Monday's News & Ideas - 8/9/2021
- COVID deaths at FL church
- Evangelicals leaving church
- Facebook’s prayer tool
- Localism & nationalism
- Clergy abuse lawyer
- UN on climate crisis
6 members of a Florida church died of COVID-19 in 2 weeks, pastor says. On Sunday the church held a vaccination clinic
CNN: Pastor George Davis said that four of the deaths were members under the age of 35 and that they were all healthy — but that none of them were vaccinated.
Young evangelicals are leaving church. LGBTQ bias may be driving them away.
Religion News Service: As white evangelical denominations double down on their opposition to equality, many younger evangelicals, gay and straight, are voting with their feet.
Some praise, some doubts as Facebook rolls out a prayer tool
Associated Press: The social media giant has rolled out a new prayer request feature, a tool embraced by some religious leaders as a cutting-edge way to engage the faithful online. Others are eyeing it warily as they weigh its usefulness against the privacy and security concerns they have with Facebook.
When localism becomes nationalism*
Christian Century: At the farmers market, Rebecca Bratten Weiss found something she didn’t expect — white supremacists.
More clergy abuse is finally being prosecuted, no thanks to the church, a lawyer says
NPR: Mitchell Garabedian has settled more than 2,000 clergy sex abuse cases over the past 20-plus years and is the lawyer representing an abuse survivor in a current civil case against McCarrick.
The Spark
U.N. sounds desperate warning on climate change
The United Nations panel on climate change told the world on Monday that global warming was dangerously close to being out of control — and that humans were “unequivocally” to blame, Reuters says.
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