News & Ideas

Wednesday's News & Ideas - 3/18/2020

  • CoE suspends all services
  • Charity isn’t a social safety net
  • Myth of Mary Magdalene
  • Leaders embrace digital
  • Against pandemic productivity
  • On solitude and punctuation

Church of England suspends all services over coronavirus
The Guardian: Chief rabbi also urges synagogue closures, and mosques are advised to stop congregational activity.

Charity can’t replace social safety nets
Sojourners: An adequate response to the coronavirus pandemic currently spiking within the U.S. requires a strong and coordinated effort from a federal government that prioritizes the common good.

Unravelling the myth of Mary Magdalene
Broadview: Church fathers cast her as a fallen woman. It's time to rethink her role in the Easter story.

As COVID-19 leads to canceled religious gatherings, faith leaders embrace the digital*
Religion News Service: Worshippers -- some individuals, others families huddled around laptop screens -- all lifted their bread to their respective cameras and broke it together.

Against productivity in a pandemic*
The New Republic: Why are we being told -- by bosses, by fitness apps, by ourselves -- to optimize this “new” time to get things done?

The Spark

On solitude (and isolation and loneliness [and brackets])
Sarah Fay reflects at Longreads on four years spent in solitude (and isolation [and loneliness]), viewing it through the lens of punctuation.

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