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Iliff School of Theology reckons with grisly past

For 80 years, a book about Christianity bound in the tanned skin of a murdered Lenape Indian was displayed in a glass case outside the library at the Iliff School of Theology, a United Methodist seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Donated in 1893 by R. M. Barns, a Methodist minister, the book was written in Latin and appears to have been considered a unique curiosity. In a 1934 story, the Rocky Mountain News called it “a priceless vestment for the teachings of brotherly love.”

Could the next American Girl doll be a refugee?

As an American child growing up in Belgium and France, Laura Laurie mostly learned about American history from the popular American Girl books. Her favorite was Kirsten, the girl of the 1850s, who emigrated with her family from Sweden to a homestead in what is now Minnesota.

Now Laurie thinks it’s time for the popular toy company to tell a new story of coming to America. She’s started a petition asking American Girl to model its next doll after a modern refugee.

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Plot thickens over origins of pope’s civil union endorsement

In mid-October, questions swirled about the origins of Pope Francis’s bombshell comments endorsing same-sex civil unions, with all evidence suggesting he made them in a 2019 interview that was never broadcast in its entirety.

The Vatican refused to comment on whether it cut the remarks from its own broadcast or if the Mexican broadcaster that conducted the interview did. And it didn’t respond to questions about why it allowed the comments to be aired now in the documentary Francesco, which premiered on October 21 at the Rome Film Festival.

Nigerian Christian leaders respond to police brutality protests

After a video of an officer killing a man was released in early October, thousands of Nigerians have taken to the streets to protest decades of police brutality in the country. In particular, #EndSARS demonstrators are demanding that the nation’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad—commonly known as SARS—be disbanded.