Monday's News & Ideas - 5/17/2021
- Churches divided on reopening
- Rob Lee genealogy fact check
- Roots of violence in Israel & Gaza
- Purity culture & anti-Asian racism
- Memento mori nun
- Controversy over remains in Philadelphia
Houses of worship grapple with the vaxxed and unvaxxed divide
NPR: Even as the most vulnerable have pretty well gotten their COVID-19 shots in Nashville, Temple Church still hasn’t returned to in-person worship services.
This man says he’s related to Robert E. Lee. There’s no evidence.*
The Washington Post: There is no evidence that Rob Lee, who was born in North Carolina, is related to Robert E. Lee, according to The Fact Checker’s review of historical and genealogical records.
The intercommunal violence in Israel is a dangerous development with deep roots
The Guardian: Political rhetoric has cultivated hatred. Both Palestinian and Jewish citizens are paying the price.
How purity culture and anti-Asian racism intersect in some white evangelical circles
NBC News: “Sexual purity theologies are tied to white supremacy because Asian women have a transcontinental history of being hypersexualized and fetishized,” one expert said.
Meet the nun who wants you to remember you will die*
The New York Times: Since 2017, Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble has made it her mission to revive the practice of memento mori, a Latin phrase meaning “Remember your death.”
The Spark
Saying her name
Remains that were found to be those of a Black teenager who was killed by Philadelphia police in 1985 were treated as an anthropological specimen. How was her identity* known and then forgotten? The New Yorker asks.
*access is limited for nonsubscribers
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