Most weeks, I send out a “live” version of Weekend Plug-in.
This week, though, I expected to be on an airplane as this e-newsletter began arriving in readers’ inboxes. So if any UFOs got shot out of the sky this weekend, don’t look for the religion angle right here, right now.
But please do enjoy this prescheduled roundup of the best reads and top headlines in the world of faith.
What To Know: The Big Story
Blessed Stanley: A dedication Mass for a $50 million shrine honoring the Catholic Church’s first U.S.-born martyr was held in Oklahoma City. I wrote about the life — and death — of slain missionary Stanley Francis Rother for The Associated Press.
My story notes:
The Spanish colonial-style structure incorporates a 2,000-seat sanctuary as well as a visitor center, gift shop, museum and smaller chapel that will serve as Rother’s final resting place.
The shrine grounds also will feature a re-creation of Tepeyac Hill, the Mexico City site where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indigenous Mexican man named Juan Diego in 1531. An artist created painted bronze statues of Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Juan Diego — each weighing thousands of pounds — for the Oklahoma site.
Life and ministry: For the best in-depth coverage of Rother and the shrine, be sure to follow The Oklahoman’s faith editor, Carla Hinton, who has covered this story for years.
Among her features this week: a detailed look at the shrine museum and an exploration of how “Rother’s heart has remained with his beloved Guatemalan parishioners.”
A final shrine note: I first wrote about Rother in 2001 during my time as religion editor for The Oklahoman. In 2017, I did a Religion News Service feature on the love for “Father Stan” in his hometown of Okarche, Oklahoma.
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. ‘Ready to meet God’: What a powerful cover story in Christianity Today by global staff writer Sophia Lee.
In her latest dispatch from Ukraine — coinciding with the upcoming anniversary of Russia’s attack on that Eastern European nation — Lee details how “pastors and church leaders who stayed behind serve as if every day might be their last.”
2. A Duggar’s religious upbringing: “Jinger Duggar Vuolo, who was one of 19 children on a popular reality show, becomes a powerful voice in a trend of young adults re-examining their own conservative Christian childhoods.”
Religion writer Ruth Graham tackles that compelling angle in the New York Times.
For more on the sixth-oldest Duggar child’s “personal theological memoir,” see Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion editor Frank Lockwood’s story.
3. Asbury revival: Why are students at a Christian university in Kentucky praying and singing round the clock?
Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana provides answers.
To go deeper, see coverage by Mark A. Kellner at the Washington Times and Meagan Saliashvili coverage at JulieRoys.com. For historical insight, check out Christianity Today’s 1970 piece on a past Asbury revival.
CONTINUE READING: “$50 Million Shrine Honors Catholic Farm Boy Who Became A Martyr,” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.