A horrific terrorist attack at the Kabul airport on August 26 killed at least 12 US service members and more than 60 Afghans attempting to flee the country. US officials are attributing the attack to an ISIS affiliate.
A Haitian gang leader on August 22 offered a truce to communities shattered by a devastating earthquake—potentially offering a break for a relief effort that has been plagued by hijacked aid trucks and disorder.
The offer came as many Haitians resumed religious services in or outside damaged churches, sometimes for the first time since the magnitude 7.2 quake of August 14. The country’s Civil Protection Agency also raised the death toll to 2,207.
In the wake of Hurricane Ida, faith-based disaster relief groups have been assessing damage, setting up mobile kitchens, and preparing to send skilled volunteers to Louisiana, Mississippi, and other states hit hard by the storm.
These groups began putting equipment and supplies into place before Ida made landfall on August 29 and have kept in constant contact with church leaders and other volunteers to determine the best places to set up relief operations, given widespread power outages.
In Matthew Taylor’s imagination, St. John’s Episcopal Church is about 45 inches long and 24 inches high. His version of the historic church in Washington, DC, where he is a member, is made from as many as 5,000 Lego bricks, many of them purchased online from aftermarket sellers around the country and the world. Its plastic parishioners are each the size of a thumb.
Terumi Echols, a former publisher of Christianity Today, has been named president and publisher of InterVarsity Press. Most recently, Echols served as the publishing house’s director of finance and fulfilment operations.
As head of IVP, Echols will oversee the launch of five initiatives: the IVP Kids imprint; Every Voice Now, a project to amplify voices of color within publishing; a new podcast; a digital learning platform for seminaries; and the IVP Signature Collection, special editions of some of the most popular books in IVP’s 75-year history.
Thomas McKenzie, the rector of a prominent Anglican Church in North America congregation in Nashville, Tennessee, and his eldest child, Charlie, were killed in a car crash on August 23.
Thomas was 50. Charlie McKenzie, who had recently changed their legal name, was 22.
The two were headed to Texas, the first stop on a trip to New Mexico, when their car collided with a tractor trailer at about 9:50 a.m., according to a local news report.
Thomas, the longtime pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, was on the first day of a sabbatical from the church.
Karen Mosby has been promoted to dean of student life at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. Since 2019, she has served as the seminary’s student chaplain, a role she will continue.
Mosby is an ordained Baptist minister, and she holds both a doctor of ministry and a master of divinity degrees from Garrett. She is currently a PhD candidate at the seminary, researching the intersections of religious education, pop culture, and womanist hermeneutics, with a particular focus on the prophetic witness of Black millennials in the US.
Nadia Bolz-Weber was installed on August 20 as the first pastor of public witness in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She was called to the role of pastor of public witness by the ELCA’s Rocky Mountain Synod.
Bolz-Weber, who has often attracted controversy, is perhaps best known for her New York Times best-selling books, including Shameless: A Sexual Reformation and Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint, the prayer- and profanity-filled memoir of her journey from alcoholic stand-up comic to Lutheran pastor.