Friday's News & Ideas - 2/3/2023

‘Our own little Vatican’: Inside the biggest Catholic parish church in North America
The Guardian: There used to be more people than cows in Visalia, but a new 3,000-seat megachurch has brought Vegas kitsch to the worshippers of California’s Central Valley

The little engine that needed collaborators*
Christian Century: Clergy burnout happens when churches expect pastors to do everything and pastors oblige.

Psychedelic churches in US pushing boundaries of religion
Associated Press: The rising demand for ayahuasca has led to hundreds of churches, which advocates say are protected from prosecution by a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. In that case, a New Mexico branch of a Brazilian-based ayahuasca church won the right to use the drug as a sacrament.

President Biden urges lawmakers to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’
Deseret News: Biden spoke about the importance of unity Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast.

After 30 years, Buddhist-inspired message of ‘Groundhog Day’ still holds spiritual power
Religion News Service: Part Hollywood love story and part secular spiritual parable, the 1993 film shows life can be better if we pay attention.

The Spark

Hildegard of Bingen composes the cosmos
The New Yorker describes how a visionary medieval nun* became a towering figure in early musical history.

*access is limited for nonsubscribers