Thursday's News & Ideas - 7/6/2023
- How many churches have left the UMC?
- Outcry over Quran burning
- Anti-racist Christian homeschooling
- Synagogue rubble found in river
- Religious beliefs & LGBTQ+ rights
- Why do squirrels ‘sploot’ on hot days?
United Methodists lose one-fifth of U.S. churches in schism driven by growing defiance of LGBTQ bans
Associated Press: More than 6,000 United Methodist congregations — a fifth of the U.S. total — have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination.
Most Swedes want ban on Quran burnings after global outcry
Al Jazeera: Opinion is shifting amid an international political fallout over the burnings and a spike in new applications.
Brytni McNeil brings anti-racism to Christian homeschooling
Religion News Service: She is part of a broader movement of Black home educators, many of them Christian mothers, who want their kids to wrestle with truth on their terms.
Parts of a Munich synagogue demolished by Nazis are found in a river 85 years later
NPR: After Adolf Hitler ordered Munich’s main synagogue to be demolished in June 1938, no one knew what became of the rubble — until last week.
The Colorado website designer’s win is one of dozens of federal cases where religious beliefs and LGBTQ+ rights have clashed – and the pattern might not be what you think
The Conversation: The latest Supreme Court rulings make it seem as if cases that deal with plaintiffs’ faith are usually successful in federal courts. More broadly, however, the opposite is true.
The Spark
Why are squirrels ‘splooting’ on hot days?
Photos and videos of squirrels lying flat on their stomachs, with their arms, legs and tails outstretched, have been making the rounds on social media lately, says Smithsonian Magazine. This raises the question — why are the creatures striking such goofy-looking poses?
