Tuesday's News & Ideas - 4/9/2023
- Hays’ reversal on same-sex relationships
- UMC adapting after big split
- Is Trumpism emptying churches?
- Religious fasting
- NY pays settlement on hijab removal
- Love & murder in South Africa
Conservative Christians just lost their scholarly trump card on same-sex relationships
Religion News Service: Theologian Richard Hays’ reversal comes at a bad time for those who oppose accepting LGBTQ Christians.
Will the United Methodist Church finally settle its big split?
Religion Unplugged: The UMC has just suffered America’s worst schism since the Civil War, with 7,658 traditionalist congregations, a quarter of the former total, departing as of New Year’s Eve.
Trumpism is emptying churches*
Bloomberg: The former president’s embrace of White Christian militantism coincides with a precipitous decline in religious affiliation in the US.
How common is religious fasting in the United States?
Pew Research Center: In the United States, 21% of adults overall say they fast for certain periods during holy times.
New York pays $17.5m to settle suit after police forced women to remove hijabs
The Guardian: Class-action settlement covers people required to take off religious attire by NYPD after Muslim women said their rights were violated.
The Spark
Love and murder in South Africa
Eula Biss writes for The Believer on Rian Malan’s 1990 memoir, “My Traitor’s Heart,” and what it means to be a tourist in your own country.
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