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Sideline sermons are evolving during this tense age in American life

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Sideline sermons are evolving during this tense age in American life

Moments after the Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LIX, quarterback Jalen Hurts offered a familiar word of testimony: "God is good. He is greater than all of the highs and lows."

If those words sounded familiar, it's because Hurts -- the MVP -- shared them earlier on press day, along with several other moments in the spotlight: "My faith has always been a part of me. I've always wanted to root myself in that and keep (God) in the center of my life. … So, through the highs and the lows, He's greater than all of them, and that's something that I can always acknowledge."

Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni opened his post-victory remarks with: "God's blessed us very much. He gave us all the talents to be able to get here, so first and foremost, thanks to Him. … Thank God. Thank you, Jesus."

The coach and his quarterback were not alone, because Godtalk has become more common after championships than pledges to visit a theme park. But the language used during these testimonies has become more nuanced.

"What they said, and didn't say, was quite interesting," said Robert Benne of Roanoke College, who founded its Benne Center for Church and Society. Now 87, he has been writing about faith and sports for decades.

"Not one of them talked about God being on their side," he said, reached by telephone. "They avoided what many would consider evangelistic language, and no one suggested that they prayed to God to help them win. … They were careful not to suggest, in any way, that they had been manipulating the Deity."

This is significant since boastful behavior has become the norm in sports entertainment, Benne recently noted in a Roanoke Times column.

"This is the era of the expressive self," he wrote, under a "Why it's now hard to watch big time football" headline. "Dancing, prancing, running wildly, pounding one's chest with a primal scream. How wonderful, according to the legion of cameras that record every gaping mouth. … The expressive self quickly turns into the aggrandizing self."

Any fusion of proud, pushy behavior and fervent faith would, in "this highly divided country that we have right now," lead to cheers among some viewers and just as many jeers from others, said Benne. Even worse, many commentators immediately interpret statements of public faith as political declarations.

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Chaplains: Helping the suffering journey from the "Why?" to the "When?"

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Chaplains: Helping the suffering journey from the "Why?" to the "When?"

The chaplain's prayer is posted near the chapel of Baptist Hospital in Beaumont, Texas, a space shared by patients, families, visitors, doctors and the whole staff.

"Dear God, who makest thyself known in deeds rather than in mere words, deepen within us respect and appreciation for opportunities to serve. Thou has promised aid and blessing where men deal justly, show mercy, and serve humbly. Give us a faithfulness to our task, a patience in anxiety, added skill in work done. Add to our wills a readiness to follow thy guidance; to our hearts a compassion like unto the Great Physician who ministered in love and without favor."

The prayer was written by the Rev. Weldon Langley, the hospital's chaplain from 1960 to 1985. Langley continued part-time until 1993, completing four decades of chaplaincy work with Baptist institutions on the Texas Gulf Coast. He died in 2013 at the age of 96.

Langley's prayer has retained its strategic location as the hospital complex expanded into new, updated facilities.

"Weldon was a chaplain to the patients and their families, but he was also a pastor -- year after year -- to the doctors, nurses and everybody else," said the Rev. David Cross, who followed Langley at Baptist Hospital. While Langley focused on the needs of patients, "his insights into what makes life worth living made him a shepherd for everyone. He was a chaplain's chaplain."

Every year, the Global Chaplains Alliance dedicates the first Saturday of February to honoring chaplains. For me, it's impossible to discuss the ministry of chaplains without mentioning my "Uncle Weldon" Langley, who was very close to my father, the Rev. Bert Mattingly, who also had experience as a chaplain. My father died in 1999.

Chaplains work with hospitals, hospices, military units, legislatures, schools, sports teams, corporations, prisons and police and fire departments. Many, but not all, are ordained ministers. For most Americans, the chaplains they know best serve in the nation's 6,000 or more hospitals.

Pastors visit the sick and dying from their own congregations, noted Cross. For hospital chaplains, this is the heart of their work -- every day.

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The Big Ideas at March for Life 2025 were bigger than mere political slogans

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The Big Ideas at March for Life 2025 were bigger than mere political slogans

The questions at the 2025 March for Life were familiar ones for D.C. Beltway insiders: Would major politicians show up and what would they say?

