Defining the Iowa evangelicals who support Donald Trump: Is going to church required?

U.S. pastors are struggling with post-pandemic burnout: A survey indicates half considered quitting since 2020, The Associated Press’ Peter Smith reports.

U.S. attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions increased 360% in the three months that ended Sunday, according to Anti-Defamation League data cited by the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner.

And online Bible reading continued to increase in 2023, Lifeway Research’s Marissa Postell Sullivan notes.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with the evangelicals supporting former President Donald Trump in Monday’s Iowa caucuses.

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“Donald Trump seems to have locked down a majority of the evangelical Iowan vote in this year's Republican caucuses, even as local leaders have tried to steer them toward his competitor, Ron DeSantis,” Axios’ Linh Ta writes.

But who are these evangelicals?

“They are not just the churchgoing, conservative activists who once dominated the G.O.P.,” according to the New York Times’ Ruth Graham and Charles Homans.

The Times explains:

Being evangelical once suggested regular church attendance, a focus on salvation and conversion and strongly held views on specific issues such as abortion. Today, it is as often used to describe a cultural and political identity: one in which Christians are considered a persecuted minority, traditional institutions are viewed skeptically and Mr. Trump looms large.

When covering complex, controversial subjects, the journalism educators at the Poynter Institute have long stressed the importance of paying attention to criticisms made by “stakeholders” linked to a story.

What’s a “stakeholder”? Basically, it is a person or group directly linked to the core issues and information included in a news story, people whose lives and work will be directly affected by this coverage.

That’s the first thing I thought about when I saw the ambitious Associated Press feature that ran with this headline: “US Catholic priests describe turmoil amid sex abuse crisis.” It’s an important article addressing a topic — waves of change sweeping over a declining number of priests — that would be hard to cover in a book-length report, let alone a newspaper feature.

What do the ultimate “stakeholders” — Catholic priests — think of this story?

As you would expect, the story had to find a way to focus — focusing special attention on the work of one priest who symbolizes larger trends. Thus, readers are introduced to the Rev. Mark Stelzer, a 62-year-old professor and chaplain at a Catholic college in Western Massachusetts who is also a recovering alcoholic who helps others wrestling with that demon. Now, he has been asked to serve as administrator at a nearby parish with 500 families. This brings us to the heart of this report:

Weighing on the entire Catholic clergy in the U.S. is the ripple effect of their church’s long-running crisis arising from sex abuse committed by priests. It’s caused many honorable priests to sense an erosion of public support and to question the leadership of some of their bishops. That dismay is often compounded by increased workloads due to the priest shortage, and increased isolation as multi-priest parishes grow scarce. They see trauma firsthand. Some priests minister in parishes wracked by gun violence; others preside frequently over funerals of drug-overdose victims.