media didn’t cover Boles’ death, but he made a big difference in his community — and Clay County schools will close Friday for his memorial services.

“I don’t care if I die — I know I’ll be in heaven,” Boles told Christian Chronicle intern Ephraim Rodenbach this summer. “I got baptized, and my name is written in the Book of Life.”

May God bless Boles’ family, his church and all those who loved him.

The final plug

The Arizona Diamondbacks hosted their annual Faith and Family Night this past Friday night — the latest MLB team to do so.

As Weekend Plug-in readers know, faith days have become a popular annual themed event for a majority of MLB’s 30 franchises. Just last week, we mentioned the Baltimore Orioles’ Christian Faith Night.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

OKLAHOMA CITY — María Ruiz Scaperlanda is looking for a miracle.

More specifically, she’s seeking a miracle that can be attributed — and authenticated — to the intercession of Blessed Stanley Francis Rother.

That’s the final step for Rother — the first person born in the United States to be declared a martyr by the Catholic Church — to become a saint.

“I want everyone to know that we need a miracle,” said Scaperlanda, 66, the promoter of Rother’s canonization cause and author of “The Shepherd Who Didn’t Run,” a 2015 biography of Rother. “There’s a lot of people out there who need a miracle, so please do it through his intercession.”

As Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley told me in 2023, the Catholic Church’s process for confirming a miracle is “very rigorous.”

“It could be a long while,” Coakley said then. “It may never happen, for all we know, because we can’t predict how God is going to act.”

For her part, Scaperlanda is hopeful that “American Martyr: The Stanley Rother Story” — a new feature-length documentary narrated by actor Martin Sheen — will expose Rother’s story to more people.

The film premieres in theaters Aug. 25 and 26 in English and Aug. 27 in Spanish.

An Oklahoma farm boy who grew up to become a priest, Rother spent 13 years as a missionary to Guatemala. He died in 1981 at age 46 when three masked assassins entered his rectory during that Central American nation’s civil war.

I first wrote about Rother in 2001 during my time as religion editor for The Oklahoman. In 2017, I did a Religion News Service feature on the love for “Father Stan” in his hometown of Okarche, Oklahoma, and covered his beatification ceremony. And in 2023, I reported for The Associated Press on the dedication of a $50 million shrine in Oklahoma City that honors Rother.

Scaperlanda and her husband, Michael, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City’s chancellor, both served as executive producers of “American Martyr.”

I talked to the Cuban-born author and journalist about her work to promote Rother’s cause. These highlights from our interview have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity:

On how she first learned about Rother

“We moved to Oklahoma and lived in Norman because Michael taught at the University of Oklahoma Law School for 30 years. Our four kids, who are now adults, were young at the time. And they would come home from their Catholic school with stories about this diocesan priest who died in Oklahoma City.

“He was already being called a martyr. It’s kind of phenomenal — those teachers who kept the story going — because nothing else was going on. There was no cause. They were literally using him as a local guy, as an example of how we should live our lives.

“As a journalist, I was intrigued. So anyway, I did a few small stories, and then over the years, I just stayed with the story.”

On the 1-hour, 46-minute documentary

“At the beatification, there was a shorter film that was shown right before the Mass. It was 18 minutes long, and it was literally an introduction. But it had beautiful scenery from Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, and from people who knew him there. It was just really well done.

“The group that did that film is called Lampstand. They do faith stories. They did such a good job with that, and they’re the ones that did this documentary with the archdiocese.

“It’s very well done. You get such a sense of the life of Father Stan here in Oklahoma from the things they show you and how they show them. But also in Guatemala, they have some great cinematography there. It’s amazing what you can do with drones and all those things. But I think that it’s a beautiful film.”

On working with Sheen, who played President Josiah Bartlet on NBC’s “West Wing”

“Martin Sheen is wonderful. Actually, I asked a friend who had worked with him if he would be willing to read what at the time was a feature film script. So we sent that to him with my book.

“So he called my house and said, ‘I love this story. I love this book. Dump the screenplay, and simply think of how to do a documentary.’ Over time, he volunteered to be the voice of the documentary, and he even did that pro bono.

“We went out to Malibu, California, to his house, and in his back yard, he has his own personal studio, where he recorded his narration. On this particular trip, we spent the whole afternoon with him, and he told us he was going to the 5 o’clock Mass the next day. And Michael and I celebrated Mass at Our Lady of Malibu with him and then took him and his wife out to eat that night.”

On the purpose behind the film

“I see it as another tool for people to get to know him.

“We have my book. We have a small book of letters that our archdiocese did many, many years ago. And this brings in a visual — a documentary where you can see all the places and see all the faces of the people, their emotion.

“It’s just another way, but a really practical and enjoyable way, to put his story out there and why it is that we’re doing this. Because at the end of the documentary, we talk about his cause. And I want everyone to know that we need a miracle.”

Anyone wanting to report a miracle involving Rother’s intercession can fill out this form.

Inside the Godbeat

Top Republicans are escalating anti-Muslim rhetoric, according to Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins and Ulaa Kuziez.

At the New York Times — four reporters, including religion writer Ruth Graham — detail what the newspaper characterizes as “Islamophobia’s rise in Texas.”

In Dearborn, Michigan, multiple arrests were made this week “as hundreds gathered for a visit by self-described anti-Islamic activist Jake Lang, his latest stop in the predominantly Arab American community in recent months,” the Detroit News’ Kara Berg and Julia Cardi report.

The final plug

The Baltimore Orioles hosted their latest Christian Faith Night this week and generated a bit of social media buzz over it.

As Weekend Plug-in readers know, faith days have become a popular annual themed event for a majority of MLB’s 30 franchises.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

“Best day at work ever.”

That’s how my friend Bob Smietana responded when I asked if he enjoyed covering “Pope Night” at the Chicago White Sox game Tuesday — as the team gave away 40,000 miter-shaped hats in honor of its most famous fan, Pope Leo XIV.

In the world of the Godbeat, Smietana is no rookie. He has reported on religion for 27 years for news organizations ranging from The Tennessean to Christianity Today.

Now a national correspondent for Religion News Service based near Chicago, he texted me last week to ask if I had any advice for a soon-to-be first-timer in an MLB press box. (I might have mentioned once or twice or maybe 200 times here at Weekend Plug-in that I love delving into faith and baseball.)

“Don’t cheer in the press box?” I replied to Smietana, making sure to include a smiley face emoji. “Seriously, you’re a pro. Just follow the press guidelines, and you’ll be fine. Have a great time!”

“It’s a good thing it’s not at Fenway!” he answered.

Did I mention that Smietana is a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan? In fact, in a 2024 RNS opinion column titled “I am not going to hate you,” he allowed, “There are trivial things I love to hate, like the New York Yankees.”

But this is a column about the other Sox — the Windy City ones whose connection to the first U.S.-born pope thrust the franchise into the international spotlight.

Smietana’s brilliant lede captured the spirit of Pope Night:

CHICAGO (RNS) — On a hot August night on the South Side of Chicago, Rate Field, home of the White Sox, turned into a church of baseball, filled to capacity with true believers who sang, passed the peace, cheered on a celebrity nun and, of course, wore their pope hats.

Those hats, emblazoned with the Sox logo, were given to every fan who entered the park on Tuesday (Aug. 11). It was, according to team officials, the biggest promotional giveaway in White Sox history, with more than 40,000 pope hats given away. The night was a testimony to the resurgent White Sox, who appear to be playoff-bound after three years of losing 100 games a season, as well as to the appeal of Pope Leo XIV, a longtime fan of the team and Chicago native.

“It doesn’t matter your religion or your denomination,” said Brooks Boyer, chief revenue and marketing officer for the White Sox. “Everyone respects the pope. For us, it’s obviously fun that he is a White Sox fan.”

Here are five interesting things to know about Pope Night:

1. Concerns that a Leo bobblehead — the original idea — might be deemed disrespectful led to pope hats.

New York Times writer Tania Ganguli detailed all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering in a fascinating piece — published before the giveaway — headlined “A pope from Chicago was elected. The White Sox were resurrected.”

In the Times’ “The Morning” newsletter Sunday, Ganguli noted:

I went to Chicago last month to get a sense of the excitement and speak to people in the organization. I attended the no-frills Mass that the team hosts before every Sunday home game, where stadium workers sit next to players, coaches and executives at gray picnic tables. I visited the seat where the pope sat for Game 1 of the 2005 World Series (an incredible view, especially for a World Series game) and, for likely the only time in my life, saw the world as the pope might have seen it.

Mike Downey, the team’s senior director of promotions and marketing, tried so hard to make a pope bobblehead happen. He was planning his daughter’s baptism when I reached out Thursday night with some fact-checking. The bobblehead idea, he told me, was the third thought he had when he found out the pope was a White Sox fan — after “Oh my god,” and “Can we get him to throw out the first pitch one day?”

The church was less excited by the bobblehead idea, though I do wonder if the pope secretly finds it fun; most of the American Catholics I spoke with did. Alas, a Vatican press official did not respond to my email requesting an interview.

2. As evidenced by his World Series attendance, Leo — then known as Cardinal Robert Prevost — is a true White Sox fan. (Sorry, Cubs.)

In fact, Leo welcomed A.J. Pierzynski, the primary catcher for the 2005 championship team, to the Vatican earlier this summer.

In that private audience, the former White Sox player learned that Game 1 — where cameras captured Leo — was not the only World Series game the future pope attended, as Pierzynski noted in a story by The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal:

His reaction to receiving the ball Pierzynski caught to end Game 1?

“Oh my gosh, he was like, ‘This is unbelievable.’ He was like, ‘No way, this is the ball?’ And he literally said, ‘I was at Game 2, too. But nobody knows that. They didn’t find me.’”

3. Is the pope Catholic? The obvious answer is yes. What about Chicago — is it Catholic? That may be a lesser-known truth.

The Times’ Ganguli provided this helpful insight:

Chicago has a large Catholic population, and the Archdiocese of Chicago is the third-largest diocese in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of adults in the city identify as Christian and 29 percent say they are Catholic, the largest of any denomination. The White Sox have hosted a small Mass for stadium employees for 30 years, when the Bertucci family, which still runs the Patio, the field-level hospitality area where the Mass is held, organized it.

