Monday's News & Ideas - 11/20/2023

Rosalynn Carter showed quiet leadership and deep compassion
Good Faith Media: Mrs. Carter, who died on November 19, 2023, at age 96, became a Baptist after marriage. She was an active church lay leader and was ordained as a deacon in 2006, a role that dovetailed with her commitment to caring for others.

Five miles and a world apart, younger activists dream of a new peace process*
New York Times: A younger generation of Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers want to be part of the dialogue about the “day after” the war, when Israelis and Palestinians must grapple again with how to live side by side.

In blessing same-sex couples, the church’s compassion has triumphed over blind faith
The Guardian: It’s easier to cling to certain theological interpretations and insist they never change. It’s harder to take them as signposts but respond in our own contemporary context, writes Catherine Pepinster about the Church of England’s General Synod vote to allow special services for blessing same-sex couples.

Netanyahu’s genocidal religious rhetoric isn’t just an appeal to the Israeli right – he has another constituency in mind
Religion Dispatches: If you listen closely to Netanyahu’s language it’s clear that he’s attempting to appeal to evangelicals by invoking some of the foundational mythologies of America — the colonialist assumption that Christianity is a civilizing force.

Anti-Pope candidate Javier Milei elected Argentina’s new president
Relgion Unplugged: Libertarian economist and former soccer player Javier Milei was elected Argentina's president, a result that in many ways can be seen as a referendum on the political and social agenda of Pope Francis in his home nation.

The Spark

The naturalist and the wonderful, lovable, so good, very bold jay
Dan Strickland, 81, has studied Canada jays since the 1960s, mostly on his own time, before retiring as a full-time naturalist in 2000. Since then, they’ve become his obsession, Hakai magazine says.

*access is limited for nonsubscribers.