Thursday's News & Ideas - 4/11/2019
- New plan for UMC
- Benedict on sex abuse
- Spirituality of mending
- Renegade nuns vs. a pipeline
- Buttigieg challenges religious right
- When minds couple
Leaders pursue plan for new U.S. structure
United Methodist News Service: United Methodist leaders are pressing ahead with an effort to create a new decision-making body for U.S. matters -- despite concerns that it will become another battlefront in the homosexuality debate.
Speaking out at ‘this difficult hour,’ a once-quiet ex-pope pens a lengthy letter on sexual abuse
The Washington Post: Breaking years of silence on major church affairs, Pope Benedict XVI has written a lengthy letter devoted to clerical sex abuse in which he attributes the crisis to a breakdown of church and societal moral teaching.
The spirituality of mending
Religion News Service: In practice, most Americans know very little now about mending. Laura Everett, executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, has set out to learn with her hands what she longed for in her life: to repair what is torn.
The renegade nuns who took on a pipeline
The New Yorker: The nuns see protecting the earth as part of their religious duty, which separates them from much historical Catholic teaching. The Adorers are calling for an end to the theology of human supremacy, and for a deeper understanding of creation’s interdependency.
Pete Buttigieg, gay and Christian, challenges religious right on their own turf
The New York Times: Pete Buttigieg, a Democratic candidate for president, is talking about God and sexuality in an unconventional way: He is using the language of faith to confront the Christian right on territory they have long claimed as their own.
The Atlantic: Pete Buttigieg’s very public faith is challenging assumptions
The Spark
What happens when minds couple?
A growing cadre of neuroscientists is using technology and math to capture what happens in one or more brains when their owners are engaged in eye contact, storytelling, joint attention focused on a topic or object, or any other activity that requires social give and take. Is there a difference between speaking a sentence and speaking it to someone who is listening? Yes, apparently there is.
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