Nashville

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Looking ahead: Takeaways from last week's election and that GOP debate

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Looking ahead: Takeaways from last week's election and that GOP debate

Godbeat pros are mourning one of their own: Richard Gustav Niebuhr, the 2010 recipient of the Religion News Association’s William A. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award, covered religion for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times.

Making news this week: The Vatican says transgender people may be baptized — “the latest sign of Pope Francis’ conciliatory approach to LGBTQ+ Catholics,” according to the Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca.

Meanwhile, there’s a new development in a high-profile sex abuse case involving The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Associated Press’ Michael Rezendes and Jason Dearen report.

An Arizona judge ruled that “church officials who knew that a church member was sexually abusing his daughter had no duty to report the abuse to police or social service agencies because the information was received during a spiritual confession,” AP notes. Yes, “clergy privilege” applies to traditions other than Roman Catholicism.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with this week’s elections and — looking ahead to next year’s voting — the latest GOP presidential debate.

What To Know: The Big Story

Five takeaways: “Voters across the country cast ballots to elect a governor in Kentucky, decide legislative control in Virginia and determine whether the Ohio state constitution should be changed to enshrine the right to have an abortion.  

“These are all races and issues that faith voters care about, even though off-year elections get less attention in the U.S. than presidential and midterm congressional ones.”

So reports Clemente Lisi, who details “five things we learned from this year’s results and what they mean to faith voters.” 

The fight goes on: “In the wake of a sound abortion rights victory in Ohio, some faith leaders are rejoicing, others mourn and all say their efforts to mobilize around abortion are far from over.”


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Podcast: God knows, there's more to rising tensions in country music than politics

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Podcast: God knows, there's more to rising tensions in country music than politics

Gentle readers, here is the GetReligion question for this week.

Here we go: Who would you trust to know more about the complex cultural, moral, religious and, yes, political world of country music — the editors of Rolling Stone magazine or the late, great Johnny Cash?

I asked this question during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in), which focused on a Rolling Stone feature with this headline: “The Culture Wars Are Tearing the Close-Knit Country Music Community Apart.”

To cut to the chase, these country music fights are all about politics — of course. And also, it’s totally new (#NOT) for country stars to speak out on issues of culture, morality, family, politics, economics, race, etc. Forget that Hank Williams guy, Jimmie Rodgers, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn and lots of other superstars.

People like Cash. It helps to read this next quote slowly and imagine the Man in Black’s voice-of-God singing and speaking tones

:… When asked to describe his musical values, Cash preached country gospel: "I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And mother. And God."

Yes. there’s some politics in there — along with some other important topics.


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Plug-In: That openly prayerful coach is back on the sideline, after his Supreme Court win

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Plug-In: That openly prayerful coach is back on the sideline, after his Supreme Court win

NEW YORK — I filed this edition of Weekend Plug-in from my temporary, 38th-floor apartment in Midtown Manhattan. I’ve spent the week enjoying a mix of work and fun in Metropolis.

As I typed this, Pope Francis had just arrived in Mongolia, “becoming the first pope to visit the vast country with one of the world's smallest Catholic populations, nestled between Russia and China — two nations with complicated Vatican relationships,” as the National Catholic Reporter’s Christopher White reports.

Francis has long expressed an interest in visiting Russia and China, but Mongolia might be as close as he gets, the Wall Street Journal’s Francis X. Rocca explains.

As Mongolia Catholics welcome Francis, the nation’s evangelicals wrestle with growing pains, according to Christianity Today’s Angela Lu Fulton. Also, check out this Julia Duin background report at GetReligion.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. Our big story concerns the return of a Washington state high school football coach who won a school prayer case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

What To Know: The Big Story

God on the gridiron: “Joe Kennedy — also known as the “praying coach” — is back as an assistant coach for the first time since the Supreme Court ruled that the Bremerton School District in Kitsap County had violated his religious freedom.” That’s the synopsis from Duin, who goes in depth on Kennedy’s return for The Free Press.

Readers may recall that Jovan Tripkovic interviewed Kennedy for ReligionUnplugged.com after the coach’s SCOTUS victory in 2022.

Friday night lights: The Seattle Times’ Nine Shapiro sets the scene for Kennedy’s return:

This much we can say for sure: Bremerton High assistant football coach Joe Kennedy will pray after Friday night’s opening game of the season, as the U.S. Supreme Court said he could.

“I’ll just go over to mid-field, like I always do, face the scoreboard, take a knee, and thank God for being here,” the 54-year-old coach said, sitting in the grandstands after practice Wednesday, having returned to coaching the Knights in early August following an eight-year absence.


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Russell Moore on Christians who are switching churches or hitting exit doors -- period

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Russell Moore on Christians who are switching churches or hitting exit doors -- period

“Book of the Month” is certainly an appropriate label for Russell Moore’s “Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America,” released July 25 by Sentinel. I am borrowing that label, of course, from that venerable subscription club and corporate partner during The Guy’s days working with the old Time Inc.

