Friday Five: #RNA2019, pastor suicide, newspaper credibility, culture wars, hilarious sermons

It’s day two of the Religion News Association annual conference in Las Vegas.

That’s right — the nation’s religion journalists are discussing faith and spirituality in Sin City.

More on that as we dive into Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: I wrote about the RNA meeting in my post Thursday.

By all means, follow the conference in real time via the #RNA2019 hashtag on Twitter. Also, the RNA is live-streaming sessions on its Facebook page.

A few highlights:

2. Most popular GetReligion post: “Believers must face this: All kinds of people (pastors too) wrestle with depression and suicide,” Terry Mattingly wrote in this week’s No. 1 most-clicked post.

If you haven’t, make sure to read the post. In it, tmatt noted that this is one of the most personal topics that he has ever touched on here at GetReligion. Yes, all of this is linked to one of the major national religion-news stories of last week — the suicide of the Rev. Jarrid Wilson, the 30-year-old founder of a a nationally known ministry for people struggling with depression and suicide. Then again, the recent 9/11 anniversary played a role in this post. And double make sure to listen to the related podcast.

3. Guilt folder fodder (and more): The headline on Walter Hussman’s Jr.’s op-ed for the Wall Street Journal says it all: “Impartiality Is the Source of a Newspaper’s Credibility.”

“That means honestly reporting, editing and delivering the news without opinion or bias,” says the Journal column by the publisher of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (warning: the piece may behind a paywall).

4. Shameless plug: When the two original GetReligionistas offer takes on the same must-read think piece in The Atlantic Monthly, you don’t want to miss it.

Check out tmatt’s piece headlined “The Atlantic bravely attempts a religion-free (almost) look at New York kids in the culture wars.”

Then peruse Douglas LeBlanc’s related column “About George Packer's takedown of wokeness: is moral absolutism the problem?”

5. Final thought: In the mood for some end-of-the-week religion humor? Here you go.

Happy Friday, everybody!

Enjoy the weekend!


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