Tuesday's News & Ideas - 8/20/2019

Letter: Nationalism is anathema to Christian faith
Religion News Service: A letter signed by nearly 30 leading theologians in the liberal Catholic journal Commonweal forcefully rejects any link between nationalism and Christianity and asserts that such a connection can “threaten the integrity of Christian faith.”
Commonweal: Open letter against the new nationalism*

‘Christian left’ is reviving in America, appalled by treatment of migrants
The Conversation: American Christianity is more often associated with right-wing politics. But there’s always been progressive Christian activism in the United States.

Poll offers tentative look at how faith groups feel about Democratic candidates
HuffPost: Here’s a very early snapshot of how religious (and unaffiliated) Democrats currently view the party’s presidential candidates.

Who benefits from conflicts over religious freedom?
Religion & Politics: In 1993, The Religious Freedom Restoration Act garnered a unanimous vote in the House and a vote of 97-3 in the Senate. In the intervening years, however, things have gotten complicated.

The science is in: Faith can be effective against adolescent depression
America: World Health Organization lists mental health in adolescence as a top global health priority. As a social scientist, Jane Cooley Fruehwirth wants to understand why. As a Christian, she wonders whether religion can help to protect adolescents from mental illness.

The Spark

The quickening: A story of two births
“Every birth story is the story of two births: The child is born, and the mother is born, too,” Leslie Jamison writes in an essay at The Atlantic (trigger warning: essay includes description of an eating disorder).

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