The bottom line: Pretty much every religious professional will want to take a look at what this central figure has to say.

Ditto for journalists who write about religion.

Moore is, yes, controversial and opinionated but also thoughtful and knowledgeable, so it’s worth absorbing his latest plea for a thorough overhaul of this sprawling and complex Protestant movement (with some pertinence for Catholics, too).

This might be the right time for religion-beat pros to offer yet another broad look at evangelical pitfalls and prospects. The Twitter (er, X) traffic on this new Moore book will continue to be lively.

There’s a possible peg when Moore chats with Beth Moore (no relation), another prominent exile from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), in Houston on August 9, which will be live-streamed (details at www.russellmoore.com).

Moore famously opposed Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy on moral grounds when many other evangelical thinkers carefully kept their qualms private. His 2020 private admonition to executives of the SBC, which later leaked, depicted years of “the most vicious guerilla tactics” against him, especially his activism on issues linked to sexual abuse cases and cover-ups and mishandled race relations. He’s now one of seven ministers at Immanuel Church in Nashville, a congregation with ties to evangelicals in several denominations (including Anglicanism) and part of the Acts 29 network (www.acts29.com).


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Podcast: Struggles to control the Covenant School 'manifesto' are getting more complex

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Podcast: Struggles to control the Covenant School 'manifesto' are getting more complex

If you follow social-media hashtags involving these words — “Nashville,” “Covenant” and “manifesto” — you know that nothing major has happened that would allow news consumers to read on-the-record facts about the motives of shooter Audrey Hale.

Of course, under current Associated Press style that name would be “Aiden,” since this troubled individual had claimed that identity in social media as part of a gender transition.

The mysteries — in terms of journalism, law and politics — surrounding this mass shooting in a small Christian school have only grown more complex. What kind of mysteries? That was the subject of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

There have been minor developments that I didn’t know about at the time we recorded, such as the New York Post story noting:

Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the 28-year-old trans artist killed by police after opening fire on a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, covered her clothes in handwritten messages before her deadly assault in late March, according to an autopsy report.

The report acknowledges that Hale identified as a trans male but officially lists her as female. 

She was carrying a knife inscribed with her chosen name, Aiden, according to the autopsy. … The report included new details about the attack — including the revelation that Hale’s clothes were covered in handwritten notes, drawings and numbers. 

The report also noted that Hale wore a plastic anklet inscribed with “508407.”

What do these mysterious message say? What do they mean? Ah, more mysteries that authorities will not discuss.

Also, police have followed up on a death threat aimed at a conservative media figure involved in efforts to release the writings that Hale left behind to explain his-her motives for the attack. A website called Just the News reported:

A Tennessee man has been charged in connection with a threat against conservative journalist and talk radio show host Michael Patrick Leahy over Leahy's lawsuit to obtain the Nashville school shooter manifesto, allegedly telling Leahy, "I'm willing to go to prison to end you." 

The emailed threat also said:


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Still news? Media silent on pronouncements from World and National Councils of Churches

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Still news? Media silent on pronouncements from World and National Councils of Churches

Who is listening?

Preachers face that question every weekend and it’s vital for strategizing by religious organizations -- or should be. The Religion Guy has lately been pondering a long-running religion-beat puzzle that possibly warrants some analytical articles, or at least reflection on the part of journalists.

Why do U.S. power-brokers, and journalists themselves, pay little or no heed to ardent pronouncements by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCC)? After all, the WCC says it represents 352 church bodies in 120 countries that encompass 580 million Christians. The NCC reports its 37 American member bodies include more than 30 million members in 100,000 congregations.

Last year, a Religion Guy Memo promoted media attention to the WCC’s upcoming global Assembly in Germany at the start of its 75th anniversary year. 

Journalists could not have asked for a stronger news peg. Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine was proceeding with hotly disputed blessings from the Moscow leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church, by far the WCC’s largest member body, which created a vast humanitarian crisis for fellow Christians in Ukraine.

(That Memo put special focus on the plight facing Metropolitan Hilarion, the Moscow patriarchate’s well-known ecumenical officer and foreign envoy. There were signals that his views on the invasion were quite different than those of Patriarch Kirill, and was soon abruptly “released from his duties” and reassigned to Hungary. Follow-up, anyone?)

The September Assembly stated that it “denounces this illegal and unjustifiable war” and (without naming Russian Orthodoxy) that delegates “reject any misuse of religious language and authority to justify armed aggression.” The meeting also called for “an immediate ceasefire” and “negotiations to secure a sustainable peace” — though at the time some critics figured that stance would undercut Ukraine’s position.

The situation facing the WCC and its Orthodox members surely counts as news, and still does.


