Wednesday’s News & Ideas - 8/12/2026
- Fighting ICE facility building
- Hobby Lobby billionaires
- UMC conference sues church
- Pentagon’s count of religious groups
- Hindu defining of swastika
- Shopping is exhausting
DHS wanted to build the largest ICE detention complex in the US. Here's how the plan just got killed.
Religion News Service: Catholic parishes and other community groups in Socorro, Texas, organized against the sprawling $126 million complex. They cited moral objections and warned that the town’s infrastructure couldn’t support it.
The Hobby Lobby billionaires and the dangers of faith backed by vast wealth
Religion News Service: A new book, “The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby,” is important for what it reveals about both the political weaponization of the First Amendment and how easily money can corrupt even sincere attempts to discover and promote the truth.
United Methodist conference sues its largest congregation
United Methodist News Service: The Horizon Texas Conference is suing Highland Park United Methodist Church — claiming the Dallas megachurch improperly moved to end oversight by the denomination and its own congregants.
Why the Pentagon’s count of religious groups plunged from 216 to just 31
Religion Unplugged: The Pentagon defines America’s religious categories due to chaplains’ responsibility to handle the spiritual needs of troops as effectively as possible.
Hindu students ask schools to discern the swastika from the Nazi Hakenkreuz
Religion News Service: “I think it’s very important that young people are told that the swastika has a very positive meaning, but it has been taken and used as a racist symbol,” said Baijayanti Roy of Goethe University Frankfurt. “The swastika does not have any negative connotations, whereas the Hakenkreuz stands for evil.”
The Spark
Shopping is impossible
It’s never been more exhausting to buy stuff,* The Atlantic says.
*access is limited for nonsubscribers
