Thursday's News & Ideas - 8/5/2021
- Hillsong founder charged
- Evangelist dies of COVID
- What is a cult?
- Vaccine & religious exemptions
- Praying in tongues on TikTok
- How kids learn to like reading
Police allege Hillsong founder concealed child sex abuse
Associated Press: The founder of the Sydney-based global Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, has been charged with concealing child sex offenses.
The Guardian: Hillsong pastor Brian Houston charged over allegedly concealing information about child sex offenses
The New York Times: Megachurch co-founder is charged in child sexual abuse case*
Evangelist dies of COVID just 25 days after preaching at a huge Baptist youth camp
Baptist News Global: A popular youth evangelist who preached at one of the nation’s largest Baptist youth camps July 5-9 has died of COVID pneumonia less than a month later.
Religion News Service: Wade Morris, a popular Baptist youth speaker, dies after COVID-19 hospitalization
What is a cult?
The Conversation: The label “cult” gets in the way of understanding new religions and political movements.
Do not give religious exemptions for Covid vaccines, New York archdiocese tells its priests*
America Magazine: The nation’s second largest archdiocese recently distributed a message to priests: Do not lend legitimacy to the notion that the church supports Covid-19 vaccine exemptions.
Charismatic TikTok divided over praying in tongues
Religion News Service: Pentecostal or charismatic TikTok is a thriving community of diverse Christians. It’s multilingual and multicultural and spans generations. Its hashtags have millions of views.
The Spark
What the data says about how kids learn to read (and learn to like it)
In Lit Hub, economist Emily Oster writes on the great debate over phonics versus “whole-language” learning.
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