Thread by @jackmjenkins

1. Alright, I suppose it’s my turn to list some of my favorite stories from 2018!

The first happens to be the first one I wrote — i.e., when I got the nerdiest scoop and found out that Jared Kushner is, in fact, an ordained Universal Life Church minister. religionnews.com/2018/01/04/jar…

2. Then myself and @emmillerwrites launched an investigation into how Trump’s travel ban was impacting the faith-based groups that help resettle refugees for the govt.

Spoiler alert: it was a LOT. religionnews.com/2018/02/16/fai…

3. I also got to travel down to Lynchburg, Virginia for the “Red Letter Revival,” where progressive-leaning evangelical activists and ministers prayed and worshipped in what amounted to a de facto protest of nearby Liberty University. religionnews.com/2018/04/09/at-…

4. Speaking of Liberty U, I wrote a few stories about them, but few triggered as big a response (including from Falwell himself) as one I thought was innocuous: that it isn’t that largest Christian university anymore. religionnews.com/2018/04/27/lib…

5. In the entirely different religion/ethics and tech genre, I wrote about how Catholic thinkers are tackling the idea of artificial intelligence: religionnews.com/2018/05/22/the…

And how Silicon Valley is approaching ethics (which was surprisingly timely): religionnews.com/2018/04/11/as-…

6. I also spent several months investigating ties between Russia, American religious groups, and the 2016 election.

I finished the first shortly after Maria Butina was arrested for allegedly trying to exploit the National Prayer Breakfast for Russia: religionnews.com/2018/07/18/why…

7. Relatedly, I wrote this other one about the broader overlap between Russia and the American Religious Right, which is focused primarily on Franklin Graham’s Russia ties: davidgibson.religionnews.com/2018/08/07/the…

8. I wrote a BUNCH on Jeff Sessions and faith-based opposition to his immigration policies, but arguably the most interesting one was the effort by some Methodists to invoke church discipline against him. religionnews.com/2018/06/19/mor…

9. Meanwhile, I covered the resurgence of the Catholic sex abuse crisis, and reached out to literally every U.S. Catholic diocese to ask whether they would voluntarily hand over clergy files to law enforcement (and broke news about a FL investigation): religionnews.com/2018/09/19/as-…

10. Oh and I interviewed Cory Booker about his own faith and his emerging connection to the Religious Left, which you can read here: religionnews.com/2018/10/24/cor…

11. And lastly, what year as a religion-and-politics journalist would be complete w/out a feature on charismatic Christians who descended on the Trump International Hotel in DC to try and pray the Trump admin to victory?

Of COURSE I was gonna cover that: religionnews.com/2018/12/10/at-…

12. That’s all for now, but I’ve already got some exciting things in the works for 2019 (for real).

Y’all get stoked.