Tuesday's News & Ideas - 4/16/2019

Notre Dame, long a symbol of Catholicism in Europe, becomes a picture of its collapse
Religion News Service: Yes, let us weep for Notre Dame, but we have lost more than a building.

Notre Dame: May lamentations lead to alleluias
National Catholic Reporter: Yesterday, watching flames engulf Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, it felt like Tenebrae.

Telling the Passover story in the shadow of the Pittsburgh massacre
Religion News Service: With anti-Semitism on the rise, the seder is a perfect opportunity to discuss how the same fear of outsiders that drove Egyptians to enslave the ancient Israelites may have driven the Pittsburgh shooter as well.

How Christians can better support nonprofits
Sojourners: Most givers want to make a difference and to support organizations that are effective but don't know how. Phil Buchanan and Grace Chiang Nicolette offer some principles.

Faith politics on the rise as Indonesian Islam takes a hard-line path
The New York Times: As he runs for re-election on Wednesday against a former general who has embraced the language of hard-line Islam, moderate Joko Widodo is also veering rightward.

The Spark

Notre Dame is never lost
Yesterday's cathedral fire drove Elyse Martin back to Victor Hugo's novel for Electric Literature, in search of the soul of Notre Dame when its physical form seemed so likely to disappear. 

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