Tim Scott

Plug-In: Many churches are vanishing, while others are growing. Trends worth covering?

Plug-In: Many churches are vanishing, while others are growing. Trends worth covering?

This newsletter marks the return of Weekend Plug-in after two weeks of vacation. Did you miss me?

I’m still catching up on the headlines I missed while watching a whole lot of Texas Rangers games.

But I know the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on two important religious freedom cases — one on religious accommodation at work and the other involving free speech and free exercise protections for people of faith who are creative professionals.

Click the preceding links, by the way, to read excellent coverage of the decisions by the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner.

In more recent news, the gunman who killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue is eligible for the death penalty, a federal jury announced. The decision clears the way, as The Associated Press’ Peter Smith reports, “for further evidence and testimony on whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison.”

In case you need a reminder, this is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with the giant religion trend that should be bigger news.

What To Know: The Big Story

Houses of worship closing: “Everybody is caught up with fighting over sexuality or politics on Twitter — and almost no one is paying attention (to) the collapse of congregational life in America.”

Religion News Service national writer Bob Smietana made that prescient observation on social media this week. Smietana, of course, wrote a book on the subject called “Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters.”

Many churches are shrinking. Then again, some churches are growing. Trends worth covering? What are the patterns here?


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After 303 Creative: Can readers find Twitter voices (hello David French) that help us think?

After 303 Creative: Can readers find Twitter voices (hello David French) that help us think?

It’s been a scary couple of days for post-liberals in America, with two major Supreme Court decisions (one of them unanimous) defending old-liberal concepts of religious liberty and free speech.

When the 303 Creative LLC decision hit the headlines (click here to read the majority opinion), I did something that’s quite rare in my household — I turned on the television and tried to watch mainstream cable-TV news.

Let’s face it: I struggle to understand why we have journalists who want the state to have the power to compel speech (intellectual content in general) in the work of writers, artists, video professionals, etc. But this post isn’t about the content of the news coverage of these decisions.

No, this is a post that I was requested to write after a recent luncheon with clergy, students, faculty and others at the Overby Center at Ole Miss. We kept coming back to a crucial question for news consumers: How do we find a compelling mix of news and commentary — representing different points of view — in an age in which most newsrooms embrace business models in which they tell paying customers exactly what they want to hear?

Here is another way of stating that: How do we find news and commentary that helps us understand the views of people what we need to respect (or at the very least truly tolerate), even when we disagree with them?

This led me to Twitter. I told folks that, when the 303 Creative decision was released, they needed to read whatever First Amendment specialist David French wrote about it. Why? Because I was convinced that he would find a way to parse the opinions and offer insights that made people on both sides of the decision very uncomfortable.

This is, frankly, why I have followed his work for several decades. This is why he is on a short list of people that I follow on Twitter when digging into major news trends and events. Hold that thought, because I will share my current version of that list at the end of this post.

But back to French and the headline on his New York Times column about this SCOTUS decision: “How Christians and Drag Queens Are Defending the First Amendment.”

Told ya.


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Yes, the perennial 'voters in pews' factor hovers as 2024 White House scenarios emerge

Yes, the perennial 'voters in pews' factor hovers as 2024 White House scenarios emerge

Only a candidate like Joe Biden is so problematic he could lose to a candidate like Donald Trump.

Only a Trump is so problematic he could lose to a Biden. That’s one way to frame what the early polls are telling us about Americans’ attitude about their 2024 choice.

Since Biden is so far successfully freezing out major Democratic competitors, the big question for journalists is whether any Republican can dethrone Donald Trump. Hovering over that -- as always with Republicans -- is how active churchgoers will assess the large flock (once again) of dump-Trump hopefuls in the winner-take-all primaries.

Take the newbies. Can Ron DeSantis’s grumpy Trumpiness freed from Trump’s baggage prevail, or the exact opposite?

Tim Scott’s Reagan-esque sunniness plus religiosity Trump lacks?

Can former Nikki Haley straddle both Trumpers (playing for Veep?) and anti-Trumpers?

Can pious Vice President Mike Pence overcome hostility from both those sides? Would Chris Christie eviscerate ex-pal Trump but without winning, as with Mario Rubio 2016?

If the more cheerful Asa Hutchinson or Chris Sununu also assail Trump, won’t they alienate his base? Would a rumored Glenn Youngkin entry come too late? Do the others have any hope?

By such common calculations, Trump appears all but inevitable 58 weeks before the nominating convention. But with such a surreal candidate -- with coming courtroom tangles -- might those pious Republicans shock the pundits? Wouldn’t that be a story?

The news media shouldn’t forget the religion angle with the Democrats and Joe Biden’s currently lethargic campaign.


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Pod people: Don't mention the war!

“Don’t mention the war!” is the catch phrase from “The Germans” episode of the British television series Fawlty Towers. I thought of this episode and John Cleese when I prepared a story for GetReligion on the New York Times‘ and Los Angeles Times’ reporting on the Bundestag’s vote to protect the religious freedom of Jews and Muslims by forbidding courts to ban the circumcision of infant boys.


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The Guardian does not get Tim Scott

Amongst your GetReligion correspondents I was the last to board the twitter train. Now I knew about this micro-blogging tool and had heard of tumblr and instagram — and I even had a Facebook page. But I was slow to utilize these communication tools in my reporting. I cannot explain this reticence, for since I was a child I have been fascinated by these tools.


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