Friday's News & Ideas - 7/21/2023

U.S. charitable giving took an unusual downturn last year
Baptist News Global: Rising inflation and persistent recession fears helped drive down 2022 charitable giving in the U.S. for only the third time in four decades, according to the annual report published by the Giving USA Foundation and researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI.

Billions of federal dollars available for churches and nonprofits to go green
Religion News Service: Before passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, only commercial and tax-paying corporations could benefit from tax credits. Tax exempt entities can now receive a payment equal to the full value of clean energy tax credits.

Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar, who led with kindness, dies
UM News: UMC Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar, who was a pioneer in serving in cross-racial appointments and a champion of ethnic diversity and inclusion across the denomination, died July 18. The denomination’s first Indian American bishop, whom friends called Suda, had retired on Jan. 1.

America still doesn't understand Jesse Jackson*
New York Times: Jackson remains a complicated, little understood figure whose work is as misunderstood as it is seemingly ubiquitous.

Sisters model women's diaconal ministry in the Amazon
National Catholic Reporter: Catholic women are vital to the work of accompanying indigenous peoples who serve as the vulnerable protectors of God's handiwork in the world's largest rainforest.

The Spark

Here’s what physics tells us about Barbie’s world
Using concepts from theoretical physics and explorations of the multiverse, here’s what we can understand about Barbie and the world she lives in, says Scientific American.

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