After a White House race in which his softer abortion language worried conservatives, President Donald Trump's video message affirmed: "To all of the very special people marching today in this bitter cold, I know your hearts are warm and your spirits are strong because your mission is just very, very pure: to forge a society that welcomes and protects every child as a beautiful gift from the hand of our Creator."

Vice President J.D. Vance, a convert to Catholicism, appeared in person and stressed the need to be "pro-family and pro-life in the fullest sense of that word. … Let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America. I want more happy children in our country, and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them."

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, in deeply personal remarks, stressed that he was born just before Roe v. Wade and this timing was more than symbolic. "I was the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy," he told the rally crowd, "and I am so eternally grateful that my mom and dad ignored all the people who told them to just take care of that problem, and they chose to embrace life and to have me, the first of their four children. It's a simple fact -- a very simple fact -- that had they not done that, I would not be here."

This was the third national March for Life since the Supreme Court vote to overturn Roe v. Wade and the January 24 event was affected by harsh winter weather that, days earlier, moved the presidential inauguration ceremonies inside the U.S. Capitol. Nevertheless, organizers estimated that the rally and march drew about 150,000 people, including busloads of students.

The vigil Mass the night before the march packed the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, with 5,000 students, adults and activists gathered in a variety of worship spaces inside the basilica, since the upper-sanctuary pews hold about 3,500 people.

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How the Babylon Bee helped topple digital dominos in the media marketplace

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How the Babylon Bee helped topple digital dominos in the media marketplace

On March 15, 2022, Babylon Bee editors ran a blunt joke about a powerful American leader -- proclaiming the assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services as the website's "Man of the Year."

The joke caused controversy because Admiral Rachel L. Levine had, more than a decade earlier, transitioned to become a transgender woman and, two days before the Bee jab, was named one of the "Women of the Year" by USA Today.

At that point, the Twitter management cancelled the Babylon Bee's account, cutting a vital link between the Christian satire website and the online readers that were its lifeblood.

"Many people said trans people are already subject to so much ridicule, and posts like this just fan the flames against a minority group," noted Bari Weiss, editor of The Free Press, in a recent podcast with Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon. "How do you respond to that criticism?"

That's a "fair question," noted Dillon, but one built on the "concept that comedy should be something that only punches up at the power structure. That the oppressors can do no right, the oppressed can do no wrong. They're marginalized, and they need to be protected and insulated, and the powerful can be the subject of scorn and ridicule."

In this scenario, an evangelical humor website far from the entertainment-industry mainstream was the powerful "oppressor." Meanwhile, noted Dillon: "Admiral Rachel Levine is a transgender admiral in the Biden administration, a high-ranking government official. The narrative that's being imposed on the culture is … coming from the top down, imposed on people that really do in large numbers find it absurd and objectionable. So we were, in fact, punching up."

With the Bee locked in "Twitter jail," digital dominoes began falling -- a chain reaction that would help shape in news and journalism, which would affect debates during a tense, complicated White House race.

On March 24, the Bee team heard from a reader -- Elon Musk -- who was paying close attention to "cancel culture" trends. As an omnipresent Twitter user, the world's richest tech entrepreneur was already getting messages from people urging him to buy the social-media platform.

Musk wanted to know why Bee tweets had vanished.

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Superstar Denzel Washington has officially claimed the freedom to preach

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Superstar Denzel Washington has officially claimed the freedom to preach

When describing his life, Denzel Washington often notes a mysterious encounter on March 27, 1975, offering it as a parable about his Christian faith and his acting career.

The young Washington was in his mother's Mount Vernon, New York, beauty parlor, after horrible grades forced a leave of absence from Fordham University. An elderly church woman, who many believed had unique spiritual gifts, looked him in the eye and asked for a piece of paper.

Scribbling the details, Ruth Green announced: "I have a prophecy. Boy, you are going to travel the world and speak to millions of people."

Sharing this story at Dillard University in New Orleans in 2015, Washington added pulpit friendly advice: "What she told me that day has stayed with me ever since. I've been protected. I've been directed. I've been corrected. I've kept God in my life."

