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Friday’s religion wrap

The Journey team selects stories that got us talking this week.   

Reap what you sow with a nice cup of joe

Laist reports on efforts by a Korean church in California to attract new congregants with coffee. The Ignatius Café offers the kind of beverages you’d expect from a popular coffee house but the establishment’s owner is actually the St Agnes Korean Catholic Church and the diversification into coffee is a strategy to attract newcomers.

St Agnes priest Rev Choi Daeje says, “I find God in all things. I find God in coffee. Everyone can come and enjoy.”

Choi’s efforts have proven popular with the community and he was asked to assist with the opening of another church-run café, E.Um in Los Angeles’ Koreatown which was eventually bought by Olympic Presbyterian.

Harry Park—staff member at E.Um—sees the café as all part of the broader mission of the church: “Instead of shameless evangelism, the church can use this café to give back to the community. It’s implicit evangelism.”

Don’t look now at what’s screening at church

A series of controversial film screenings at a church in the United Kingdom is causing a stir, per The Christian Institute. Derby Cathedral has partnered with a local cinema to exhibit a number of films which you wouldn’t normally associate with church going: the infamous horror film Don’t Look Now, cult thriller The Wicker Man and Monty Python’s classic Life of Brian.

Given all those films contain violence, nudity or controversial takes on religion, local churchgoers are not exactly happy with the choices. One local commented, “I just think it isn’t appropriate to show these films in a place of worship. It compromises the spiritual integrity of the cathedral.”

However the church’s dean, the Very Rev Dr Stephen Hance has said that the films, “won’t be showing God anything that he hasn’t seen before.”

One hell of a statue arrives at capitol

CBS News reports on the unveiling of a confronting Satanic Temple statue in Arkansas while discussions take place on the suitability of having a Ten Commandments statue on Capitol grounds. Satanic Temple members claim the Capitol’s Ten Commandments statue is a violation of the Constitution, specifically around freedom of religious rights, and that if that religious statue is allowed to be erected on government property then their 7.5 foot statue depicting Baphomet should also be allowed to be there.

“If you’re going to have one religious monument up then it should be open to others, and if you don’t agree with that then let’s just not have any at all,” says Satanic Arkansas cofounder Ivy Forrester.

Sentator Jason Rapert, a sponsor of the Ten Commandments statue, says, “It will be a very cold day in hell before an offensive statue will be forced upon us to be permanently erected on the ground of the Arkansas State Capitol.”

Mormon label now off the table

The Guardian reports on the latest news surrounding the nomenclature of Mormonism with the church’s President Russell M Nelson declaring that the full name—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—should only be used from now on. The 94-year-old Nelson gave few reasons for the decision but said God told him directly it needed to be so.

“The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His Will,” wrote Nelson on the church’s official press site—mormonnewsroom.org.

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