YONAT SHIMRON

Religion News Service
This undated photo provided by Religion News Service shows the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Conn. (Yonat Shimron/Religion News Service via AP)
Rejected elsewhere, these LGBTQ Jews find love and acceptance in the Connecticut woods
“I have not found a place where I am comfortable being both Jewish and queer,” said Spanjer. “In the Jewish spaces, you never know how someone’s gonna think about the queer stuff, and in the queer spaces you never know how someone’s gonna think about the religious stuff. And to me, these aren’t diam
 
Presiding Bishop-elect Sean Rowe speaks following his election during the Episcopal Church General Convention in Louisville, Ky., June 26, 2024. (Randall Gornowich/The Episcopal Church via AP)
Sean Rowe wants to realign the Episcopal Church
As a boy, growing up in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, he saw Westinghouse Electric Corp. shutter its plant.
 
Rev. Richard Joyner stands in a Conetoe Family Life Center field flooded by Hurricane Helene in Conetoe, N.C., Oct. 14, 2024. (Yonat Shimron/Religion News Service via AP)
‘Not an act of God.’ How the Rev. Richard Joyner became a farmer, then a climate activist
The small, predominantly Black community, about 80 miles east of Raleigh, is surrounded by vast, fertile farmland but has no grocery store for miles around. According to figures from the Census Bureau, 67% of the residents of Conetoe (pronounced Kuh-NEE-tuh) live below the poverty line.
 
In this photo provided by Religion News Service, Pastor Clint Pressley stands for a portrait in his office at Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., on July 21, 2024. (Yonat Shimron/RNS via AP)
After a slew of controversies, the SBC turns to a low-key leader to keep things cool
“Mark chapter 14,” he intoned in his Southern drawl. “If you’re a guest with us, we read the Bible and then we just talk about the Bible. You’re gonna find it feels a lot like a Bible study. Mark 14 starting in verse one …”
 
Grow It organizer Leah Reichardt-Osterkatz, right, helps children make smoothies from strawberries they picked, plus kale grown on the farm, at Spring Forest in Hillsborough, N.C., on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (Yonat Shimron/Religion News Service via AP)
With strawberries and goats, a ‘farmastery’ reaches out to its neighbors
Later, the children sliced the berries they had gathered and added bananas, kale and yogurt to blend into smoothies before heading out to feed chickens and goats. They then strolled through a wooded trail (spotted a turtle!) and took turns at a pair of swings hanging from a tree. The morning conclud
 
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was shaped by her minority faith
“Our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in a statement released by the Supreme Court. “We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn, but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew