Friday’s News & Ideas - 10/31/2025
- US limiting entry of refugees
- 20 years since Robinson’s ‘Gilead’
- Conservative influence on university
- Religious leaders on SNAP
- LDS families having fewer kids
- Traditional hunting & gathering
US will limit number of refugees to 7,500 and give priority to white South Africans
The Guardian: The low number represents a dramatic drop after the US previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution.
Religion News Service: We practice our faith by welcoming refugees. Now, that work is at risk.
The reverent, subversive Gilead*
The Christian Century: Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer-winning novel speaks unflinchingly of God, grace, sacred luminosity and humility. This reads a lot differently now than it did 20 years ago.
Move over, gender studies: The conservative tide coming for US universities
The Guardian: Deeming universities too leftwing, outside donors and state governments are sponsoring curricula that center the classics, Christianity and the “great books” of western civilization.
Funding SNAP: Even religious leaders are divided over how best to provide for the poor
Religion News Service: Many faith leaders say the charge to help the poor is clear in Scripture, but the religious community is not monolithic on the issue.
Latter-day Saints are having fewer children. Church officials are taking note
NPR: In the early 1980s, Latter-day Saints were having an extra kid and a half compared to the rest of the U.S. on average. They still have more children, but their families are shrinking.
The Spark
An optimistic quest in apocalyptic times
I picked up a gathering basket, a bow and arrow, and — after much deliberation — a 30-30 rifle with iron sights. I decided to go back to traditional skills that had atrophied inside of me, Nylah Iqbal Muhammad writes for The Bitter Southerner.
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