Friday's News & Ideas - 3/21/2025
- Resumed war & Ramadan
- Church kitchens chopped
- Education Department impact
- ‘Disenchantment’
- Inclusive congregations pushed out
- Carnegie’s soft skills
Collapse of ceasefire in Gaza fractures a quiet Ramadan in holy month’s last days
Religion News Service: “The thing that’s shared between last year’s Ramadan and this year’s is the lack of every family member gathered around the same table,” said a Gaza City resident. “In every family, there’s someone who died, someone’s who’s missing.”
Church kitchens are getting chopped*
Christianity Today: More congregations are trading casseroles for coffee shops.
How the Education Department cuts could hurt low-income and rural schools
NPR: President Trump’s efforts to shutter the U.S. Department of Education are in full swing.
Is America in 2025 what ‘disenchantment’ looks like?
Religion Dispatches: I find myself thinking about how it was that Elon Musk came to sell his soul to the devil. It’s the only language that feels morally loaded enough, Beatrice Marovich writes.
14 LGBTQ-affirming ministers lose credentials, more face investigation, over beliefs
Religion News Service: An LGBTQ-inclusive congregation is also exiting the Anderson, Indiana-based Church of God movement.
The Spark
Going soft: Future-proofing the American worker
The Dale Carnegie Course* is a three-day “intensive” designed to equip students with “people skills” for use in personal and professional settings, Harper’s Magazine writes.
*access is limited for nonsubscribers
