SIGHT-SEEING: THE SPIRITUAL LEGACY OF ‘DOOM’
KAITLYN CURTICE, in an article first published on Religion News Service, reflects on what she learned while playing the shooting game Doom…
Egypt’s PM approves 168 new church and worship buildings – CSW
Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly has approved the legalisation of 168 churches and worship buildings, religious freedom advocacy CSW has reported. The UK organisation said the decision was made during a meeting of the ministerial committee overseeing issues relating to building and renovating churches and worship buildings. Some 126 of the buildings belong to the Coptic Orthodox […]
In the US, Southern Baptist seminary report ties founders to slaveholding, white supremacy
Louisville, Kentucky, USRNS Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Southern Baptist Convention’s flagship seminary, has released a report delineating its ties to slavery, including its four founders’ ownership of a total of more than 50 slaves. The 71-page report, released Wednesday, says the seminary’s early trustees and faculty “defended the righteousness of slaveholding”. Boyce College on […]
War, hunger and a housing boom: welcome to Africa’s most crowded city
Thomson Reuters Foundation Conflict, drought and floods have pushed a record number of Somalis into Mogadishu, making it Africa’s most crowded city, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said on Tuesday. With more than 340,000 people forced to flee their homes in the first half of 2018, the year is likely to produce Somalia’s highest number […]
STRANGESIGHTS: VALE THE ‘LUTEFISK DINNER’; COCKROACH EATING POWER; AND, ELVIS RETURNS TO GERMANY…
DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
Gunman kills four and then himself in Brazilian cathedral
Four people have died after a gunman opened fire in a Brazilian Catholic cathedral on Tuesday before turning the weapon on himself. The incident took place at a Catholic cathedral in the city of Campinas, about 100 kilometres north of Sao Paulo. The gunman reportedly entered the cathedral and sat down among mainly elderly worshippers who […]
Church of England paves way for ceremonies to welcome trans people
Thomson Reuters Foundation Transgender members of the 85 million strong Anglican faith community will now have the support of the Church of England, after it released guidelines on Tuesday for ceremonies to welcome them. The Church of England, where the Anglican tradition originated, has in recent years moved towards greater acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual […]
US: AT TRUMP’S HOTEL, SPIRITUAL WARRIORS PRAY FOR THE PRESIDENT IN HIS “DARKEST HOUR”
JACK JENKINS, of Religion News Service, reports from Washington, DC…
At least 30 US faith leaders arrested in border protest
RNS After a tense standoff with officials at the US-Mexico border on Monday, at least 30 American clergy were taken into custody over the objections of demonstrators, who had come to protest the treatment of Central American asylum-seekers and to decry the extension of a border wall and the militarisation of the border. Priests, pastors, […]
ESSAY: AS INDIGENOUS INCARCERATION RATES IN AUSTRALIA KEEP RISING, JUSTICE REINVESTMENT OFFERS A SOLUTION
In an article first published on The Conversation, SOPHIE RUSSELL, of UNSW, and CHRIS CUNNEEN, of the University of Technology Sydney, argue that evidence shows investment in designing local solutions to overcome the drivers of crime and incarceration is working to reduce Indigenous incarceration rates…