Thursday’s News & Ideas - 5/29/2025
- Churches go big for Easter
- Pastor after viral arrest
- Robert Morris freed
- Young, hip and Catholic
- Israel’s new death penalty
- AI-written novels
Churches try drones and skydiving bunnies for Easter outreach*
Christianity Today: “We want to make it about Jesus and getting people excited about the Easter season and going to church somewhere,” one pastor said.
His arrest went viral. Now Rev. Michael Woolf is preaching what he calls ‘Sanctuary values.’
Religion News Service: The photo of his arrest during a protest against ICE has given the Chicago-area pastor a platform to share a theology that centers immigrants and that harkens back to the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s.
Texas megachurch pastor Robert Morris is free after 6 months in an Oklahoma jail for child sex abuse
The Associated Press: The founder of a Texas megachurch who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a child in the 1980s was released Tuesday after serving six months in an Oklahoma jail.
Why Catholicism is drawing in Gen Z men*
The Washington Post: Young men in their 20s and 30s are increasingly drawn to the Catholic Church as they seek truth, beauty and, yes, girlfriends.
Israel’s new death penalty law sparks outcry from liberal Jewish groups
Religion News Service: Rabbinical groups said the law flies in the face of Jewish tradition and violates international principles of due process and equal protection under the law.
The Spark
‘Soon publishers won’t stand a chance’: Literary world in struggle to detect AI-written books
The US release of horror novel “Shy Girl” was cancelled after suspected AI use, The Guardian says.
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