A month after the pope’s election, the White Sox helped the archdiocese schedule a public Mass at Rate Field, where the team plays. About 35,000 tickets were sold at $5 each, during a season when the White Sox averaged 17,849 fans a game. Some tickets wound up on the secondary market for more than $1,000, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.

4. The tenets of the church of baseball place a high priority on ticket sales, whether marketing Catholic affection for the pope or fans’ love for “Star Wars.”

In his story on Pope Night, Jay Cohen of The Associated Press explained:

Fun is the overarching theme when it comes to stadium giveaways, and business has been good at major league ballparks this year.

An array of creative promotions — everything from the New York Mets handing out fake glasses and mustaches for a Bobby Valentine Disguise Night to the Texas Rangers giving away a Nolan Ryan bloody lip jersey — has played at least a small role in an MLB-wide average attendance of 29,618 through Tuesday’s games, the highest such number for a full season since 2017.

Bobbleheads remain popular — like the Brandon Nimmo Bull Riding bobblehead in Texas, or the butter-churning Nick Kurtz “Big Amish” bobblehead with the Athletics — but it’s not just those iconic figurines that are drawing big crowds. The Brewers handed out 25,000 bar dice sets to fans 21 and over on Saturday, and they had a crowd of 40,625 at American Family Field.

At the Chicago Tribune, columnist Paul Sullivan pointed out:

Someone suggested a pope-mobile bullpen cart.

Could there be a point of oversaturation? Last year brought us the Mass for the pope, and a mural of the pope at the ballpark. Maybe the Sox are using their association with the pope too much. Or maybe the pope is an everlasting gift from God to the Sox marketing department?

5. Even Pope Night couldn’t guarantee a White Sox victory. There was no divine intervention in Tuesday night’s result.

From Smietana’s piece:

The game itself tested the faith of fans at times. The White Sox took an early lead, thanks to a leadoff home run from center fielder Brenton Doyle and four no-hit innings from starting pitcher Sean Burke. The Reds tied the game on an RBI single by Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson. They then took the lead on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 10th, quieting the crowd.

In the end, even the pope could not save the Sox, at least on this night. The game ended 5-4 on a pop-up, with the tying run still on base and Cincinnati closer Emilio Pagán on the mound.

But the 40,000 fans will keep the faith. And the team will be back at it Wednesday.

For the record, the White Sox did win Wednesday.

As for Smietana, he said he came away from Pope Night reminded that “there is magic in baseball.”

Inside the Godbeat

In a recent Plug-in column, I mentioned meeting and falling in love with Tamie, my wife of 36 years, at Oklahoma Christian University.

This week, Religion Unplugged’s managing editor, Cassidy Grom, has a fascinating essay on the dating culture at Christian colleges. Her piece is tied to Hulu’s upcoming new series “Ring By Spring Break” in Cabo.

Check it out.

The final plug

I made a quick trip to Kentucky this past weekend to cover the 225th anniversary of the Cane Ridge Revival.

“America’s Pentecost” is how one historian described that famous camp meeting the second week of August 1801. The gathering drew thousands and gave birth to the Restoration Movement, also known as the Stone-Campbell Movement.

Religious streams that trace their modern-day roots to the movement include a cappella Churches of Christ, independent Christian Churches and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Read my Christian Chronicle story.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

NAPLES, Idaho — An eye-catching sign featuring a Christian school’s Rams mascot greets logging trucks along heavily traveled U.S. 95, about 40 miles south of the Canadian border.

Just off the highway, tamarack and ponderosa pine trees dot the landscape as K-12 students gather outside each morning to pray and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and the pledge of Foundations School.

“We pledge to serve God first in everything that we do, be a friend to people and live a life worthy of our calling,” the campus community vows.

While missionaries often move around the globe to fulfill their calling, Charli Turner, 48, found her mission field right here in rural North Idaho — at the site of a former greenhouse and garden center known as Moose Valley Farms.

“Our community has faced challenges — church scandals, splits and growing disinterest in faith — but we are committed to showing Christ to children and planting seeds of hope,” said Turner, founder and executive director of Foundations School.

As she describes it, the Bible-based, trade-focused school equips students with practical skills and spiritual roots.

Launched three years ago with 18 students, the educational institution emphasizes individualized learning plans tailored to each child. The school has tripled in size to about 60.

A year after the K-12 opening, Turner persuaded Julie Montgomery, 44 — the founder’s longtime friend and fellow Christian — to relocate from Texas and serve as Foundations’ principal.

Five teachers, two fundraisers and a maintenance/security person join Turner and Montgomery on the staff.

“We believe the mission field in our own backyard is as vital, and often more personal, than distant fields,” Turner said, “as we witness generational trauma and dysfunction play out every day.”

• • •

THE RAMS MASCOT reflects the school’s location in Idaho’s northernmost Boundary County — bordered by Washington to the west, Montana to the east and the Canadian province of British Columbia to the north.

Indeed, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep inhabit the area.

But for the faith-based institution, the symbol carries a deeper meaning.

“When you talk about Christian education, a lot of people have Lions or Eagles” as their mascot, Montgomery said. “We thought about Genesis 22.”

In that Bible chapter, Abraham demonstrates his faith by taking his son Isaac up a mountain to offer as a sacrifice. Instead, God provides a ram for the burnt offering.

Besides the spiritual application, Foundations adapted RAMS as an acronym for its “Right Attitudes Make Success” motto. The school also emblazoned “The Lord will provide” on its cross logo.

“Our kids all know the story of the ram,” Montgomery said, “and they are proud of its meaning.”

• • •

TURNER GREW UP alongside Montgomery’s future husband, Levi, a friend of her family. Through that connection, the two women first met a quarter-century ago.

However, they didn’t become BFFs — best friends forever — until later when both lived in Montana and attended the Great Falls Church of Christ.

Shanlee, the youngest of Turner’s three biological children, was an infant at the time. She’s now 20.

Montgomery was pregnant with Brenna, the oldest of her three children. She’s now 19.

At the same time, Montgomery was caring for her mother, who was extremely ill and died nine months after her daughter’s arrival in Great Falls.

“Charli just kind of took me under her wings,” Montgomery said. “Just between the coffee dates and friendship and just raising our kids together, it was exactly what I needed at that moment.”

That’s when the two first discussed the idea of starting a school that could serve as a Christian mission.

“We had this funny vision that we were going to take in all the lost, hurting kids,” Turner said.

But life took them in different directions.

Turner spent eight years working for Mountain States Children’s Home in Longmont, Colorado.

Montgomery taught sixth-grade science and fifth-grade math in Texas before moving into school administration.

While Turner served as a housemother for teenage girls at Mountain States Children’s Home, Montgomery kept opening her own Bertram, Texas, home to little ones in need.

“Unofficially, I have a half-dozen bonus kids who were just friendly neighborhood kids who showed up and didn’t leave,” Montgomery said.

• • •

AS A CHILD, Turner moved often as her father’s work — including military service — meant frequent address changes.

Before turning 18, she lived in Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Washington.

Turner attended her final two years of high school in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, the county seat of Boundary County. The summer after her 1996 graduation, she lived with a friend’s parents, Clint and Mary Kimball. The Kimballs later started Moose Valley Farms.

In 2016, a traumatic divorce caused Turner to leave Colorado. She returned to North Idaho.

“I knew I would be safe with my daughters, and this is where I came,” she said. “That’s it in a nutshell. … My son was finishing his senior year, and he moved here shortly after.”

In Bonners Ferry, Turner rebuilt her life and met her second husband, Lucas Turner.

Her journey to provide a faith-based educational outlet for area children began in 2020 amid COVID-19. She first started a daycare. Then — concerned about students struggling academically and emotionally after the pandemic — she saw a need for the school.

But finding a suitable location proved difficult.

“We felt like maybe God was shutting the doors,” she said, “and it wasn’t going to be a thing.”

Then Clint Kimball called.

“I heard you’re looking for a place to have school,” he said. “We’re trying to get Mrs. Mary to retire from the greenhouse. Maybe we could come up with a plan.”

They did.

• • •

IN SPRING 2023, the 10-acre property, about 10 miles south of Bonners Ferry, became the home of Foundations School and Turner Plumbing, owned by Lucas Turner.

The plumbing company operates in a separate building from Foundations and serves as the school’s main financial sponsor.

For three-plus years, Charli Turner has worked to retool and refurbish the former greenhouse and garden center into classrooms and other instructional space.

Moreover, the school is developing the Idaho Mercantile and 9Beans Coffee Co. at the plumbing building. The retail space will sell Idaho-made products and coffee.

Besides generating funds for the school, the mercantile will house a student nutrition program and provide a hands-on environment for culinary education, Charli Turner said. The “9B” refers to Idaho license plates, which use that designation for vehicles registered in Boundary County.

Along with its educational offerings, the school hosts a Lord’s Day worship gathering that has resulted in five baptisms in the Kootenai River.

“Our mission really is those people that have been rejected or are hurting,” Charli Turner said, “so we have about 35 coming out here on Sunday morning.”

• • •

AS TURNER DEVELOPED the school, she demonstrated multiple strengths — from a knack for organization to an ability to cast a compelling vision.

She lacked nuts-and-bolts expertise, though, in areas such as curriculum, grading and academic transcripts.

So she called Montgomery.

“Come run this school with me,” Turner urged her friend.

“Sister, I’m so proud of you,” Montgomery responded. “But I’m not doing it. I’m on a path here in Texas.”

But Turner kept calling.

After about a year, she told Montgomery, “It’s OK that you’re not coming. Why don’t you just travel up here and just give me some advice on the school?”

Montgomery agreed.

During that trip, the two friends enjoyed an outing on Brush Lake, close to the Canadian border.

“We’re out on kayaks,” Montgomery recalled, “and a bull moose walks out among the lily pads.”

Montgomery took the moose’s appearance as divine intervention. The message: She’d never experience such a view in Central Texas.

