Monday's News & Ideas - 7/10/2023

US religious right at center of anti-LGBTQ+ message pushed around the world
The Guardian: American groups have helped to establish a global web who share ideas and funding in a bid to restrict gay and trans rights.

USC researchers will use AI to translate the Bible.
Deseret News: Around 20% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to a full Bible in their first language.

Big churches sound alike. Little churches are the ‘Wild West’ of music, study finds.
Religion News Service: Worship professor Will Bishop said that focusing on the most popular worship songs can miss what churches are actually singing.

A small-town Georgia preacher fills pews by leaving no one out*
The Washington Post: At a time when many houses of worship are struggling to sustain themselves, tiny Mt. Hebron is flourishing. Barely a dozen people showed up for pastor Grant Myerholtz’s first sermons in fall 2020; these days, sometimes 100 faces are looking up at him.

Academics don’t talk about our mental illnesses. We should.*
The Chronicle of Higher Education: Higher ed can exacerbate psychological problems, and sometimes even cause them.

The Spark

The trillion-dollar grift: Inside the greatest scam of all time
The pandemic relief was the biggest bailout in history, and it opened the door to wide-scale fraud* the likes of which no one had ever seen — more than three years later, we still don’t know how much damage was done, The Rolling Stone says.

*access is limited for nonsubscribers