Monday's News & Ideas - 10/3/2022

Religious ‘switching’ patterns will help determine Christianity’s course in U.S.
Pew Research Center: Whether the U.S. will continue to have a Christian majority in 2070 will depend on many factors, including one that was a key focus of the Center’s new study: religious “switching” – that is, voluntary changes in religious affiliation.

Churches defend clergy loophole in child sex abuse reporting
Associated Press: In 33 states, clergy are exempt from any laws requiring professionals such as teachers, physicians and psychotherapists to report information about alleged child sexual abuse to police or child welfare officials if the church deems the information privileged.

Third-party report details ACNA leaders’ inaction on sexual abuse allegations
Religion News Service: Released online late Tuesday, the report follows a monthslong investigation that was contentious from the start.

Don’t leave migrant ministry to the border
Christianity Today: What the surge of asylum seekers is like on the ground and how the church all over the country can help.

Evangelicalism thrived because it enabled white Christians to avoid civil rights movements according to new book
Religion Dispatches: Historian David Hollinger argues that evangelical churches grew during and after the 1960s precisely because they offered a less demanding alternative to the social justice and civil rights commitments of the liberal mainline.

The Spark

Slavery descendants fight to memorialize a cemetery in Maryland
A Black cemetery is the center of a legal fight. Local officials want to sell the property to a commercial developer. Descendants want to memorialize the site, NPR says.

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