“I knew she was coming the whole time,” Turner said with a chuckle. “I was very persistent and very convincing. I needed her.”

• • •

FOUNDATIONS DRAWS students from as far as 30 to 40 miles away, all the way from Sandpoint — the seat of Bonner County, just south of Boundary County — to Canada.

The school serves a region known for its independent-minded, self-reliant approach to life. President Donald Trump overwhelmingly carried both counties in the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections.

Besides learning reading, writing and arithmetic, students gain insight into potential trades — touring meat packing plants, granite shops, sawmills and other potential future employers.

Foundations has an annual tuition price of $6,000 per year but works to raise money to help families who can’t afford that amount. A few families receive assistance through Idaho’s $50 million Parental Choice Tax Credit.

“In North Idaho, spiritual roots often struggle to grow deep,” Charli Turner said. “We see this firsthand in the lives of the children we serve.”

These students include teens in need of rehabilitation and children whose parents battle addiction, she said. One boy’s father died of a fentanyl overdose. One sibling group’s father, hurt in a debilitating accident, has endured five surgeries.

In some cases, parents push children to enroll at Foundations. In others, relatives or community supporters nudge families to consider the faith-based option.

“Everybody here is like a mixed bag of nuts,” said Aspen Graham, a 17-year-old senior who drives her 2016 Mazda CX-5 about 20 miles each way to Foundations. “We get along really well, but we’re all just very different.”

After struggling at her public high school, Graham enrolled at Foundations a year and a half ago.

“I’m definitely like a social butterfly, and I’m kind of all over the place, so it was kind of hard to learn,” she said of her previous school.

With Foundations, Graham knew she was choosing a Christian school. But she was satisfied that participating — or not — in religious activities would be up to her.

“I used to not really be” a person of faith, she said. “Here, it was never shoved down my throat or anything. But like, I started being more interested in it. … And I did end up starting my own teen girls’ Bible study, just to understand it more with other girls my age and stuff. So I’m leaning more that way.”

Graham wore a cross necklace as she spoke.

Asked about it, she explained: “It’s new. I got it a few months ago. I never felt like I should actually be able to wear one until I was actually leaning that way. … I didn’t grow up with a family that really went to church or anything, so I’m kind of on my own path. … I didn’t want to be like a poser or anything.”

• • •

FOR BOTH Turner and Montgomery, Foundations School has become a family affair.

Turner’s son Payton Chaffin, 27, serves as director of fundraising, and his wife, Caitlin, is a school nutritionist. Daughter Cassidy McKee, 23, and her husband, Tim, an Army veteran, both teach classes.

Daughter Shanlee Chaffin works with the 9B Family Foundations daycare, which is associated with the school, while stepdaughter Anna Rae Turner, 15, is a Foundations student. Stepson Colton, 19, is an apprentice at Turner Plumbing.

Montgomery’s sons, 17-year-old Colter and 14-year-old Sawyer, attend the school.

“Charli’s done such a fantastic job of putting this school together and recruiting very passionate, enthusiastic people, but we’re always looking for other partnerships,” Montgomery said.

They’d love to partner with churches and other Christian schools across the nation, she emphasized.

Foundations could provide “a mission opportunity where a student is coming and getting some teaching experience,” she said. “But maybe it’s a mission where the church is willing to pay half her salary to allow us to afford them.”

Montgomery attends the Boundary County Church of Christ in Bonners Ferry, where Wade Purdom preaches.

Purdom and his wife, Leah, homeschool their children, but he praised the positive change he’s seen in Foundations students he knows.

“It’s remarkable,” he said. “There’s not a lot of students, but they’re really pouring into each one of them, and it’s beautiful to see.”

Like her friend, Turner voiced a desire to involve more Christians in the domestic mission work.

“It’s like, who can come and help us?” she said. “Who can come and intern here? Who can come and get their student teaching out of the way and also pour into this community for a minute — and maybe fall in love and stay?”

Inside the Godbeat

After seven years of podcasting, Manya Brachear Pashman has returned to daily journalism as managing editor for the Forward.

“My great-grandfather Harry Greenfield took time every day to read the Forverts, a Yiddish-language daily newspaper distributed nationwide for a Jewish audience,” Pashman wrote on social media. “Little did Harry know that the Forverts would evolve into the Forward, the nation’s leading independent Jewish news outlet. And little did he know that his great-granddaughter would one day become the Managing Editor.”

Pashman covered religion for the Chicago Tribune from 2003 to 2018, establishing herself as one of the nation’s best Godbeat pros. She served as president of the Religion News Association from 2015 to 2018.

The final plug

Have I mentioned that there’s still time to support Religion Unplugged’s independent journalism — including my own — and have your donation doubled if you give by Aug. 17?

OK, maybe I have once or twice.

But I’ll say it again: We’d be deeply grateful for any amount.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

“How’d you get into journalism?”

“What motivated you to cover religion?”

“Where have you traveled on the job?”

I love it when people ask me about my life and career.

But occasionally, I’m tempted to reply: “Well, actually, I did a column about that. Didn’t you read it?”

LOL.

Here’s the truth: I’ve written over 300 Weekend Plug-in columns since 2020. We’re talking about nearly half a million words — or roughly five or six full-length novels.

That’s a whole lot of information and details to absorb. Even I have to check the archive to remember some of it.

Still, I’m curious to know what sticks. So it’s time for a Plug-in pop quiz. Make your mental notes, and see the right answers at the end.

• • •

1. In 1984, I took my first journalism class as a high school sophomore. What school did I attend?

A. Big Horn High School in Wyoming

B. Broken Arrow High School in Oklahoma

C. Keller High School in Texas

D. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida

E. None of the above

• • •

2. In the late 1980s, I worked late nights on the student newspaper at this university with ties to Churches of Christ.

A. Abilene Christian University in Texas

B. Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee

C. Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas

D. Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City

E. Pepperdine University in Malibu, California

• • •

3. In 1990, I drove a light blue 1978 Volkswagen Beetle to my first full-time job at this newspaper.

A. Birmingham News in Alabama

B. Charlotte Observer in North Carolina

C. Daily Planet in Metropolis

D. Stillwater NewsPress in Oklahoma

E. Wyoming Tribune Eagle in Cheyenne

• • •

4. In 1999, I tackled my first big Godbeat assignment. Which of these religion stories did I cover?

A. New book on Abraham Lincoln’s faith

B. Pope John Paul II’s visit to St. Louis

C. Religious debate over gun control measures

D. United Methodist divide over same-sex blessings

E. Y2K phenomenon and apocalyptic fears.

• • •

5. In 2001, I followed my wife, Tamie, as religion editor for this daily newspaper.

A. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

B. Fort Worth Star-Telegram

C. Los Angeles Times

D. The Oklahoman

E. The Tennessean

• • •

6. I never considered myself a dog person … until this lovable canine came to live with my wife and me in 2024. What’s her name?

A. Bella

B. Frannie

C. Lassie

D. Scoop

E. Waffle

• • •

7. During the 2024 presidential campaign, I found myself reflecting on my early years working for this major chain.

A. Discount Tire

B. Home Depot

C. Krispy Kreme

D. McDonald’s

E. Walmart

• • •

8. On a reporting trip in fall 2025, my wife and I got lost in the middle of the night near a famous cathedral. What country were we in?

A. Argentina

B. France

C. Italy

D. Russia

E. Ukraine

• • •

9. I’m on a journey — a “Field of Dreams” pilgrimage, if you will — to visit every Major League Baseball stadium. At the beginning of the 2026 season, what ballpark did I check off my bucket list?

A. Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia

B. Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas

C. PNC Park in Pittsburgh

D. Target Field in Minneapolis

E. Yankee Stadium in New York

• • •

10. I’ve lived my dream as a roving religion journalist. Which of the following have I done on the job?

A. Cleared customs in Australia, Cuba and South Africa

B. Dodged thousands of riders during South Dakota’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally

C. Helicoptered across Israel

D. Tightened my seat belt on a bumpy, windy mountain road in Mexico

E. All of the above

• • •

Right answers (and related columns)

Question 1: C. Keller High School in Texas. Lessons learned in high school journalism class still resonate

Question 2: D. Oklahoma Christian University in Oklahoma City. ‘My friend’s cancer battle’: This is going to be one really cool obituary’

Question 3: D. Stillwater NewsPress in Oklahoma. My 35 years in full-time journalism: What’s changed and what hasn’t

Question 4: B. Pope John Paul II’s visit to St. Louis: How covering Pope John Paul II’s 1999 visit to St. Louis changed my journalism career

Question 5: D. The Oklahoman: How a career choice by my wife led me to the Godbeat 25 years ago

Question 6: B. Frannie. Will there be hound dogs in heaven? Beliefs differ on furry friends in eternity

Question 7: D. McDonald’s. In the race for president, why are we talking about McDonald’s?

Question 8: B. France. Godbeat Globetrotting: 5 Memorable Moments In World Religion Reporting

Question 9: A. Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia. Rituals, miracles, sacred days: new film delves into the religion of baseball

Question 10: E. All of the above. Planes, trains and automobiles (even motorcycles): The road to religion news

How’d you do on the quiz?

I’d love to know.

Shoot me a message.

Inside the Godbeat

A Zoom I did Monday night with the Religion News Association’s emerging journalists cohort inspired this column.

Given that it’s summertime, a smaller group than usual showed up.

But I enjoyed meeting Sharlee DiMenichi, a staff writer for the Friends Journal, and catching up with Marissa Green, faith and fellowship editor for the Fort Worth Report, and Kathryn Post, a national reporter for Religion News Service.

With about 20 active members, the cohort brings together early career, second career and student journalists who cover religion. Post co-founded the group in 2024 with former Tennessean religion reporter Liam Adams, former Dallas Morning News faith writer BeLynn Hollers, University of Georgia journalism professor Lori Johnston and FāVS.News founder and executive director Tracy Simmons.

Besides Post and Greene, the network’s facilitators include independent journalist Flavius Mihaies and new Houston Chronicle religion writer Adrian Ashford.