The actor stressed these words: "Put. God. First.”

After a press screening of "The Book of Eli" in 2010, he added another wrinkle, pondering the prophecy's implications. At one point, Washington, a member of the giant West Angeles Church of God in Christ, wondered if he was supposed to have been ordained.

Washington said his pastor noted: "Well, aren't you talking to millions of people? Haven't you traveled the world?"

That question recently surfaced, once again, when the two-time Oscar winner received a minister's license at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ in Harlem, a congregation he attended as a child. During this December 21 baptism rite -- broadcast online -- Washington rededicated his life to God and moved one step from full ordination. As a licensed minister, he can preach, perform weddings and lead some religious services.

"We celebrate the addition of Minister Denzel Washington into the clergy … in a truly uplifting moment," Archbishop Christopher Bryant wrote on Facebook.

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Jimmy Carter -- a progressive, evolving Baptist in a changing Bible Belt

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Jimmy Carter -- a progressive, evolving Baptist in a changing Bible Belt

The young Jimmy Carter was a political nobody the first time he ran for governor of Georgia.

That long-shot 1966 effort failed, leaving him wrestling with doubts about his future and his faith. But Carter rallied, including years of work with Billy Graham's 1973 Atlanta Crusade. He also joined a small circle of Southern Baptists who travelled to the central Pennsylvania hills to witness to the unchurched.

"We had a wonderful religious experience," Carter told the Historical Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "We had 18 people who accepted Christ that week, and we organized a church … before we left." The experience, he said, left him "the closest to Christ" that he had ever felt in his life.

That turning point, featured in the Baptist Press report marking the death of the 100-year-old former president, was a perfect example of the "born-again" faith that made Carter so mysterious to America's political establishment when he reached the White House in 1976. Carter's blend of Southern piety and stubborn political convictions would end up changing the role of American evangelicals in public life.

Truth is, Carter was part of two endangered groups -- populist Southern Democrats and progressive Southern Baptists. In 1976, he fared well with evangelical voters, for a Democrat, but exit polls basically showed a toss-up. In 1980, many evangelicals rejected him and helped create Ronald Reagan's landslide win.

Carter's attempts to state his personal convictions against abortion, while backing legalized abortion, confused and then angered many evangelicals. Meanwhile, Carter's opposition to public funding for abortion helped create a revolt among Democrats, with Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts attempting to unseat him as the nominee.

Over time, Christian progressives would stress that Carter, as a Baptist, consistently stressed that he would clearly state his own beliefs, while rejecting political actions that he thought would use government power to promote specific religious doctrines.

"The United States' most religious president in recent memory was also the most committed to the separation of church and state," noted Amanda Tyler, leader of the progressive Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

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Were there any religion-news events in 2024? It rather hard to say ....

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President Donald Trump is returning to the White House, convinced -- after a close encounter with an assassin's bullet -- that he had God on his side in the election.

While opinions differed on that theological question, Trump clearly drew strong support from voters that frequented pews. In Washington Post exit polls, he received 56% of the Catholic votes, while 41% backed Vice President Kamala Harris. In 2020, 52% of self-identified Catholics supported President Joe Biden, with 47% for Trump.

As always, Trump fared well with Protestants and "other Christians," with 62% supporting him, as opposed to 37% for Harris. She won 60% of the votes of non-Christian believers, while Trump had 33% -- up 4% from his showing in 2020.

Thus, members of Religion News Association selected the 2024 presidential election as the year's top national religion story. The 2024 poll of religion-news professionals was dominated by analysis of national and international news, as opposed to specific headlines and events, with a strong emphasis on trends among religious conservatives.

But Trump's wins among religious believers -- as well as gains among Latinos and Black men -- were only one side of this drama, stressed Jessica Grose of the New York Times opinion staff.

Democrats should note the "large and growing religious group that is already in their corner: the Nones," she noted, referring to religiously unaffiliated Americans. "According to new data from the Public Religion Research Institute … 72 percent of the religiously unaffiliated voted for Kamala Harris. Melissa Deckman, the chief executive of P.R.R.I., shared a more granular breakdown of unaffiliated voters with me over email: 82 percent of atheists, 80 percent of agnostics and 64 percent of those who said they had no particular faith voted for Harris."

