The Slingshot: Jerusalem Embassy; the Poor Campaign; the benefits of fasting

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U.S. President Trump’s daughter Ivanka, left, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin unveil a plaque during the opening ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. (Flash90 Photo/Yonatan Sindel via AP)


Need to know: Tuesday, May 15, 2018

For some, the US Embassy’s move to Jerusalem fulfills divine prophecy

For many evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews, the controversial relocation of the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is not only a smart political move, but a key step in a biblical plan.

For 40 days in 30 US cities, King’s Poor People’s Campaign lives again

Reviving a campaign that foundered after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, activists will call attention to government neglect of the country’s poor.

Is fasting at Ramadan good for you?

A medical student probes the rigors of observing Islam's holiest month, and finds that the most lasting benefits may arise from the discipline it teaches.

Cardinal Pell’s Abuse Trials May Be Held in Secret

Prosecutors in two upcoming trials for Cardinal George Pell have want to bar the media from the proceedings. The move, aimed at keeping news stories from contaminating the juries' objectivity, would also shield judge and lawyers from public accountability.

How anti-religious bias kept scientists from accepting the Big Bang

Today, the idea that the universe began with the Big Bang is pretty much taken for Gospel, but for years after a French Catholic priest turned physicist came up with the cosmological model, atheist scientists were repulsed by its creationist overtones.

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Latest news from RNS

United Methodist activists unsatisfied with bishops’ recommended plan to avert schism

(RNS) — United Methodists have expressed both concerns and hope after bishops endorsed a plan last week that would allow individual pastors and regional bodies to decide whether to perform same-sex weddings and ordain or call LGBT people as clergy.

More seminary students leave the Master of Divinity behind

The economics of church decline and practicalities of today’s students, many of whom are already working in churches, may be among the reasons for the drop-off in the Master of Divinity degree.

Churchgoers say gifts to charity, needy count as tithing

More than half say it should be one-tenth of an individual’s gross income. Others say it is “whatever amount a person regularly sets aside to give," according to the LifeWay survey.

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The US Embassy is in Jerusalem. Now, what?

OK, the embassy is now in Jerusalem. Can we talk about the minister who blessed the occasion?

Will Mormons’ departure from the Boy Scouts open the door for girls’ equality?

(RNS) — After more than a century of Mormon attention to boys' development through the Boy Scout program, it’s past time to direct our time and money to LDS girls the world over.

Pope Francis warns of two false paths to holiness

(RNS) — The way to avoid these wrong paths, says Francis, is by reminding ourselves of the primacy of the theological virtues, the center of which is charity.

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