Life on the Godbeat made for a terrific conversation.

Interested in joining the cohort? Here’s how.

The final plug

There’s still time.

Still time to support Religion Unplugged’s independent journalism — including my own — and have your donation doubled if you give by Aug. 17.

We’d be deeply grateful for any amount.

A quick programming note: I’m on vacation next week, but I look forward to seeing you back in this same space in two weeks.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

Kelsey Lundgaard’s love for America’s national parks — and for God — developed at an early age.

Every summer, she and her family traveled to places such as Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, Mount Rainier National Park in Washington and Zion National Park in Utah.

“It’s really what brings our family together as a whole, just because of the special place that a park can be,” said Lundgaard, 22, who graduated from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, this spring with a bachelor’s degree in communications.

“Getting to be in God’s creation, and getting to see the mighty ways of just his miraculous beauty of what he creates, and then getting to enjoy it with your family,” she added, “it’s really the best of both worlds.”

As a Samford student, Lundgaard spent a summer working — and ministering — at Yellowstone National Park, which lies primarily in Wyoming but extends into Montana and Idaho.

She did so through a 75-year-old interdenominational ministry called A Christian Ministry in the National Parks, known to many by its acronym, ACMNP. According to its website, the ministry “equips team members to share Christ’s love through work, worship, and service in the national parks.”

A 2017 Deseret News feature noted:

The program got its start in 1951 when Warren Ost, then a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, hosted a casual worship service in a Yellowstone bar in response to the religious needs of his co-workers and park guests.

Ost went on to lead the ministry for 45 years, registering it as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1971. The program has grown and evolved since then, expanding to include short-term mission trips and other service opportunities.

Although it’s been around for decades, A Christian Ministry in the National Parks has to regularly apply for permits at each park where it sends workers.

From Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska to Everglades National Park in Florida, this summer’s program comprises 200 team members at 27 national parks in the U.S. and Canada, said Abby Bennett, the ministry’s recruitment and placement coordinator.

Before her current role, the 2024 graduate of Southern Florida College served on teams at Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

“Oh, it was amazing,” Bennett, who double-majored in political science and environmental studies, said of the experience. “You’re surrounded by God’s creation, and you get to worship the God who created all of it, and that is really impactful.

“And sometimes we would have a campfire after the worship service and invite people to have a time of fellowship with us and make s’mores,” she added. “But it really is all about building relationships with people and hoping that you’re able to make even a small impact on their lives.”

ACMNP services provide an opportunity to praise God, she explained, in a setting “where there often aren’t churches and where it’s often pretty isolated.”

• • •

IN THE MINISTRY’S HISTORY, 17,000 program alumni have led 100,000 worship services at 45 national parks, according to ACMNP.

Team members split time between manual labor and leading worship services for workers and tourists.

Lundgaard earned cash as a housekeeper at Mammoth Hot Springs in the Montana portion of Yellowstone.

“Through the job, you really get to focus on relational ministry,” she said.

Sundays brought a mountaintop spiritual experience — literally and figuratively.

“At our place, there was a view of the mountains in the background,” Lundgaard said. “You go down part of the mountain to get to this amphitheater, and it’s just this magical feeling.

“Our service never had any animal issues,” she added, “but there have been stories in the past (at other ACMNP locations) where you would get a moose or a bear at your service. So it always kept everyone on their toes, having to be extra aware.”

Bennett served as a zip line guide in the Great Smoky Mountains and a restaurant hostess at the Grand Canyon.

Each role forced her outside her comfort zone.

“You’re really relying on God through some tough moments,” Bennett said, “but the relationships that you’re able to build and the ways that you’re able to see God work truly are transformational — not only to yourself but to the people that you’re interacting with.”

Students make up a majority of ACMNP team members. However, the program welcomes all Christian adults — from teachers on summer break to retirees looking to mix fun and faith.

Among the current team members is Ajpaal Kalyanmasih, a 42-year-old Florida seminary student.

The son of Christian immigrants from India handles a variety of duties for a lodge at Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota.

But the ministry’s spiritual side excites the Denver native most, he shared in an email to Religion Unplugged:

When my parents emigrated from India, they fully immersed themselves in the culture of the United States. Part of being woven into that cultural fabric included summer trips to the national parks. I am indebted to a frugal father and a hardworking mother who both saved enough money to fund two- or three-week road trips across the states. Coupled with their fervent inculcation of the Christian faith … it seems only natural that ACMNP is the perfect opportunity to blend faith and forestry, mountains and ministry, rivers and reverence, Christ and creation.

ACMNP’s mission — to honor Christ in serving park visitors, extending His care over the environment, and developing Christian leadership — is precisely what I value. I remember Matthew 14, when Christ fed the weary travelers on the hillside, and I appreciate how ACMNP provides me the opportunity to administer the nourishment of God’s Word to park guests amidst His nature … I find ACMNP invaluable in fulfilling the highest duty and completing the greatest work in the most beautiful landscapes of our blessed country. The due diligence of the ACMNP team in not only preparing us but also ministering to us is a testament to the organization’s commitment to Christ’s command to “Love one another as I have loved you.”

• • •

FROM TIME TO TIME, ACMNP’s approach to evangelism has stirred controversy.

“Does Religion belong in national parks?” High Country News asked in a 1995 article published during President Bill Clinton’s first term.

The eye-opening lede of that three-decade-old piece:

Karl and Rita Girshman, a Jewish couple from Maryland, happened to be naked in their room at Big Bend National Park in 1993 when suddenly, a lodge employee let himself in with a key. He handed the Girshmans a flier, then invited them to “join in worshipping our Lord and Savior” and to “come as you are.”

The man with the key was part of A Christian Ministry in the Parks, a little-known religious program that recruits some 300 Christians to work in the national parks or with its concessionaires.

Though the program has been a fixture of the park system for nearly half a century, those who advocate a high wall between church and state charge that evangelism is on the rise — especially since Roger Kennedy, who often makes religious references when speaking about the parks, became director of the National Park Service two years ago.

Among the critics quoted back then was Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Does the foundation still have concerns about ACMNP?

“FFRF occasionally receives complaints about religious services or organized worship activities taking place in national parks,” Amitabh Pal, the freethought association’s communications director, told Religion Unplugged. “However, based on our understanding, ACMNP is not receiving any special treatment from the National Park Service. Like other groups, it obtains permits through the NPS process, which is available to any organization that wishes to use it.

“That said,” Pal added in an email, “it can be frustrating for visitors who are simply trying to enjoy our national parks if they feel they are being approached or targeted by organized groups engaged in proselytizing. National parks should remain welcoming and accessible to all visitors, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.”

Lundgaard, whose father, Spencer, served as ACMNP’s executive director from 2008 to 2018, said sharing her faith came naturally.

“Of course, it takes discernment to not share in a way that is forcing or making people uncomfortable,” Lundgaard said. “It’s all about, you know, reading the room and trying to be intuitive with how to approach those conversations

“But, I mean, a huge way of glorifying the Lord and trying to live a life set apart is through the work that you’re doing,” she added. “So, for example, I really tried to stay positive in my work and be efficient and encourage my co-workers.

“That’s what really showed the Lord, I think, because that wasn’t like everybody else that was there.”

Inside the Godbeat

Weekend Plug-in hit a milestone recently: the 300th edition of this Friday column, which launched at the beginning of 2020.

I’m so grateful to everyone who reads and shares Plug-in and offers feedback to it.

I, of course, couldn’t do what I do without the generous support of Religion Unplugged readers.

Some terrific news: Donate any amount through Aug. 17, and your gift will be doubled.

The final plug

The kind, caring response to last week’s column on my friend Steve Lackmeyer’s cancer battle overwhelmed me.

I was particularly touched to hear from Lance Fleming.

“Man ... that’s great writing and a great story with an all-time outcome,” Fleming commented on Facebook. “Great way to get my Friday morning started. Thanks for sharing Steve’s story with everyone.”

Fleming’s own experience made his words extra special: His brave, 10-year-old son, Rex, died in 2012 after a two-year cancer fight. My colleague Cheryl Mann Bacon wrote a heartwarming piece in 2024 about the family’s work to honor his enduring legacy.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

OKLAHOMA CITY — It’s a call you never want to receive.

“I’ve got cancer,” your loved one says.

Not only that, but it’s pancreatic cancer — often a death sentence.

Immediately, your brain goes into a fog.

The person on the line was Steve Lackmeyer, a happily married father of two and one of my best and oldest friends.

Both journalism majors, we met as students at Oklahoma Christian University in the late 1980s. For four years, we worked late nights together at the student newspaper The Talon, covering everything from tuition hikes to presidential campaign rallies.

My junior year, I worked up the nerve to ask out a smart, gorgeous freshman named Tamie. To my shock and delight, she said yes.

The only problem: My brother, Scott, was headed home to Texas that weekend and taking our shared 1984 Ford LTD station wagon with him.

Enter Lackmeyer: He knew geeks like us didn’t land dates with girls like Tamie often. So he loaned me his blue 1986 Hyundai Excel that Friday night. I mention the car’s color because it — like my future bride’s smile and everything else about that night — remains etched in my memory.

Tamie and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary this spring.

Lackmeyer is one of the few people who remember that Tamie and I adopted the pet name “Slush Puppie” for each other. From time to time, he still razzes us about it.

One year at Oklahoma Christian, Lackmeyer roomed with David Duncan, now the preaching minister for a large Houston church.

Even back then, Lackmeyer’s healthy journalistic skepticism impressed Duncan.

“Steve always makes me smile because he never takes anything at face value,” Duncan said. “He always assumes there may be a story behind the story. Listening to him brainstorm those possible angles was a lot of fun in college because nothing was off the table. He would consider every possibility, no matter how serious or absurd. It was always fun even when dealing with difficult issues.”

• • •

SINCE 1990, Lackmeyer has worked as a reporter and editor for The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City’s daily newspaper.

He has won numerous awards for his coverage, from the 1995 federal building bombing to the city’s downtown revitalization to its courting of the NBA. He has written seven books about Oklahoma City history and was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2022.

