Once upon a time, it was normal for news organizations to produce lists of the Top 10 stories of the year, usually with the emphasis on their city, region or nation. Others focused on the concerns of their readers or the unique editorial viewpoint of the publication. Some focused on the whole world or a specific kind of news in the world.
That was then. This year, I can’t even find a hard-news Top 10 list at The Associated Press mega-promotional page for “The Year in Review.” If I missed that list somewhere, please let me know.
Here at GetReligion, we have published several items looking back and also looking forward:
* Of course the pandemic was top 2020 religion-news story: But which COVID-19 story?
* So what went wrong in #2020, other than that whole coronavirus pandemic thing?
* Final #2020 podcast: The year when religion news went viral, and that was a bad thing
* New year and many old issues: Catholic storylines journalists need to keep an eye on in 2021
* Pondering 'Things to Come,' with help from savvy thumbsuckers and backgrounders
We will have a collection of Bobby Ross, Jr., items on 2020 — from several different angles — this coming Monday.
What happened to the old Top 10 list format?
It got lost, of course, in the need to point niche readers toward specific links of topical news, features and commentaries, hoping that they will click, click, click there way through a specific website’s offerings.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. After all, I just hit readers with a blitz of #2020 GetReligion URLs.
Now, let me point readers toward lots of other features of this kind elsewhere, all with specialty religion-news hooks. If I missed some good ones, please let me know in our comments pages.
First, there is “Our best religion stories from a terrible year” at Religion News Service. Summary:
It’s no news that 2020 will go down as one of the worst years in recent memory. But the triple-whammy of pandemic, economic crisis and demonstrations for racial justice that left many Americans beleaguered and angry also yielded some inspiring and profound stories of faith and spiritual connection. Here are 11 stories by our staff and frequent contributors that captured moments of resilience and perseverance, and even a few moments of celebration.
Looking ahead, there is this: “RNS reporters on the big stories they expect to cover in 2021.” As a sample, here is the item from veteran religion-news scribe Bob Smietana:
In 2021, conflicts over the role of religion in public life — at work, in public policy, at educational institutions, especially over issues of race, gender and sexuality — will be on the rise.
As in political life, too, nearly every sector of America’s faith landscape is facing a generational turnover: What new religious voices and leaders will arrive and how will older, more established religious leaders deal with new demographic and social realities? Will they share power and pass the baton on to a new generation or will they hold fast to what they already have?
Christianity Today offered a massive landing page full of promotional lists over various religious topics and spiritual topics. Check it out.
There was, I am glad to report, a Top 10 news stories list. Believe it or not, the COVID-19 pandemic was not the top pick:
1. Faith in the 2020 Presidential Election — In a contentious election that took four days to call and spurred weeks of legal challenges from the Trump campaign, Joe Biden won the 2020 US presidential race, which he called a “battle for the soul of the nation.” Though surveys show white evangelical support for Donald Trump held steady, Biden won over an increasingly vocal and organized minority of evangelical Trump opponents. …
Then there were the most-clicked CT features of the year, led by:
1. 20 Prayers to Pray During This Pandemic As COVID-19 sends the globe into crisis, it also sends us to our knees.
If you want an interesting specialty news list, how about this one at CT by veteran scribe Gordon Govier: “Biblical Archaeology’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2020 — Evidence of idol worship, evil kings, and Christian churches add to our understanding of the world of the Bible.”
Over at World magazine, the list of the year’s most-read features was topped by these three subjects:
1. The vitamin D factor — Research shows vitamin D sometimes prevents the common cold. Could it help ward off the new coronavirus?
2. New sexual misconduct claims surface about Ravi Zacharias — Famed apologist’s ministry and denomination pledge to investigate.