However, key voters rejected Democratic Party stands on many cultural and moral issues, noted Ruy Teixeira, a veteran Democrat strategist. In a Blueprint2024 survey, the top reason "swing" voters gave for rejecting Harris was that she seemed "more focused on transgender issues" than middle-class needs. Thus, one Trump ad proclaimed: "Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for YOU."

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Life lessons (along with some parables) in the classic comedy 'A Christmas Story'

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Life lessons (along with some parables) in the classic comedy 'A Christmas Story'

Humorist Jean Shepherd was a teen-ager when his father came home from work and began packing a suitcase.

"What are ya doin', Dad?", asked Shepherd.

Describing the scene to communication scholar Quentin Schultze, he said that his father replied: "I'm leaving. You'll understand when you get older."

Shepherd's father moved away and married a "trophy wife."

This wasn't the kind of dark, life-changing event that tends to inspire a crucial symbol and theme in a beloved Christmas movie, noted Schultze. But Shepherd wove parts of his own life story into his storytelling, including work that became "A Christmas Story."

Americans who watch this 1983 family comedy -- about 40 million click into the 24-hour marathon on TBS and TNT, starting on Christmas Eve -- know that it centers on a boy named Ralphie who is obsessed with his parents giving him a 200-shot Red Ryder air rifle BB gun.

But another iconic image is the leg-shaped lamp, wearing a fishnet stocking worthy of a bordello, that Ralphie's "Old Man" received as his "major award" after winning a quiz contest. What was that all about?

Schultze learned the answer when, for three years in the 1980s, he taught a college-level storytelling class with Shepherd, while saving notebooks full of insights from their time together.

"As Shepherd told me, the leg lamp became the Old Man's trophy wife, which he had to show off to the world. He was unable to carry on his 'affair' with discretion," wrote Schultze, in "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out! Life Lessons from the movie 'A Christmas Story.'" He is now professor emeritus at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The quest for the Red Ryder rifle has a heartwarming final act, with a boy bonding with his volatile "Old Man," the father's only name in the script. And the leg lamp story also has a happy ending, even though it's clear that Ralphie's mother broke it on purpose.

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Christmas in the mountains of North Carolina: Leaning into faith after the flood

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Christmas in the mountains of North Carolina: Leaning into faith after the flood

Christmas is a good news, bad news situation in Pensacola, a tiny community in the Cane River Valley high in the mountains of North Carolina.

The good news is that Hurricane Helene flooding -- which washed away almost everything at the town's crossroads -- was followed by waves of volunteers and relief shipments from churches, nonprofits and businesses large and small. Most of the Laurel Branch Baptist Church survived, in part because a bus-sized RV was swept into the front of the sanctuary, which diverted some of the raging floodwaters.

The bad news? While conditions are improving, many face Christmas in badly damaged houses, loaned mobile homes or worse. It's hard to put a Christmas tree inside a tent. And what happens if early snows and winds cripple the patched-up power lines?

"We've got people giving us Christmas on top of Christmas on top of Christmas. That's not the issue. We appreciate the generosity, but we have problems that are bigger than presents under a tree," said the Rev. Bradley Boone, pastor of Concord Baptist Church in nearby Burnsville. That's the county seat of rugged Yancey County, the location of Mount Mitchell -- the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River.

Pensacola is just one of many battered small towns along the matrix of rivers and creeks cut into the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Recent AccuWeather estimates for Helene damages have approached $250 billion. North Carolina lost at least 100 state bridges and more than 5,000 privately owned bridges.

The Boone roots run deep in the Cane River Valley, since he's in the seventh generation of a family tree topped by the legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone and his brothers. Pastor Boone is a veteran leader in the Pensacola Volunteer Fire Department, which was the hub for rescue work during and after Helene, as well as the ongoing relief efforts.

Boone's own home was damaged by one of the 2,000 landslides in the North Carolina mountains. The road to his house looked like it had been bombed.

Pensacola is part of my own story, since I have three decades of ties there with family, friends and neighbors.