RNS Morning Report: Faith Leaders on Reopening; Divine Comedy Sculpture; Pastor Ashlee Eiland

A worshipper offers Eid al-Fitr prayers, marking the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan on May 24, 2020. Muslims worldwide celebrated one of their biggest holidays under the long shadow of the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Need to know: Wednesday, July 22, 2020

As pandemic wears on, faith leaders dig in on life or death decisions

Pastors, imams and rabbis are balancing their faiths’ core values with their communities’ sometimes fractious feelings about reopening.

Catholic sculptor re-creating Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ aims to shift the emphasis off hell

According to the sculptor, limiting the poem’s scope to the Inferno has led to a secularization of Dante’s work. Schmalz’s sculpture will be the first to represent all 100 cantos of the famous poem.

Can kindness heal a world divided by pandemic, protests and politics? Pastor Ashlee Eiland thinks so

‘I think sometimes what kindness means, if we’re doing it well, is that we are righteously angry,’ said Ashlee Eiland, formation and preaching pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church near Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Russian court fines influential monk who denies virus exists

The 65-year-old monk has attracted nationwide attention by urging followers to disobey government lockdown measures and ignore church closures earlier during the pandemic.

Don’t be fooled by QAnon’s post-apocalyptic fury. It’s really spiritual hunger.

Followers of the online Q and white supremacism yearn for a world in which everything makes sense and where they at last have a role to play, writes Tara Isabella Burton.

Before Trump, college students were growing fonder of conservatives

Though conservatives fear that higher education may be antithetical to their views, students of all faithswere warming up to political conservatives during the final year of Obama’s presidency. Three years into Trump’s presidency conservatives can only wonder what could have been.

 


 

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Biden makes bid for Muslim voters at virtual summit: ‘I want to earn your vote’

In an address to Muslim voters, former Vice President Joe Biden promised to ‘earn’ their communities’ support and, if elected to the Oval Office, sign hate crime legislation, appoint Muslim staffers and immediately repeal the Muslim travel ban.

As seminaries welcome openly transgender students, church lags behind

As mainline and non-denominational Christian seminaries are making strides toward becoming transgender-inclusive, transgender seminarians still encounter hurdles to ordination and finding a pulpit.

Texas church planter John Powell killed in accident

Powell's unexpected passing was mourned by Southern Baptist leaders Al Mohler and Russell Moore. A GoFundMe site has been set up to assist his family.

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Rejecting symbols of hate is more than symbolic

A nation that still honors Confederate signs in public places signals its belief that Black people are less important than white people, that Black people’s trauma can be disregarded, writes Jim Wallis.

Unspecified changes underway for Mormon temple ceremony

The LDS Church announced changes to its temple endowment ceremony, but has not yet specified what those changes are. One possibility is that they will remove or lessen physical touch in the ritual, writes Jana Riess.