Image courtesy of Chris Gladis via Flickr
It’s Giving Tuesday, and plenty of religious charities are hoping that those who opened their wallets so freely on Black Friday and Cyber Monday might atone by throwing some dollars at worthy causes today.
Some of them will be part of a new Giving Tuesday Tower project that turns every donation into a brick in a tower which you can see in “augmented reality.” I don’t quite get it but it involves an app and I’m sure it’s cool.
Now on to the news, where religious people do good, and sometimes very, very bad . . .
Austin shooter = religious extremist
The man who tried to shoot up much of downtown Austin Friday and burn down the Mexican consulate was a religious nutcase. Larry McQuilliams, killed by police, identified with the “Phineas Priesthood,” a virulently racist and anti-Semitic movement opposed to the “anti-God” people.
Where religion and sanitation collide
Believing her husband — dead of an illness the family would treat only through prayer — would be resurrected, a Canadian woman kept his body at home and has now been sentenced for failing to call the coroner. The Wald family, which includes six children, prayed over the deteriorating body for six months.
Don’t call it Muslim-on-Muslim violence . . .
Because there is nothing Islamic about Boko Haram’s murderous attack on a Nigerian mosque, where the work of two suicide bombers left 120 people dead and many more gravely injured. Yes, it’s the same group that kidnapped those schoolgirls who are still in their clutches.
Happy story break
A man who lost his wedding ring in a Wisconsin bowling alley kept in touch with the establishment for eight years, in hopes that it might turn up. It did! After the bowling alley was bought by the Sugar River United Methodist Church, which began ripping up the lanes to build their new worship space, the ring was found underneath a gutter.
Indonesia’s degrading virginity tests
Thanks to Brian Pellot for shining a spotlight on the outrageous but all-too-common “hymen test” administered to female police recruits in Indonesia. If you feel like getting mad this morning, click here.
More to be outraged about . . .
Former East Texas youth pastor sentenced to 20 years for producing child porn.
Israeli police suspect Jewish extremists in the torching of a classroom at one of Israel’s only Arabic-Hebrew bilingual schools.
Somali Islamic extremists kill 36 non-Muslim quarry workers in Kenya.
Christian couple freed from Qatar . . . but still there
You may remember Matt and Grace Huang, a Los Angeles Christian couple whose adopted daughter from Ghana — one of several children they have adopted from Africa — died while the family was living in Qatar for Matt’s job. After two years of legal wrangling, a Qatari judge declared them fine parents, and said they were free to go. But they have not been allowed to leave the country.
Qatari police considered the Huangs very suspicious, because it made no sense to them that an Asian couple would adopt black children, Christianity Today reports.
Ferguson
Faith leaders and civil rights leaders met with President Barack Obama Monday to talk about race, law enforcement and the federal government’s supplying of military equipment to police departments.
Pop quiz!
Should Pope Francis visit your city?
Culture
The casting of Ridley Scott’s Exodus movie is just plain racist, writes Sigal Samuel in The Forward.
Status changed
Rabbi Barry Freundel, the Peeping Tom rabbi,” from “leave without pay” to “fired” by his synagogue.
You don’t want to miss . . .
If you spend almost anytime at all in the comments section of our website, you know of “Atheist Max.” Our own Kimberly Winston reveals the man behind the moniker.
The Mennonite farmers/drug smugglers of Chihauhau, Mexico. Really.
#unselfie . . .
#UNselfie A show of support for #GivingTuesday: http://t.co/DzcorQmWdW pic.twitter.com/EbsQbHvnvH
— @NonprofitOrgs (@nonprofitorgs) December 2, 2014
So go tweet. But first sign up for the free and spam free Religion News Roundup if you haven’t already. And if you are so moved, give this Giving Tuesday to RNS – we’re a non-profit and the world’s only wire service devoted to the unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. Thanks.
– Lauren Markoe
