Friday's News & Ideas - 7/9/2021
- How sermons addressed 2020
- White Christian decline slows
- Inspiration or plagiarism?
- Critical race theory ‘debate’
- Role of church in South Sudan
- Historic spelling bee win
How thousands of sermons addressed the crises of 2020
Christianity Today: Pew analyzes how pastors across traditions preached on COVID-19, the election and racism.
Pew Research Center: Pastors often discussed election, pandemic and racism in fall of 2020
Survey: White mainline Protestants outnumber white evangelicals, while ‘nones’ shrink
Religion News Service: The “unprecedented” dataset also suggests that white Christian decline, which accelerated in recent years, appears to have slowed.
Public Religion Research Institute: The 2020 Census of American Religion
Where’s the line between finding inspiration in another pastor’s sermon and plagiarizing it?
Baptist News Global: “Borrowing” someone else’s sermon is one of the top four ways pastors get fired from churches, according to Thom Rainer, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm and a noted interpreter of modern Christianity.
There is no debate over critical race theory*
The Atlantic: Pundits and politicians have created their own definition for the term, and then set about attacking it.
As South Sudan turns 10, questions over the role of the church emerge amid anti-clerical violence
The Conversation: Today South Sudan celebrates its 10th anniversary of independence — but it does so amid concern over violence in the young nation.
The Spark
Zaila Avant-garde makes spelling history, and other moments from the bee
Zaila, a 14-year-old from Harvey, Louisiana, won on the word “murraya.” She became the first Black American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee in almost 100 years of contests, The New York Times reports.*
*access is limited for nonsubscribers