3. China’s real death toll — How many people really died of COVID-19 in Wuhan?
From the world of denominational news services, Baptist Press offered lists of the top 10 hard-news Southern Baptist stories of the year and then its own most-read features of the year. You know it’s a wild year when the cancellation of the SBC’s annual convention was not the top story. The top item was:
COVID-19: a global pandemic arrives — 2020 was the year of COVID-19, with virtually nothing in life left untouched – and much of life going virtual, so as not to touch much of anything. As the numbers of cases and deaths increased, Southern Baptists practiced social distancing, “attended” church on screens, waited for a vaccine – and continued to proclaim the Gospel throughout their communities, the nation and the world. See Baptist Press’ year-end report on the pandemic’s impact on Southern Baptists.
The most interesting Catholic news list that I found came from John L. Allen, Jr., at Crux. It was an analysis piece entitled: “Top Five Catholic Dogs that didn’t Bark in 2020.”
Concerning that title: You remember the whole Sherlock Holmes gambit in which a crime was solved because there was a dog that DIDN’T bark? Allen is talking about important Catholic stories one would have expected to make headlines in 2020, but they didn’t. His top item was:
1. Church/State Battles — Hypothetically, suppose governments all around the world, including some of the planet’s most traditionally Catholic societies, were to announce bans on public worship, prohibiting Catholics from attending Mass on holy days such as Easter.
In the abstract, one might expect massive resistance from the Vatican and the world’s bishops, clergy and faithful, perhaps triggering the most raucous church/state battles since the investiture controversies in the 11th and 12thcenturies.
Instead, aside from skirmishes such as the successful appeal of the Diocese of Brooklyn against restrictions imposed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, it was basically all quiet on the Western front. Notably, when high courts in France and Germany struck down similar limits, Catholic bishops in those nations weren’t parties to the litigation, and no such appeal was ever even mounted in the pope’s backyard of Italy.
Meanwhile, at Commonweal, the three most-read features of the year were: “Three Cheers for Socialism,” “Reading Buttigieg” and “A Different Kind of Catholic.” So there.
This was a big year for progressive evangelicals for a variety of reasons. As a sample, Sojourners offered the “Biggest Faith and Justice Stories of 2020.” If you are curious about that, here is the introduction to the concept behind that list:
It’s hard to hold all of the news that 2020 produced. In the same year that 300,000 Americans died of COVID-19 (and counting), 156 million Americans voted in the presidential election. During the same 12 months that wildfires raged in California and Australia, the Supreme Court upheld DACA. And in this massive year, some of our heroes died — Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis — and others were martyred: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. Most years are a give and take, but 2020 lost its balance. It mainly took lives and gave news. Every justice story had a faith angle and every faith story had a justice angle.
Church-State activists (and journalists) on the left and right will enjoy — for different reasons, of course — the Americans United feature entitled, “Top Church-State Separation Stories Of 2020.” Here is the top item to illustrate what this list is all about:
Presidential Election’s Implications For Church-State Separation: The contentious race for the White House occupied – and divided – much of the country throughout 2020. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were the clear winners and are preparing to take the oath of office on Jan. 20, but Trump, with the help of his Christian nationalist and other far-right allies, continues to sow conspiracy theories in an attempt to subvert democracy and ignore the will of the voters. Americans United is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we didn’t endorse or oppose either candidate. But it’s clear that Trump’s administration spent four years undermining church-state separation. We look forward to working with the Biden-Harris administration to restore and protect religious freedom for all. In fact, we’ve prepared an agenda of our top priorities for them.
That “agenda” list for the Joe Biden White House team may include some story tips for 2021.
Finally, the researchers at ReligionLink.com offered a list of five stories journalists may want to dig into, after the 2020 election. One provocative item was this:
Some Christians prophesied a Trump victory. Now what?
Some charismatic Christians prophesied that Trump would win his 2020 reelection bid. But the predictions of these religious leaders, who are seen as modern-day prophets by some, have not come true.
Despite postelection resistance from Trump and his supporters, Biden will be the country’s next commander-in-chief. So, what happens when prophecies don’t come true and how does it affect the people who believed in them?
That’s all for now. What did I miss?
Leave a comment, because I’m open to updates over this weekend.
FIRST IMAGE: A fitting 2020 mask from Teepublic.com
MAIN IMAGE: Illustration from a feature at The Well.