If this wasn’t a serious column, I’d point out that Lackmeyer also has done humorous things like — early in his Oklahoman career — offer to take this writer behind the scenes of the nighttime cops beat and then lock his keys in the company car at a gang shooting scene. Suffice it to say that the late, great city editor Gene Triplett was not happy with my friend that night.

But I digress.

Back to the important stuff: Lackmeyer met his own out-of-his-league bride, Wendy, in 1995 and married her in 1998.

The couple later fostered and adopted two boys through the Oklahoma Department of Human Services. Their younger son, whom my friend calls “Squirrel” on social media, is now 21. He has developmental disabilities and is the kindest, politest young man you could ever hope to meet.

While Lackmeyer and I are both extremely busy with life and work, we catch up at least every few months over a meal or a movie or maybe a Thunder game.

But when he left a voicemail for me in late April, I couldn’t help but notice the serious tone in his voice.

I called him back immediately, and that’s when he uttered the C-word.

• • •

LACKMEYER EXPLAINED that he’d been working hard — nothing new there — and pursuing stories such as an “America at 250” piece on the global retail giant Walmart.

His reporting trip to Walmart’s Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters for USA Today — The Oklahoman is a part of its national network — left him feeling extremely tired.

He turned 60 at the end of March.

“I guess that’s when your warranty expires,” he joked.

Besides fatigue, symptoms including jaundice and itchiness made it clear he needed to see a doctor.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he had experienced severe nausea and stomach pain but delayed seeking medical attention until almost too late. The surgeon who removed his gallbladder warned him not to make that mistake again.

This time, a bile duct obstruction seemed to be the problem, and an outpatient surgery was scheduled.

“One theory was, ‘Maybe it’s a stray gallstone that stayed behind when the gallbladder was removed,’” Lackmeyer said.

But actually, a mass — a cancerous one — was pressing against his bile duct and pancreas, the surgery found.

A major reason pancreatic cancer is so deadly: It usually doesn’t cause symptoms in the early stages, as the Cleveland Clinic notes. By the time it’s discovered, it’s frequently too late to treat.

“But that’s not what happened here,” my friend told me. “Because it was pressing against the bile duct, it gave me an early warning.”

More precisely, it gave him a chance — but no guarantee — to survive, he shared in our initial call.

After that, he began undergoing tests to see if he might qualify for a Whipple procedure, also called a pancreaticoduodenectomy. It’s a complex operation that can have serious risks but often saves lives, according to the Mayo Clinic.

In recent years, exercise and medication have helped my friend lose 200 pounds and drastically improve his physical health. Still, the medical team needed to make sure his heart could handle such an operation.

By early June, he got the official word: His surgery was a go.

“I realize that I’m extremely blessed to have this opportunity … to have a good chance of a positive outcome,” he said as we headed to see “Project Hail Mary” about a week before the operation.

“But there are times when I don’t sleep well,” he acknowledged. “There are times when I’ve got bad dreams. I’m not going to say I’ve not cried or gotten edgy at times, but I’m trying to be very positive. I’m blessed to have a great group of friends.”

One of those friends — Duncan, his old roommate — called and prayed on the phone with Lackmeyer.

The call happened while Lackmeyer was sitting in a Home Depot parking lot. After the amen, he went to smell the flowers inside the home improvement retailer.

While in the Home Depot, he heard Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds (Don’t Worry About A Thing)” playing.

He took it as a sign.

• • •

CANCER HAS A WAY of making a man contemplate his own mortality.

My friend is no exception.

When I mentioned — before the surgery — that I might write a column about him and needed to confirm a few details, he quipped, “Oh, this is going to be one really cool obituary.”

“It’s not an obituary,” I replied with a laugh. “It’s a living legacy.”

Lackmeyer believes in Jesus and has been baptized. He has read the Bible “inside and out,” as he described it to me. But he has a complicated relationship with organized Christianity.

He’s fed up with churches on the right and the left.

“You always end up with culture wars and politics, and that’s not what I’m looking for in a church,” he said. “I don’t know how my relationship with God is helped with a church that is just hateful or judgmental.”

Still, he has faith in God.

Strong faith.

On the day before the operation, I initiated a three-person call with Lackmeyer and Duncan. Duncan prayed again for our friend and assured him God’s will would be done, no matter the outcome. I might have shed a few silent tears on my end.

The June 10 surgery lasted seven hours. Doctors declared it a success. Still, Lackmeyer would need to spend 26 nights in the hospital. And his journey back to full health would not be over even then.

“Recovery is far more brutal (and) slow than anticipated,” he wrote on Facebook a week and a half after the operation.

• • •

ON ONE OF MY VISITS to the hospital, I asked Lackmeyer if his cancer experience had strengthened or weakened his faith.

It’s definitely strengthened it, he replied without hesitation.

“You’ve got a friend who two months ago was facing a potential death sentence with pancreatic cancer,” he said, “and now I’m free of cancer.”

That’s right: His doctor informed him last week that his cancer is gone. The Whipple procedure was a 100% success.

“It is a miracle,” Lackmeyer said. “I mean, God has created these intricate bodies that we have, but at the same time, he has provided men of science, men of medicine, to work miracles, to rewire an engine literally.

“And that’s what happened with me,” he added. “I mean, the Whipple is no easy thing. It’s done by transplant surgeons. Those are top of the game. They’re removing things, they’re cutting out pieces of organs, and they’re connecting things to work differently than they did. I mean, that’s amazing.”

Definitely amazing.

Sometimes the call you never want to receive has a happy ending.

Inside the Godbeat

I wrote a Plug-in column last year on my 35th anniversary in full-time journalism. I’m a few years — more than a few, actually — behind David Crary, who directs The Associated Press global religion team.

Crary just celebrated his 50th anniversary with AP. He got his start in the Jackson, Mississippi, bureau in 1976 and later did international stints in Kenya, South Africa, France and Canada before returning to the U.S.

In 2018, his New York desk neighbor and close friend Rachel Zoll, a national religion writer, was diagnosed with brain cancer.

“In her honor, I started writing some religion stories along with my other beats,” Crary wrote on Facebook. “Rachel’s longstanding dream of a global AP religion team finally came true in 2019. Through various quirks, I became its leader in 2021 and have been blessed ever since with a fabulous group of journalists (now 11 strong) to work with, plus a grant that enables us to support AP colleagues around the world.”

The final plug

As the war in Ukraine drags on, refugees who fled to America grapple with an uncertain future.

At a Texas church on a recent Wednesday night, tears and talk of bombs underscored the precarious circumstances for thousands losing their legal status.

Read my story in The Christian Chronicle.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

PHILADELPHIA — My 7-year-old grandson, Bennett, donned a red, white and blue top hat like Uncle Sam.

He grinned as he posed for a picture with his father, Brady, outside Independence Hall, where delegates to the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

But I’m not certain Bennett grasped the full significance of Philadelphia at the Semiquincentennial — I think I spelled that right — the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

“I don’t want to wait in that long line just to see a bell,” my grandson said of the Liberty Bell.

His grumbling made me smile.

We were in the City of Brotherly Love to enjoy America’s favorite pastime and decided to explore a bit of our nation’s history while here.

I was close to Bennett’s age on July 4, 1976, when the U.S. marked the Bicentennial. Honestly, I don’t recall a whole lot about the 200th anniversary, except for the special coins: quarters, half-dollars and dollars.

My family lived in West Monroe, Louisiana, at the same apartment complex as the late Phil Robertson, the future “Duck Dynasty” reality TV star. My father, Bob, was about to graduate from preaching school, and we’d soon move to North Carolina. I interviewed the Duck Commander decades later but didn’t know him then.

Despite the Fourth of July holiday, I’m sure we worshipped that Lord’s Day at the White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ. We maybe had a fellowship meal with star-spangled napkins and lit sparklers afterward.

At some point, I know we watched Walter Cronkite of the “CBS Evening News” anchor coverage of the nation’s festivities.

• • •

SINCE THE BICENTENNIAL fell on a Sunday, the celebrations of many Americans mixed faith, family and fireworks.

The New York Times’ front-page coverage on July 5, 1976, described it this way:

The nation celebrated its 200th birthday yesterday with pageantry and prayer, with games and parades, with picnics and fireworks, with the peal of bells and the chant of protests.

It began with a flag‐raising atop Mars Hill Mountain in Maine, where dawn reached the continent, and moved on to Fort McHenry, in Baltimore Harbor, where it was greeted by the rocket’s red glare of the national anthem. The activities were to end nearly a day later with an indigenous festival in American Samoa.

At 2 P.M., Eastern daylight time, descendants of the Revolutionaries laid hands symbolically on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and bells rang in the 50 states and in American communities overseas. At Independence Hall, President Ford read the day’s keynote address.

This being an American festival, many new records were claimed: the largest cherry pie (60 square feet), at George, Wash.; the largest cake (69,000 pounds), at Baltimore; the largest fireworks display, in Washington, D.C.; the largest gathering of sailing ships, in New York Harbor.

In its August 1976 edition, Christianity Today featured coverage headlined “Bicentennial Blessings” that noted:

Most attention was focused on the two main Bicentennial cities, Philadelphia and Washington.

July 4 dawned bright and warm in Philadelphia, where official observances began with an interfaith service conducted under a canopy on Independence Mall. Taking part were Greek Orthodox archbishop Iakovos, Cardinal John Kroll, and other church leaders. An audience of some 2,000 heard main speakers Cynthia Wedel, an Episcopalian who is a president of the World Council of Churches, and Jesse L. Jackson of Operation PUSH, a self-help organization, preach on the need to continue the revolution begun 200 years ago, to extend social justice to all.

President Ford arrived by helicopter a short time later, following a stop at Valley Forge, and delivered a televised address to the nation from the steps of Independence Hall before a crowd of tens of thousands. The speech underscored the nation’s spiritual heritage. “The American adventure began here ‘with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,’ ” declared Ford. “It continues in a common conviction that the source of our blessings is a loving God in whom we trust.” In closing, he asked everyone to join him “in a moment of silent prayer in gratitude for all we have received and for continued happiness in the United States of America.”

