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By Bobby Ross Jr. | Religion Unplugged
DECATUR, Ga. — Greetings from the Atlanta area, birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and home of Coca-Cola and the world’s busiest airport.
I’m in “The Big Peach” attending the Religion News Association’s annual conference and planning to check MLB ballpark No. 24 — the Braves’ Truist Park — off my bucket list tonight.
As I connect with fellow Godbeat pros, I thought I’d mention a trend I’ve noticed — the rise of religion newsletters.
Just a few weeks ago, I learned that The New York Times has a weekly “Believing” newsletter. Lauren Jackson launched it in the fall of 2025, but I just discovered it when “The Morning” — the Times’ flagship digital newsletter — mentioned it on Easter.
As of last month, the Washington Post also has a weekly religion newsletter, called “Awakenings” and edited by Matthew Schmitz
For a while, news organizations thought social media might serve to drive traffic to their high-quality content. The Facebooks and Twitters of the world — sorry, it’s X now — ruined that notion.
Now, email seems — again? — to be the way to go, as newsletters that pop directly into inboxes thrive with niche audiences interested in topics such as politics, sports and, yes, religion.
By my rough count, this marks the 293rd edition of Weekend Plug-in since it debuted in January 2020. So we jumped on this trend a while ago. Sign up, too, for Religion Unplugged’s “Week in Headlines” if you have not already.
Three of my favorite religion newsletters are The Associated Press’ “World of Faith,” the Deseret News’ “State of Faith” and The Dispatch’s “Dispatch Faith.”
I appreciate editors of those newsletters — Holly Meyer, AP’s Nashville, Tennessee-based religion news editor; Mariya Manzhos, a Boston-based journalist for the Deseret News; and Michael Reneau, a Tennessee-based managing editor of The Dispatch — answering a few questions about their work:
This column appears in the online magazine Religion Unplugged.
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Faith. Family. Fastballs. 