Thursday's News & Ideas - 8/6/2020

COVID-19 death of ‘well-loved’ Texas pastor shows coronavirus spread to rural areas
Religion News Service: A small United Methodist church in Texas is “absolutely heartbroken” after losing its pastor to COVID-19 as the pandemic spreads to rural areas of the country previously spared by the virus, according to its district superintendent.

What’s going wrong in your church building while you’re gone?
Baptist News Global: Closing down church buildings could create serious repercussions not just for the people who miss gathering there but also for the facilities themselves.

The loneliness of social isolation can affect your brain and raise dementia risk in older adults
The Conversation: Pain reminds us all that we need to take care of ourselves.

How changing one word in church could radically transform America
CNN: White Christians have concerned ourselves with race; the overwhelming focus has been on what most describe as “racial reconciliation.” None of this focus has brought collective transformation.

The last of the Zoroastrians
The Guardian: A funeral, a family, and a journey into a disappearing religion.

The Spark

Immunology is where intuition goes to die
Which is too bad because we really need to understand how the immune system reacts to the coronavirus, The Atlantic says.

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