At 2 P.M. as a parade passed, the Liberty Bell was tolled, signaling the simultaneous ringing of bells across the land.

Before, during, and after the President’s visit teams of young people leafleted the crowd. Most visible were members of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, whose literature many declined, and the Jews for Jesus, whose tracts generally were read and kept.

• • •

PENNY STAFFORD EUBANK, then 11 years old, joined her late grandparents, Gorden and Elizabeth Coley, on a 1,500-mile road trip from Longview, Texas, to experience the Bicentennial in Philadelphia.

Throughout the two-week adventure, Eubank shared the back seat of a “big, four-door American sedan” with her older sister, Stacie Fischer, then 12, and her cousin Carla Matthews, 11.

Along the way, the family stopped to explore sites such as the Vicksburg National Battlefield in Mississippi and Stone Mountain in Georgia.

Eubank — one of my former communication professors at Oklahoma Christian University — remembers her grandparents as people of strong faith and patriotism. Gorden Coley served in the Marines in World War II.

The night before Independence Day, Eubank and her loved ones slept in a dormitory at the now-defunct Northeastern Christian Junior College in Villanova, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia.

“Then we got up and had Communion before we left,” said Eubank, who now lives in the Atlanta area and attends Perimeter Church, a Presbyterian Church in America megachurch. “I feel like the devotional was in a gathering area of the dorm. I remember they had chairs set up. … I guess they didn’t want to send someone off into downtown Philadelphia without having had their Sunday service.”

After the service, the family made its way to the city.

“This is crazy, but the first thing we did was go to the post office,” Eubank said, recalling the desire to get envelopes postmarked “July 4, 1976.”

“I was in a stamp club the year before in my school, and I thought that was a great idea,” she explained. “So we waited in line for that, and then we stood in line for the parade.”

Eubank still has treasured photos — albeit a bit blurry — of the eight-tier, 50,000-pound birthday cake that Sara Lee baked for the occasion, of a Texas high school band marching in the parade and of her sister, cousin and her posing by the Liberty Bell and with Uncle Sam.

“I tell everyone about it,” Eubank said of her experience. “We’re talking about 250 now, but for me, the Bicentennial was a bigger deal.

“I guess it’s more even or something,” she added with a chuckle. “But the fact that we were there tells you something about my grandparents and what great people they were.”

• • •

EDDIE WOODHOUSE was 17 at the time of the Bicentennial.

He organized the trip that his family and three others from the Brooks Avenue Church of Christ in Raleigh, North Carolina, made to Philadelphia.

“I was kind of surprised that they would allow me to do that,” Woodhouse said of making the arrangements at that age.

“We stopped in D.C. along the way and ate crab cakes in Baltimore and then got to Philadelphia,” he recalled. “And at 17, Philadelphia was the biggest city I’d ever seen, and it seemed like the whole world was converging there.”

The Woodhouses — father, mother and three children — made the 400-mile journey in a wood-paneled Plymouth station wagon.

The families stayed in a high-rise Holiday Inn.

“We took the public transportation, started to feel our way around, and every street corner had a vendor selling everything under the sun, not just the typical T-shirts,” Woodhouse said.

“For instance, there were machines where you could insert a penny, and then you pulled down the lever, and it smashed a penny out to show July 4, 1776, to July 4, 1976,” he added. “And you paid a quarter to get a smashed penny that had that as a souvenir.”

Before the Fourth of July festivities, the North Carolina families joined a throng of out-of-town guests for worship at the King of Prussia Church of Christ in a suburb of Philadelphia.

“We could not have been more warmly greeted,” Woodhouse said. “There were some references to the Bicentennial in the service, but then we left to get back to being the Southern tourists in Philadelphia.”

Among his memories of that day: President Gerald Ford speaking.

“The crowd was pretty deep,” Woodhouse said. “My brother and I, we were able to successfully work our way to the middle of that, but that was about as close as we were able to get. There were people who had essentially camped out for an opportunity to get toward the front.”

Half a century later, Woodhouse — now a political consultant who lives in Asheville, North Carolina — identifies with the words of James 4:14 from the Bible.

“My, time does pass swiftly, like a mist, as James describes,” he said.

Still, Woodhouse’s patriotism has not waned.

“The founders of our nation were brilliant,” he said. “They were imperfect, but the men and women who founded our nation were brilliant, and they gave you and me a way to govern ourselves, not from the top down but from the bottom up. And as Benjamin Franklin said, ‘We have a republic if we can keep it.’”

• • •

WHILE MOST of my Bicentennial recollections are vague, I vividly recall Cronkite’s reflections at the end of his broadcast.

“Well, the party’s just about over. We’re 200 years old,” the CBS anchor said. “It’s a milestone that makes us wonder what will become of us as a nation. We’re not sure of the future. No one can be. We don’t know what’s behind the doors that we must open. We only know that the keys we have — keys cut in Independence Hall, which became our ideals. Liberty. Justice. Equality.

“Our people have suffered and died for those ideals,” he added. “We have as a nation written a remarkable history certainly. But we should remember that we have not fulfilled our ideals even after 200 years. Correcting wrongs will be part of our future. It will demand courage. But correcting wrongs has been a dramatic part of our history. Courage is a remarkable part of our heritage. It can open the doors to justice for everyone.

“We will be all right if we keep in our hearts the story of America,” he concluded. “If we do, well, then 100 years from now, our country’s hearts will still be host to those ideals that we gave the world on July 4, 1776. And that’s the way it is on July 4, 1976.”

What way will it be on July 4, 2076 — the Tricentennial?

I don’t expect to be around to find out, but I pray Bennett will. Maybe he’ll even wait in line to see the Liberty Bell.

Inside the Godbeat

Religion Unplugged asked reporters to explore the threads of religion that created the modern-day nation.

Real people did the interviews and research and wrote each article — not AI.

To support our work, donate through Aug. 17, and your gift will be doubled.

The final plug

Did the founders create a Christian nation?

No, but religion did shape their thinking, as Peter Smith of The Associated Press reports.

Also interesting: As Americans celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, half of pastors say their churches will join in the festivities, according to Lifeway Research’s Aaron Earls.

Happy Semiquincentennial, everyone! Enjoy the holiday weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

ARLINGTON, Texas — In the fourth grade, I discovered Topps baseball cards.

I’d chew the crunchy bubble gum inside each 20-cent pack and memorize the stats of all my favorite players.

Nearly half a century later, I remain passionate about Major League Baseball.

In recent years, my love for the game has inspired me to delve into the trend of MLB teams hosting faith days.

In 2023, I traveled to Southern California to cover back-to-back Christian themes at Petco Park in San Diego and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The next year, I wrote a column about the Baltimore Orioles’ first faith night.

Last year, I explored the history and appeal of Home Plate Detroit, which each year brings together Christian fans of the Tigers.

In my latest story, published by Religion Unplugged today, I detail why the Texas Rangers’ latest Faith and Family Day drew extra attention.

A relevant chunk of that report:

This was not the Rangers’ first Faith and Family Day.

Just last September, a half-dozen players and a coach offered Christian testimonies at a similar postgame event in the team’s Lexus Club.

But for multiple reasons, the latest one became a culture war flashpoint — stirring debate on social media and sparking comments by everyone from Texas’ governor to the local Catholic bishop.

One reason: Texas — the only one of MLB’s 30 franchises without a Pride Day — scheduled the 2026 faith event during June, coinciding with LGBTQ Pride Month.

Organizers typically seek a date when the Rangers play in the afternoon but don’t have a getaway flight afterward. The June date marked the first such availability after the school year ended.

Whether the timing was coincidental or not, the message quickly spread online that the organization had decided to hold Faith and Family Day instead of Pride Day.

Another reason: The Rangers’ event came on the heels of MLB warning three San Francisco Giants players who wrote Bible verses on their caps for the team’s Pride Night.

I’d urge you to check out the story (and click the hyperlinks) to understand the full background and context.

If you read my columns or see my social media posts, you know I’m a longtime Rangers fan.

That full disclosure aside, I did my best to report on the faith day controversy impartially. And I resisted the urge to cheer in the press box.

Journalistic decorum trumps fandom. At least for a day.

All that the Rangers said about their Christian journeys didn’t fit in my story.

In sharing their testimonies, multiple players reflected on struggling not to define themselves by their profession.

Third baseman Josh Jung said his pastor, whom he did not name, helps him maintain a proper focus.

“The biggest thing that he always has to remind me is that baseball is what I do, it’s not who I am,” Jung said. “It’s really easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind, letting your value and your worth be in what you do.

“And truly, at the end of the day, that doesn’t really matter,” the 28-year-old added. “It’s all about whose we are. It’s all about the guy that died on the cross for us.”

Outfielder Evan Carter echoed that sentiment.

The question, Carter said, is, “Where are you going to find your identity?”

“Is my identity going to be for me personally in baseball?” the 23-year-old asked. “Is it going to be found in people’s opinions of me? Is it going to be found in the world?

“As Josh said … the only true thing in life that is unchanging, unwavering and is always going to be there for you is God.”

A daily devotional led by outfielder Brandon Nimmo before hitters’ meetings, regular Bible studies organized by team chaplain Mason Randall and pitcher Cody Bradford, and weekend Baseball Chapel gatherings contribute to the spiritual development of the Rangers’ Christian players, Jung said.

“Those are three things that I know we do in the clubhouse that really help us get connected and get all of us to feel like we’re all in each other’s corner,” Jung said. “Because this is a hard game, and everyone’s going through their own stuff, and when you’re able to sit down and just talk about some real stuff with your teammates, it helps you feel like you’ve got people behind you.”

Outfielder Wyatt Langford, who is 24 years old, said: “When Nimmo started doing the devotional every day, that’s really changed my perspective, too. You know, we’re called to be disciples and to teach others, and he’s helped me a lot. … That’s what we’re here to do. We want to see as many people in heaven as we can.”

The Rangers’ faith event came after the team lost three straight games to the Minnesota Twins.

In such circumstances, Jesus provides needed perspective, utility player Cody Freeman said.

