Friday's News & Ideas - 3/8/2024

What is happening with the SBC and the Department of Justice?
Religion News Service: Confusion over the status of a DOJ investigation into the SBC has strained already tense relationships between abuse survivors and the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Scorsese’s gods of the streets: From ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ to ‘Silence,’ faith is rarely far off in his films
The Conversation: Scorsese has taken a more personal approach to exploring Catholic faith and experience. He doesn’t feel the need to defend the religion or burnish its image. His movies are steeped in Catholic sensibilities and embrace painful questions that often accompany belief.

Churches to play key role in spending $1 billion toward climate change
Sojourners: In a Cleveland neighborhood, a set of 25 young trees line the space between the sidewalk and the road. The trees were planted by volunteers from Calvary Reformed Church in 2019, an example of the types of actions that churches can take to address rising heat in their neighborhoods. Now, thanks to 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act, nearly $1 billion will fund similar projects across the nation.

The heavy hand of God: Europe’s brutalist churches – in pictures
The Guardian: Vienna-based photographer Jamie McGregor Smith has spent years travelling the continent in search of sacred spaces that allowed architects’ imaginations to run wild.

Who is leaving the LDS church? 8 key survey findings
Religion News Service: Most don’t join another religion after leaving but they also aren’t interested in coming back to the LDS church.

The Spark

Arguing ourselves to death
To a degree that we have yet to fully grasp, what rules our age is the ideology of the Internet,* The New Yorker says.

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