Weekly Wrap 2.20.15: The 10 Best Stories You Missed This Week | Sojourners

Weekly Wrap 2.20.15: The 10 Best Stories You Missed This Week

1. Because Extreme Cold Always Brings Climate Deniers Out of the Woodwork … 
Bill Nye, yep, the Science Guy, offers the media this helpful prompting: “‘Let’s not confuse or interchange climate change with global warming,’ noting that when the climate changes, ‘some places get colder.’”

2. After the Copenhagen Synagogue Shooting, This Muslim Community Is Responding in the Best Way Possible 
“Islam is about protecting our brothers and sisters, regardless of which religion they belong to. Islam is about rising above hate and never sinking to the same level as the haters. Islam is about defending each other. Muslims want to show that we deeply deplore all types of hatred of Jews, and that we are there to support them.”

3Afghan Civilian Deaths Hit Record High
2014 was the deadliest year on record for civilians in Afghanistan, according to the U.N. Total civilian casualties jumped 22 percent from 2013.​

4. Ash Wednesday: To Be Seen
“… revelation does happen and ... we see. We see that we have always been seen by God. God holds us and beholds us even when it can be so hard for us to hold and behold God.”

5. On ISIS, God’s Love, and the Narrow Way
“I join the Christian community in condemning this heinous crime [of ISIS executing 21 Coptic Christians] and praying for the families and loved ones of these men. Yet at the same time, I can’t help but wonder about the images I’m not seeing in my social media stream. The images of thousands of Shiites, Yazidi, agnostics and others who have died at the hands of ISIS. Why am I not seeing them, their faces, on Facebook and on Twitter?”

6. A Love Letter to the Black Church
A challenging call to the nurturing church of one woman’s childhood to do better. “And so my challenge, in this love letter, is to sit in the tension of a tradition that I love and continues to give me so much, even as I refuse to support the ways in which that very same tradition wounds and destroys.”

7. Pastor Ousted Over LGBT Inclusion: ‘There’s So Much Grace’
A moving Q&A with Rev. Adam Phillips, whose congregation, Christ Church: Portland, recently lost funding and affiliation with the Evangelical Covenant Church over Phillips’ outspoken support for LGBT inclusion in the church. “I think it’s imperative that we lean into what the Holy Spirit is doing. I think the Holy Spirit is guiding us on this conversation — and there’s so much grace. Even though there’s so much pain and fear. I think in the end, grace wins out.”

8. PHOTOS: What Are We Feeding Our Kids?! How Other Countries’ School Lunches Compare
“The widely different meals from Spain, Ukraine, Greece, South Korea, Brazil, France, Finland and Italy are all fresh and wholesome, with fish, steak and vegetables featuring prominently. But in stark contrast, the [U.K. and U.S.] lunch trays feature processed foods such as popcorn chicken, frankfurters, cookies, and beans from a tin.”

9. Finding the Bodies That ISIS Left Behind
As ISIS cedes territory to Kurdish forces in Iraq, peshmerga soldiers are uncovering mass graves of Yazidis — a ethnoreligious group in northern Iraq. BuzzFeed visited some of these sites and reports on the tragic findings. ”The graves are grim evidence of ISIS’s drive to massacre the Yazidis on a far greater scale — which rallied much of the international community to the Yazidis’ cause, paving the way for the U.S. strikes. They also show the horrors that unfolded all the same.”

10. Radical Brownies Trade in Hawking Cookies for Chanting ‘Black Lives Matter’
From the group’s Facebook page: “Radical Brownies empowers young girls of color to step into their collective power, brilliance and leadership to make the world a more radical place.”

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