“At the end of the day, we’re only trying to please one person,” the 25-year-old said, “and it’s the Lord.

After that day’s game — in which Freeman went hitless — his grandma texted him, as she often does.

“You’re a winner in my heart, no matter what,” she wrote, “because we have the Lord.”

Inside the Godbeat

There’s an old saying, which we’ve cited repeatedly here at Weekend Plug-in, that religion is always in the room.

Faith intersects — often in a significant way — with nearly every major news story, be it about politics, sports, natural disasters or entertainment.

Religion Unplugged plays a crucial role in helping make sense of those headlines.

Without your support, we couldn’t do what we do. Now through Aug. 17, when you donate to our work, your gift will be doubled.

The final plug

While covering the Rangers’ faith day, I enjoyed running into two of my former colleagues with The Associated Press in Dallas.

Sportswriter Stephen Hawkins was reporting on the game for AP, and retired newswoman Diana Heidgerd was savoring an afternoon at the ballpark with her husband.

Way back in 2003, when I wrote an AP profile of longtime Rangers broadcaster Eric Nadel, Hawkins helped me by getting a quote from Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

HOUSTON — When Maurice Costabile first showed up at a Houston church a few years ago, members had no clue his late father, Duilio, was a beloved TV cameraman dubbed the “Mayor of Yankee Stadium.”

They had no idea his late mother, Maria Landa, was an Ivy League-educated psychologist.

They just knew the son of Cuban immigrants looked homeless — and desperately needed a bath.

“I mean, Jesus is for everyone,” said David Duncan, preaching minister for the Memorial Church of Christ, which averages Sunday attendance of about 800. “Nobody’s going to be turned away. And he obviously had some very dire needs.”

Costabile, 59, who battles a variety of physical and mental health issues, saw a banner advertising the congregation at Houston’s Memorial City Mall.

He walked 1.3 miles from the shopping center to the church building, just off Interstate 10.

“Let’s be honest: There have been conversations where people are like, ‘He doesn’t need to be here. It’s not safe for our kids,’” said Mike Avery, Memorial’s community minister. “Some people don’t want him around. But that’s because the church is human, right? And they’re scared, and they’re fearful.

“But I’m happy that our church overall has really worked to help him and not kick him out,” Avery added. “So we’re really trying, and we’re not going to give up on him.”

Avery helped Costabile connect with Houston law enforcement’s Homeless Outreach Team and has taken him to medical appointments.

However, finding a long-term solution off the streets has proven more difficult. Costabile’s lack of official documents, such as a birth certificate or a Social Security card, complicates applying for government benefits.

“We tried to get him into a halfway house,” Avery said, “but he only lasted a few days because it’s made for people who can take care of themselves physically, and he can’t do that.”

To make Costabile more presentable for worship, the congregation began renting a hotel room to give him a shower before the Sunday service.

“He knows how to survive on the street, but he’s in terrible health,” Duncan said. “It’s not that you can save everybody, but when somebody comes into your church building, I think you have a responsibility to help.”

With more than 25 nationalities represented in the pews, the Memorial congregation reflects the diversity of Houston.

Church volunteers — including an 83-year-old Jamaican immigrant named Sadie Powell and a 38-year-old Russian immigrant named Yulia Merchant — lead the effort to help Costabile.

On a typical Saturday night, Merchant, a nurse practitioner, and her three school-age sons pick up food for Costabile from Spencer Prather, one of Memorial’s children’s ministers.

Then the mother and boys give Costabile a ride from the church building to the hotel, where they connect with Powell.

Costabile has leg wounds caused by lymphedema.

“We shower him together, and after his shower, I change any wound dressings, if needed, and wrap his legs,” said Merchant, who also spearheaded the launch of Memorial’s thriving ministry for Ukrainian refugees. “He usually gets a very good night’s sleep at the hotel.”

On Sunday morning, Merchant makes sure Costabile has breakfast and drives him to worship. Powell takes him to lunch.

Costabile has the mind of a child and can’t care for himself, Merchant said.

“If that would be my child, and God would take me to heaven, I would want my child to be taken care of,” she said of her motivation. “And Maurice is God’s child.”

Costabile told church members that he and his mother were living in an extended-stay hotel during the pandemic. But then she got into an accident and later died of COVID-19, he said.

After he wandered away from the hospital, loved ones filed a missing persons report in 2021.

“But the people who filed that have since died,” Avery said.

Memorial leaders pray that publicity about Costabile might alert relatives to his whereabouts and prompt them to contact the church.

“You got some new clothes,” Duncan, the preaching minister, said as he greeted Costabile in the church office this week.

“Yeah,” Costabile replied before turning the conversation to recent heavy rains in Houston. “It’s very bad weather out. The other day, there was a lot of thunder.”

“I just can’t believe that you’re wearing a Mets hat,” Duncan teased, noting that Costabile’s father, who died in 2001, worked for the Yankees. “Do you like the Mets better?”

“Yeah,” Costabile replied. “They’re very, very, very nice people.”

Duncan introduced me to Costabile.

“Mr. Ross, like the store?” Costabile replied, referring to the Ross Dress for Less chain. “I heard of that. It’s a good store.”

As Powell discussed Costabile’s mental health concerns, he interjected, “I may be bipolar, but I’m pretty intelligent on stuff.”

“Extremely intelligent,” Powell agreed.

Avery describes Costabile as friendly with the mindset of a 7-year-old.

“He loves to color and draw airplane cockpits, and he draws them to scale,” Avery said. “And his memory is incredible as far as things that happened a long time ago.

“But I always wonder: Is this guy like an angel? Or is it like, he’s one of ‘the least of these,’ and God is testing us?” the community minister added, alluding to Matthew 25. “Sometimes I wonder about that, but he’s really an interesting guy.”

David Bean, another Memorial member active in helping Costabile, came across a documentary video recounting his father’s camera work with the Yankees.

Duilio Costabile worked alongside Yankees greats Phil Rizzuto and Bobby Murcer.

Bean played the video for Maurice Costabile.

“At first, it made me really sad because I know this life is not what his parents would have wanted for him,” Duncan said. “But it also made me think that maybe there are people out there who know him and want to help him.

“But secondly and momentarily, it made me really happy that he had an opportunity to see a video with his dad, whom he hadn’t seen in many years,” the minister added. “It brought real joy to him. He kept saying, ‘My dad! My dad!”

Inside the Godbeat

In a Plug-in column last month, I highlighted Pastors for Trump founder Jackson Lahmeyer’s run for Congress.

This week, Lahmeyer advanced to a GOP runoff in Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District. But then he suspended his campaign and admitted that he cheated on his wife.

The father of five found himself engulfed in scandal after The Daily Mail reported this past weekend on his “red-hot texts with Miss Oklahoma.”

The final plug

“Victoria Jackson is not dead … yet!”

That headline about the former “Saturday Night Live” actress caught my attention this week.

Be sure to check out Religion Unplugged culture critic Joseph Holmes’ podcast interview with Jackson, who suffers from terminal breast cancer and reflects on life, faith and dying in her book “Not Dead Yet.”

Wishing you a meaningful Juneteenth! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

In the hallways of the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, this week, at least one kid was spotted wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

No one seemed to mind — or notice, according to the Godbeat colleague who told me about it.

What a difference nearly three decades makes.

In 1997, Southern Baptists launched a high-profile boycott of the Walt Disney Co. over what church leaders called the company’s “anti-Christian and anti-family direction.” The action lasted eight years, ending in 2005.

In 2010 — the last time before this week that the SBC conducted its annual meeting in the home city of Walt Disney World — the past boycott remained fresh in many people’s minds.

But as Southern Baptists gathered Tuesday and Wednesday in the Theme Park Capital of the World, the previous controversy seemed long forgotten. Wiley Drake, the pastor who championed the boycott, died earlier this year at age 82.

The only Disney mention I noticed in news coverage of the 2026 meeting was longtime Alabama religion writer Greg Garrison’s note that “many Southern Baptist families will make a vacation of it.”

And the official SBC meeting app even listed available theme park discounts, including one for Walt Disney World.

• • •

MAGIC KINGDOM ADVENTURES notwithstanding, the SBC made plenty of real news while in Central Florida.

The two biggest headlines: The SBC moved forward on banning churches with women pastors and elected a right-wing president concerned the denomination has become too woke and liberal.

Veteran Associated Press religion writer Peter Smith covered his first SBC annual meeting in 2000, when the denomination also met in Orlando and passed a statement of faith holding that only men could serve as pastors.

A quarter-century later, Smith — again on the scene — offered this update:

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Thousands of Southern Baptists overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to advance a formal ban on women pastors in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, sending a clear message that men alone should preach to these conservative evangelical congregations.

The amendment would tighten existing restrictions in the Southern Baptist Convention, which already has a faith statement opposing women pastors.

The vote was 6,028 to 2,026 — a 3-to-1 margin — which easily exceeded the required two-thirds majority. It will require a similar two-thirds vote at next year’s meeting to become part of the constitution.

Frank Lockwood, religion editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, covered his first SBC annual meeting in 2010 in Orlando and was back for the latest gathering.

Lockwood’s story on Wednesday’s vote provided this helpful context:

Though it began in the South, the Southern Baptist Convention has spread across the country. During the last three decades of the 20th century, it enjoyed steady growth at a time when mainline Protestant denominations were in decline. Since 2006, however, the convention has lost nearly 4 million members, falling from 16,306,246 to 12,331,954.

Mainline Protestant congregations long ago began ordaining women as pastors. The Assemblies of God, which has Arkansas roots, evangelical doctrine and more than 3.1 million U.S. adherents, has long affirmed women in ministry.

The Roman Catholic Church only ordains men to the priesthood, a stance it shares with the Orthodox Church.

Liam Adams, religion writer for The Tennessean, followed the vote remotely from Nashville and noted the opposition by at least one group:

Baptist Women in Ministry, an advocacy group aligned with a more moderate Baptist denomination and that has fought the SBC’s push to ban women pastors in recent years, condemned the June 10 vote. The organization had paid for a billboard in Orlando in advance of the SBC annual meeting that pushed back against Mohler’s proposal.

