Wednesday's News & Ideas - 3/6/2024

Liberty University will pay $14 million, the largest fine ever levied under the federal Clery Act
The Associated Press: Liberty University has agreed to pay an unprecedented $14 million fine for the Christian school’s failure to disclose information about crimes on its campus and for its treatment of sexual assault survivors, the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday.

Why is Texas the epicenter of Christian nationalism?*
Texas Monthly: Billionaires here are funding right-wing politicians to knock down barriers between church and state. But a small countermovement is now rising to meet them.

The nones have changed campus chaplains’ jobs — and made them more interesting
Religion News Service: For one chaplain, all students, not just Christians, come to talk about class and life in general.

Brazilian evangelicals bring their political playbook to Portugal*
Christianity Today: Immigrants from South America are a growing force in churches on the other side of the Atlantic. But their electoral initiative is viewed with reservations.

Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, who saw ecology as God’s work, dies at 70*
The New York Times: She linked her passion for the natural environment to the precepts of the Hebrew Bible, beginning with the Garden of Eden.

The Spark

What is left? Rebecca Solnit on the perennial divisions of the American left
“It should be a modest request to ask that ‘left’ not mean supporters of authoritarian regimes,” Solnit says at LitHub.

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