Wednesday digest

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New this week from the Century:

• Heidi Neumark has church during a hurricane: "Most churches in the New York area closed down as Hurri­cane Irene
  approached. My circumstance was a bit different." (subscription required)
• More on Dan Savage and monogamy: "While Savage claims to care not
  about monogamy itself but about respecting agreements you've made with others,
  his advice often suggests that monogamy maintains some sort of privileged
  status."
• I consider what it means to be a godparent: "I didn't refer to my godson as my godson until I heard one of his
  parents do it first. . . . It's pretty awkward calling a kid
  your "baptismal sponsee." Really drains the cute right out of the moment."
• Bromleigh McCleneghan on cuts to a family member's Medicaid services: "Recently my father-in-law's Medicaid plan stopped covering Lexapro—with
  little notice. By the time he could get authorization for a "preferred"
  antidepressant, he had quit cold turkey."
• Debra Dean Murphy on our society's "increasing contempt for the poor": "None of the sad spectacle unfolding this week about taxes, health
  care, and the death penalty is about any of those things. Shamefully,
  it’s about our increasing contempt for the poor and, just as tragically,
  our inability to name it as such."
• Clay Oglesbee blogs the lectionary: "As pastors, we spend a great deal of time sharing in the
  ongoing lives and adventures of our congregants and community members. We are
  also called, literally, to come to love and suffer with them when
  disappointments, disasters or deaths occur."

In the news:

• Religious groups latch on to the Groupon craze
• Pope will reach out to German Protestants on state visit
• Southern Baptist president floats name change
• Clock is ticking for religious freedom panel
• Presidential candidate links Israel policy to religious faith

Links from elsewhere:

• It looks like Troy Davis is about to be executed for a crime it's not at all clear he committed.