“Convention votes do not decide who is called to pastor, preach, or minister. Convention votes do not dictate whose callings churches can affirm. Convention votes do not determine women’s value to God or the church,” Baptist Women in Ministry said in a news release. “Women and girls, within the SBC and outside of it, deserve empowering messages which celebrate that women are made in God’s image and worthy of equal treatment and opportunity.”

See additional coverage by The Oklahoman’s Carla Hinton and USA Today’s Marc Ramirez.

• • •

LIKE AP’S SMITH and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Lockwood, Religion News Service national reporter Bob Smietana is a regular at SBC annual meetings.

Smietana reported on his first one in 2008 and has made it to about a dozen in all, including the 2010 event in Orlando.

Among his multiple stories this week, Smietana detailed the rise of the SBC’s newest president:

ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS) — A Florida pastor who has argued that the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has become too woke and liberal was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday (June 9).

Willy Rice, senior pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, received 5,217 votes — 57% of the votes cast. His opponent, Josh Powell, lead pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church in South Carolina, received 3,821 votes, or 42%.

Rice’s election is a triumph for critics who claim that the denomination has lost its way in recent years. He has alleged that the SBC’s sexual abuse crisis was more hoax than reality and said that the denomination’s leaders had followed the culture more than the Bible.

As regular Weekend Plug-in readers may recall, the SBC’s response to sex abuse was a major focus of its meetings in 2021 in Nashville and 2022 in Anaheim, California. The issue remained a topic of discussion — but to a lesser degree — in 2023 in New Orleans, 2024 in Indianapolis and 2025 in Dallas.

New York Times religion writer Ruth Graham, who also traveled to Orlando, talked to Rice:

In an interview on Tuesday evening, Mr. Rice characterized his victory as an affirmation that many rank-and-file pastors feel that the denomination’s leaders do not always represent their values.

“I don’t think it’s hostility, I don’t think it’s some great open revolt,” he said. “But there’s been an erosion of institutional trust.”

He referred specifically to the denomination’s attempts to toughen its approach to sexual abuse in church settings, which he described as a well-meaning movement that had ended in expensive lawsuits, false or unproven accusations, and distrust.

“With a lot of social justice movements, there’s a legitimate concern, a true injustice, yet when activists begin to drive the agenda, sometimes there’s an overreach,” he said.

In a related story, The Tennessean’s Adams explained that the convention “denounced political violence and discriminatory immigration enforcement in resolutions that excluded certain hardline positions, which a more politically right-wing faction embraces.”

Before the meeting, Religion News Service’s Smietana produced an excellent takeout on the immigration issue, headlined “Meet the pastors who support the ICE raids.”

Also worth a read: former Christianity Today journalist Kate Shellnutt reflected on not covering the SBC meeting for the first time in eight years.

Inside the Godbeat

One of the week’s most fascinating religion stories involves the Mormon church’s Christian identity — or not.

I found Associated Press religion writer Deepa Bharath’s coverage helpful.

Her lede:

The Pentagon’s revision to its list of Christian religions this week has reignited a nearly 200-year-old debate: Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Christian denomination?

Most Latter-day Saints do see themselves as Christians. But there are many prominent Christian clergy and scholars who disagree, citing core differences in how they view God and the Trinity and revere a scripture that is not part of the two-testament Christian Bible.

Utah U.S. Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis, both Republicans and Latter-day Saints, challenged the Pentagon’s exclusion of their faith from its list of Christian religions. It was part of the Department of Defense’s recent effort to significantly pare down a list of more than 200 religious affiliations that troops could choose from, deleting categories such as atheists, Unitarian Universalists, pagans and Wiccans.

Read more coverage from the Washington Post’s Michelle Boorstein and Sammy Westfall.

The final plug

Over the past few years, I’ve traveled to San Diego, Los Angeles and Detroit to report on why Major League Baseball teams host faith nights.

Last year, I covered the Texas Rangers’ first Faith and Family Night. That event required fans to buy a special ticket, but the Rangers’ second faith day on June 18 will be open to all fans at the game that afternoon.

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

By Bobby Ross Jr.

A few years ago, while working on a profile of Christian attorney Lori Windham, I interviewed her boss at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

I found Maria Montserrat “Montse” Alvarado, then Becket’s vice president and chief operating officer, personable and engaging.

I remember that Alvarado praised Windham’s balance as “an impressive professional, a devoted mother and a beautiful Christian.

“I’ve worked with her for over a decade at the Becket Fund,” Alvarado told me in 2022. “She had a path similar to me, where we started as interns and kind of made our way up the ranks. And she’s a great leader, a great example of what it is to be an integrated professional, someone who takes their job very seriously, excels beautifully, manages to balance piety and technique, as I like to call it, and performs that way at the highest level, in the highest courts in the land.”

Alvarado was reflecting on Windham’s success arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

But I was reminded of the conversation because Alvarado herself made international headlines this week.

• • •

FEMALE. CONSERVATIVE. YOUNG.

Pope Leo XIV’s appointment Tuesday of Alvarado to lead the Vatican’s communications office stands out for three major reasons:

— First, the Mexican American media executive will become the first woman to serve in that key role, effective Nov. 1.

Joshua McElwee, Reuters’ Vatican correspondent, notes:

Maria Montserrat ​Alvarado, originally from Mexico City, will ​lead the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications, a sprawling ⁠operation that oversees the Vatican’s news portal, ​radio station, newspaper and press office, among other ​entities.

The Associated Press explains:

By naming a layperson and a woman to head a major Vatican department, Leo is following in the footsteps of Pope Francis who promoted several women to leadership positions in the Holy See governing hierarchy, which remains dominated by male clergy.

The Chicago-born Leo has indicated he wants to reform the way the Catholic Church at large, and the Vatican in particular, communicates its message to the world. Toward that end, he has summoned cardinals to the Vatican later this month for a meeting to “reassess the effectiveness of ecclesial communication, including at the level of the Holy See, from a more explicitly missionary perspective,” among other topics.

— Second, Alvarado will arrive at the Vatican after working since 2023 as president and chief operating officer of EWTN News — a Catholic network known for its conservative views.

Justin McLellan, Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, which reports Catholic news from a left-of-center position, points out:

Before joining EWTN, Alvarado was executive director of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based nonprofit law firm specializing in religious liberty cases. A 2017 opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal said that Alvarado saw herself in that role as “a defender of all religion” who worked “on the front lines of America’s culture wars.”

Alvarado is active with a number of organizations championing conservative causes, serving on boards for the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, which advocates for protections for vulnerable adults in places where physician-assisted suicide is legal; the GIVEN Institute, the libertarian Acton Institute and Benedictine College, a conservative Catholic school in Kansas. She is also a consultant to the United States’ bishops’ conference’s committee for religious freedom.

At the same time, via Religion News Service’s Aleja Hertzler-McCain, this seems like important context:

Alvarado began hosting “EWTN News in Depth” in early 2021, several months before Pope Francis criticized “a large Catholic television channel,” widely believed to be EWTN, for “continually speaking ill of the pope” and attacking the church. She became president and chief operating officer in 2023.

However, church observers say she has never been part of the anti-Francis wing of the church, and her allies praise her leadership expertise and dedication.

“ She loved Pope Francis, and since the beginning she has been supporting of Pope Leo XIV,” José Manuel de Urquidi, a leader in digital evangelization who sat at then-Cardinal Robert Prevost’s table at the Synod on Synodality, told RNS. “ The Holy Father will have someone who’s extremely smart and full of God helping him spread Christ’s message into this world in the best way possible,” he said.

De Urquidi said Alvarado doesn’t fall into “a false dichotomy” about what it means to be Catholic, neither focusing solely on doctrine and liturgy nor on social issues. “ She really knows Matthew 25:35 is how we’ll be judged at the end of our lives, but she’s also at the same time just a missionary full of love for Christ and his church and truth,” he said.

— Third, Alvarado “will be the youngest person to lead a Vatican dicastery in recent memory,” according to RNS.

Hertzler-McCain quotes Massimo Faggioli, a papal biographer and church historian:

Alvarado’s age also stands out. She is currently 39 years old, according to Catholic-Hierarchy.org. “ By Italian standards, she’s a baby,” Faggioli said. “ Italy is really a gerontocracy,” where people appointed to important positions in their 50s are considered young, Faggioli said.

“This is a signal of change,” Faggioli said.

• • •

IN OUR 2022 CONVERSATION, Alvarado offered insight into Windham’s — and her own — outlook concerning religious freedom.

Alvarado noted that Windham had represented Christian and non-Christian clients alike.

“She is always curious and respectful about what other people believe and why they believe it,” Alvarado said.

Alvarado pointed to the role of Windham, a Church of Christ member, in defending Catholic nuns who fought to be exempted from a federal contraception mandate.

“It’s been beautiful to see her, as a non-Catholic, get close to the mission of the Little Sisters of the Poor,” Alvarado said.

I recall, too, that Alvarado commended Windham’s mix of professionalism, joy and curiosity.

“In the law, it’s unusual to have such a strong woman who also has such a tender heart,” Alvarado said.

Perhaps the traits Alvarado extolled in Windham offer some insight into the values she’ll bring into her new role at the Vatican.

Inside the Godbeat

I mentioned artificial intelligence last week and am going to reference it again this week.

Full disclosure: This probably won’t be the last time.

Here at Religion Unplugged, managing editor Cassidy Grom reports on Catholic leaders embracing Pope Leo XIV’s stance on AI and pondering implementation. Meanwhile, Godbeat legend Richard N. Ostling delves into chatbots and the soul, asking, “Has AI transformed religion?”

And at The Christian Chronicle, my colleague Calvin Cockrell explores what happens when artificial intelligence meets authentic faith.

The final plug

Who doesn’t want to read a story about an old pickup truck in Illinois farm country?

This piece is personal for Holly Meyer, the Nashville, Tennessee-based religion news editor for The Associated Press.

Go ahead: Find out why there’s “joy in the journey.”

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 20 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.