EDS: Please note RNS will not be transmitting stories on Monday, July 5 as we observe the July 4th holiday.
NEWS BRIEF
RNS-NCR-Divests: National Catholic Reporter divests from fossil fuels
(RNS) – The National Catholic Reporter, a Kansas-City based Catholic newspaper with a readership of 6 million, has divested its $12.7 million endowment from funds containing fossil fuels. By Renée Roden. 394 words. (category: a)
NEWS BRIEF
RNS-Rabbi-Stabbing: Chabad rabbi stabbed outside Boston Jewish day school
(RNS) — A rabbi who taught at Jewish day school in Brighton, a neighborhood of Boston, was stabbed eight times in the arm Thursday (July 1), by an attacker carrying a fake gun and a knife. Rabbi Shlomo Noginski, was taken to Boston Medical Center and is being treated for non-life threatening injuries. The suspect in the attack was apprehended by police shortly afterward. No motive was given. By Yonat Shimron. 400 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-PCA-Overtures: Presbyterian Church in America leaders say those who identify as gay are not qualified for ordination
(RNS) — Pastors and church leaders in the Presbyterian Church in America passed an overture at its General Assembly this week saying those who identify as gay are not qualified for ordination in the conservative Presbyterian denomination. The overture includes any identity Christians may profess “that undermines or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ,” though it singles out “gay Christian,” “same sex attracted Christian” and “homosexual Christian” among those identities. By Emily McFarlan Miller. 700 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-AlShabab-Recruitment: In Kenya, faith groups work to resettle youth returning from al-Shabab
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — In Kenya’s coastal region, interfaith efforts to slow down or end youth recruitment into the militant Islamist group al-Shabab are gaining progress, with some recruits abandoning the extremist group’s training grounds in Southern Somalia to return home. By Fredrick Nzwili. 620 words. (category: i)
NEWS STORY
RNS-Pew-Trump: Study: Trump expanded evangelical support in 2020, but Biden gained with other white Christians
WASHINGTON (RNS) — A new survey reports former President Donald Trump expanded his robust support among white evangelicals in the 2020 election, but President Joe Biden won in part by making significant gains among Catholics and non-evangelical Protestants. By Jack Jenkins. 640 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-Atheists-Neighbors: Atheists like their religious neighbors more than Christians do, new study finds
(RNS) — A new study in the journal Secularism & Nonreligion found atheists in the US have a fairly positive view of religious people. Religious people, and in particular Christians, are less positive about atheists. By Bob Smietana. 800 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-Vatican-Trans: Fifty trans individuals get second vaccine shot at the Vatican
(RNS) – Pope Francis opened the doors of the Vatican in April to allow members of the trans community in Rome to receive their Covid-19 vaccine. By Claire Giangravè. 700 words. (category i)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Jones-Oped: Let’s celebrate this Fourth of July without the myth of white Christian innocence
(RNS) — It’s time to exorcise the ahistorical notion of white Christian supremacy and innocence. Patriotism is not the purview of those who see a white Christian America as the divinely ordained end of human achievement. We can no longer sustain its mythical vision of God and country where white Christians are always heroes, inheriting and defending America as their own divinely ordained promised land. By Robert P. Jones. 1,171 words. (category: k)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Stewart-Oped: Patriot games: CRT, Christian nationalism and a battle for the real truth of America
(RNS) — I should not have been surprised by today’s absolute panic over critical race theory being taught in schools. This resistance to any talk of race, racism, and power is not because of a devotion to Jesus, or a devotion to country. It is ultimately a devotion to white supremacy. And when ideologies of power and purity rise to the level of religious devotion, they are that much harder to dismantle. By Dantè Stewart.
COMMENTARY
RNS-Sterett-Oped: How a little-known federal land use law could help combat antisemitism in America
(RNS) — There is a kind of antisemitism that we may think of as a bygone relic of the suburban boom: discriminatory zoning. Yet, excluding Jews from certain neighborhoods or entire towns is still a vibrant practice that disproportionately affects Jewish Americans. By Noel Sterett. 753 words. (category: k)