Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, a widely admired teacher and prolific writer who connected Jewish thought with a larger concern for universal human values, died on November 7.
He was 72 and had undergone treatment for several bouts with cancer, which he was first diagnosed with in his thirties.
The red brick building at the corner of Drexel Street and Seventh Avenue South in Nashville has a colorful history.
In the early 1900s, it was home to a Catholic school founded to educate Black children in Jim Crow Tennessee. By the early 2000s, the building had become a swingers club.
But in November, it reopened as a faith-based shelter for the homeless, due in part to COVID-19. The swingers club-turned-shelter, now known as Drexel House, is one of a number of pandemic innovations made by faith-based groups that serve the homeless.
Taylor Valci was seven the first time she spoke in tongues. The daughter of a Pentecostal pastor in California’s Bay Area, she grew up watching Veggie Tales and attending Missionettes, the Assemblies of God version of Girl Scouts.
But by the time she was attending Gordon College in Massachusetts in 2016, Valci no longer considered herself a Christian, at least in part because she was starting to realize she was queer.
Leaders of multiracial church coalitions in three southern cities have confessed to being too “comfortable” and have committed anew to “work for justice to right past wrongs” and seek racial unity.
“As a group of racially, ethnically, and politically diverse church leaders in the Deep South areas of Charleston, SC, Montgomery, AL, and Mobile, AL, we recognize and lament how the historic nature of our cities and region contributed to racial oppression and division in our country,” they said in a statement.
On November 4, the Supreme Court seemed likely to side with a Catholic social services agency in a dispute with the city of Philadelphia over the agency’s refusal to work with same-sex couples as foster parents.
The case is a big test of religious rights on a more conservative court.
Catholic Social Services, which is affiliated with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, says its religious views keep it from certifying same-sex couples as foster parents. And it says it shouldn’t be shut out of a contract with the city to find foster homes for children. Philadelphia says
On November 3, the United States elected its first Catholic president in 60 years, but that wasn’t the only important religion angle of the 2020 election.
Christianity Today magazine reported that three women who worked as massage therapists at spas co-owned by the late Christian evangelist Ravi Zacharias claimed that he repeatedly masturbated and exposed himself during massage sessions and made unwanted sexual advances.
Although Ravi Zacharias International Ministries denied the allegations, it has launched what it called an “independent external investigation” into the claims. The findings of the investigation will be reported to the ministry’s executive committee.
Simone Campbell, the Roman Catholic sister made famous by her Nuns on the Bus tours and her support for the Affordable Care Act, announced on October 20 that she will step down early next year as head of Network, the influential social justice lobby.
A member of the Sisters of Social Service, Campbell, 74, has led the organization for more than a decade and a half, during which time her advocacy sometimes put her at odds with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and stoked pushback from the Vatican.
Washington, DC, archbishop Wilton Gregory is set to become the first Black American cardinal in the Catholic Church, a historic appointment that comes months after nationwide demonstrations against racial injustice.
Gregory’s ascension, announced on October 25 by Pope Francis, elevates a leader who has drawn praise for his handling of the sexual abuse scandal that has roiled the church. The Washington-area archbishop also has spoken out about the importance of Catholic leaders working to combat the sin of racial discrimination.
Last December, when Brandeis University announced a first-of-its-kind policy banning discrimination based on caste, administrators hoped other institutions would follow suit and adopt similar policies of their own.
But nearly a year later, the policy has not caught on. Instead, it’s drawing fire from Hindus who say it’s fraught with anti-Hindu bias, along with the risk of inept and unfair enforcement.