Top 10

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All those attacks on churches? Were they part of the year's top religion-beat news story?

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All those attacks on churches? Were they part of the year's top religion-beat news story?

In the years before Roe v. Wade, one of America's largest Christian flocks struggled to find a way to condemn abortion, while also opposing bans on abortion.

A 1971 resolution said: "Some advocate that there be no abortion legislation, thus making the decision a purely private matter between a woman and her doctor" while others "advocate no legal abortion," permitting it "only if the life of the mother is threatened." Thus, it backed legislation allowing "abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."

After the 1973 Roe decision, the same body stressed the "limited role of government" in abortion questions, while supporting a "full range of medical services and personal counseling" for expectant mothers.

That was the Southern Baptist Convention -- before its conservative wing gained control, creating a powerful cultural force against abortion rights.

Churches were always active in abortion debates, with some embracing centuries of doctrine on the sanctity of human life, while overs became strategic abortion-rights supporters. Thus, journalists in the Religion News Association named the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as the year's top American religion-news story. Now churches -- left and right face -- face the challenge of proclaiming certainties while many states seek compromise.

Stressing politics, the RNA stated: "The Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent and says there is no constitutional right to abortion, sparking battles in courts and state legislatures and driving voters to the November polls in high numbers. More than a dozen states enact abortion bans, while voters reject constitutional abortion restrictions in conservative Kansas and Kentucky and put abortion rights in three other states' constitutions."

This poll avoided other religion-news elements of this story, such as acts of violence against churches -- especially Catholic parishes -- and crisis pregnancy centers, ranging from vandalism to arson, from the interruption of sacred rites to the destruction of sacred art. Protestors marched at the homes of SCOTUS justices and police arrested an armed man who threatened to invade the house of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

This year, the RNA added an international list, selecting Russia's war against Ukraine as the top story, in part because of bitter tensions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, backed by the United States and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey.

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Top religion stories of 2019: #ChurchToo era hits the Southern Baptist Convention

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Top religion stories of 2019: #ChurchToo era hits the Southern Baptist Convention

Protest rallies have been common during the #MeToo era, but many of the demonstrators outside the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention were quoting scripture.

As a teaching tool, they offered a large model of a millstone. That was a reference to the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus warns that anyone who leads "little ones" astray, "it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."

Protestors come and go. Inside the convention center in Birmingham, Ala., Rachael Denhollander warned SBC leaders that it was past time for them to focus on the faces and stories of sexual-abuse survivors in their own pews. 

Abuse survivors are trying to get church leaders to stop hiding abusers and the institutions that shelter them, she said. Far too often, "we do this in the name of unity: 'Don't say anything negative. We need to be unified.' But, brothers and sisters … we are to be unified around the holiness of God. We are to be unified around our confrontation of sin and our confrontation of the darkness. We are to seek light."

Headlines about sexual abuse among Southern Baptists are "not a surprise" to survivors, she added. "What you need to understand is these men and women have been pleading with the church to hear their voices for decades and they have been shut out over and over and over again in the name of Christ. That's what the SBC has done to these survivors. You need to understand the perspective that they have come from. You need to feel the grief and the betrayal and the harm and the hurt they have felt."

Denhollander is best known as the first woman to speak out and file a police report of abuse against USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. She also has played a crucial role in the #ChurchToo firestorm surrounding the SBC after a Houston Chronicle investigation that revealed hundreds of victims of abuse by clergy and volunteers in America's largest non-Catholic flock. Members of the Religion News Association members selected the SBC scandal as the religion story of 2019.

However, Denhollander was not selected as the RNA's top religion newsmaker. That honor went to Democratic U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who were at the center of bitter 2019 debates about U.S. aid to Israel.

I voted for Denhollander as the top religion newsmaker. As my No. 1 story, I combined several poll options to focus on the year's hellish uptick in attacks on worshipers in mosques, Jewish facilities and churches, including 250 killed in terrorist attacks on Easter in Sri Lanka.

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The Top 10 religion news stories of 2017? Alas, it's Donald Trump uper alles

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The Top 10 religion news stories of 2017? Alas, it's Donald Trump uper alles

While there was nothing new about someone entering a religious sanctuary and gunning down the faithful, the bloodshed at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, was truly historic.

Was that 2017's most important religion story?

What about Myanmar troops forcing half a million Muslim Rohingya into Bangladesh, with reports of children being beheaded and people burned alive? What about the #MeToo campaign against sexual abuse, which turned into #ChurchToo, with women describing soul-wracking private tragedies.

For me, the year's biggest story took place in Charlottesville, Va., where white supremacist marchers shouted anti-Semitic curses and claimed God was on their side. Meanwhile, clergy prayed and sang hymns in counter-protests. Southern Baptists and other believers proclaimed the alt-right was working for Satan.

But that wasn't the top story, either, according to journalists voting in the Religion News Association poll for 2017. No, once again this was a year dominated by Donald Trump and armies of evangelicals who, in myriad mainstream news reports, marched in lockstep support behind his political agenda.

Trump was named Religion Newsmaker of the Year, after "his inauguration triggered upheaval across a number of religious fronts, among them the role of evangelical support of his administration; fierce debates over Islam, race and religious liberty; the appointment of conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch; and executive orders relating to immigration and terrorism," said the RNA announcement.

Meanwhile, in a variety of public debates, bitter Trump-era rifts among Christian conservatives kept getting deeper and wider. This was perfectly captured in a New York Times forum after the Alabama defeat of old Religious Right hero Roy Moore.