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Weeks before the attack, Covenant's pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus

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Weeks before the attack, Covenant's pastor preached on death, grief and the tears of Jesus

The Bible's shortest verse -- "Jesus wept" -- is also one of its most important.

That was the message delivered by the Rev. Chad Scruggs in a March 5 sermon -- "Death's Conqueror" -- as the faithful at Nashville's Covenant Presbyterian Church continued their Lenten journey toward Holy Week and Easter's promise of new life after death.

"How do we face death in our world," he asked, "especially untimely deaths, without the pain and confusion of death leading us to despair?"

That was three weeks before a gunman crashed through the glass doors of his church's Covenant School and killed three staff members and three 9-year-old students -- including the pastor's daughter, Hallie Scruggs. Police fatally shot the attacker, 28-year-old Audrey Hale, a former Covenant student who had taken the name "Aiden" and male pronouns online. 

Police confirmed that Covenant had been targeted. But Nashville officials and the FBI have declined to release a "manifesto" referenced in Hale's final social-media warning: "One day this will make more sense. I've left more than enough evidence behind."

The families of those killed have mourned in private, even as solemn Holy Week rites flowed toward Easter (April 9) -- surrounded by a whirlwind of familiar arguments about gun control and a mental-health crisis that has shattered so many lives.

In his sermon before the attack, Scruggs had already plunged into deeper, ancient, mysteries -- stressing that believers can trust that God understands the grief, anger and confusion caused by violence and death.

When meeting the grieving family of his friend Lazarus, Jesus responded with anger, as well as compassion. Thus, the importance of the Gospel of John's blunt words: "Jesus wept."


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Plug-In: The Covenant School shootings -- media coverage focused on guns and victims

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Plug-In: The Covenant School shootings -- media coverage focused on guns and victims

Good morning, Weekend Plug-in readers. I wrote Plug-in a day early because headed to Arlington, Texas, for Opening Day, and I’ll be tied up with that important national holiday.

My beloved Texas Rangers open the 2023 season against the Philadelphia Phillies this afternoon. Surely this will be my team’s best season ever!

But first, we focus on the week’s big, tragic and violent news from Covenant Presbyterian Church and its school in Nashville, Tennessee, a city close to my heart.

What To Know: The Big Story

Three children, three adults slain: Once again, a mass shooting at a school shocked all of us and surprised none of us.

At a Wednesday night vigil in Nashville, “Each speaker echoed the names of those who did not return home earlier this week.”

The children who died were Evelyn Dieckhaus, William Kinney and Hallie Scruggs, all 9 years old. The adults who died were Mike Hill, 61; Katherine Koonce, 60; and Cynthia Peak, 61.

The victims were people of strong faith with the children characterized as “feisty” and a “shining light,” according to an Associated Press team, including Nashville-based religion news editor Holly Meyer.

Peaceful day shattered: Monday started with a normal chapel assembly at The Covenant School, a Presbyterian elementary, Christianity Today’s Daniel Silliman and Kate Shellnutt report.

Within a few hours, though, the school, which is all about “celebrating” children, became a killing scene, as Reuters’ Sharon Bernstein describes it.

Traumatized survivors were taken to a nearby Baptist church that served as a reunification site for children and parents, as The Tennessean’s Molly Davis explains.

For ongoing coverage, follow religion reporter, Liam Adams.

Making sense of it: In the face of tragedy, petitioning God is an act of faith, New York Times columnist David French writes.


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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

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Podcast: Was the attack on a conservative Presbyterian school in Nashville a religion story?

Was the attack on the elementary school at Nashville’s Covenant Presbyterian Church a religion-news story?

Of course it was, for at least four reasons that we discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

(1) It was an attack on a conservative Christian school at a conservative Presbyterian church in a city that is often called the buckle fn the Bible Belt (although locals know that the Nashville establishment, especially in media, is left of center).

(2) Religious groups have played a major role in Tennessee debates about parental rights, education and LGBTQ issues. What does that have to do with the shooting? Hold that thought.

(3) Religious groups have played a major role in discussions of gun-control legislation in Tennessee and, in this case, it is important to avoid political labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” in that discussion.

(4) The young adult who attacked the Covenant School was a former student there. Audrey Hale had recently identified as Aiden Hale in social media, with male pronouns. Hale was still living in a conservative Christian home, with a mother who both was a strong advocate of gun control and on the staff of Village Chapel in Nashville.

What else do news readers know about the shooter? That depends — in this new age of partisan, advocacy media — on which news organizations a reader follows. In most mainstream coverage, even in Nashville, questions about the life and beliefs of the shooter have all but vanished.

Consider this short paragraph late, late in a Religion News Service follow-up report: “Grief, fear haunt Nashville as residents gather to mourn in wake of Covenant shooting.”

Very little is known about the shooter, a former student at Covenant who was killed by police. The shooter reportedly left a manifesto that has not been made public. 

Really? “Very” little?


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