The first annual analysis of major energy company transition plans to be released since COP26 has found that only 1 in 10 are ambitious enough to keep global warming to 1.5°C.

This energy sector report is the first to feature TPI’s 1.5°C benchmark which assesses corporate targets against the IEA’s pathway to keep to 1.5°C of warming.

TPI assessed 140 of the largest energy companies (76 electric utilities, 58 oil & gas, 6 diversified miners involved in coal mining) on ‘Carbon Performance’ finding that 10% were aligned with a pathway to keeping global warming to 1.5°C, and a further 24% were aligned with a ‘Below 2°C’ pathway.

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New energy report from @tp_initiative finds only 1 in 10 companies are ambitious enough to keep global warming to 1.5°C@actmatthews says investors need to engage: "if we reshape demand we reshape the energy providers."https://t.co/pRgCKA93OB

— Church of England Environment Programme (@CofEEnvironment) November 29, 2021

They looked like the poster couple for faith and family. He was a successful professional, who provided for his wife and children and led them in prayer. She was a stay-at-home mom with a leadership position in their religious community. They seemed to exemplify how great a life rooted in belief could be.

But behind closed doors, Amy, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, endured years of spiritual abuse as her husband turned aspects of her faith against her.

Shortly after they married, Amy says, her husband became obsessed with the idea that she wasn’t telling him the truth about her past. He forced her to pray with him about it. Constantly. He insisted she share with him every detail of her unmarried life.

After these discussions, he would manipulate and coerce his physically and emotionally exhausted wife into having sex. Only later did she realize the pattern amounted to sexual abuse, though he claimed he was driven by love and a desire to make their relationship perfect and eternal.

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‘We can change the air that abusers breathe’: How faith communities are addressing domestic violence https://t.co/WPFdEu5Ztw pic.twitter.com/HU5M2gSJsu

— Mya Guarnieri Jaradat (@myaguarnieri) November 29, 2021

The new survey also asked about views of the afterlife, finding that many Americans believe in an afterlife where suffering either ends entirely or continues in perpetuity.

Nearly three-quarters of all U.S. adults (73%) say they believe in heaven, while a smaller share – but still a majority (62%) – believe in hell. Both figures are similar to what the Center found when it last asked these questions, in 2017. Among Christians, overwhelming majorities of all major subgroups express belief in heaven, but Protestants who belong to the evangelical and historically Black Protestant traditions are more likely than mainline Protestants and Catholics to express belief in hell. Meanwhile, roughly a quarter of U.S. adults say they believe in neither heaven nor hell, including 7% who believe in some other kind of afterlife and 17% who do not believe in any afterlife at all.

Americans who expressed belief in heaven and hell were asked several questions about what they think those places are like. The vast majority of those who believe in heaven – which is most U.S. adults – say they believe heaven is “definitely” or “probably” a place where people are free from suffering, are reunited with loved ones who died previously, can meet God, and have perfectly healthy bodies. And about half of all Americans (i.e., most of those who believe in hell) view hell as a place where people experience psychological and physical suffering and become aware of the suffering they created in the world. A similar share says that people in hell cannot have a relationship with God.

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According to the latest @PewResearch survey, 1 in 4 Americans don’t believe in heaven or hellhttps://t.co/IgcaEHRtca

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) November 28, 2021

Advent commemorates, celebrates, and kindles hope for the justice of God. King Jesus has come and his Father has raised him to Zion’s throne to reign with a rod of iron until his enemies are made his footstool (1 Cor. 15:25; cf. Ps. 110). The promise of Advent is the promise of public justice. Advent announces the coming of the Lord who breaks the arms of the sex traffickers, the drug lords, the arms dealers, and all their respectable collaborators. It’s the hope that God will overturn worlds built on oppression and violence, and will rescue and raise up their victims.

The only good news that meets the needs of the world is the good news of God’s judgment. That’s the gospel of Advent, the joy to which the angels of Advent summon us: Rejoice! Shout joyfully! For the Lord comes to judge the earth. He has come; he will come; he will judge the world in justice and all the peoples with equity.

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Advent announces the coming of the Lord who breaks the arms of the sex traffickers, the drug lords, the arms dealers, and all their respectable collaborators.https://t.co/aV1YTVhfMF

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) November 27, 2021

Frustration was nothing new, not for any of them. Ms. Burns, who specializes in domestic violence, describes the criminal justice response to these crimes as ineffectual, like “putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds.” She spends much of her time scraping for evidence that can be admitted in court, but so many of the assaults she prosecutes take place behind closed doors, she said, that not guilty verdicts are common.

Ms. Neal’s suicide — the way she had slipped away from them — made this failure different, more agonizing.

“From the criminal justice side of it, we had a piece of paper telling Nelson not to contact her, that’s what we had,” Ms. Burns said. In domestic violence cases, she added, “the dynamics and the history are too deep” to be altered by “a piece of paper from a judge.”

Domestic violence cases are so challenging that some experts, like Rachel Teicher of John Jay College’s National Network for Safe Communities, argue that arrests and prosecutions are simply inadequate as a response, and should be supplemented with other kinds of interventions.

Perpetrators and victims become accustomed to a cycle — charges dismissed or reduced, restraining orders violated — and conclude, she said, that “these are systems I don’t have to take all that seriously.”

“The folks at the front lines are often using every tool they can,” she said. “Sometimes our tool kit isn’t big enough.”

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For victims of domestic violence, cooperating with prosecutors can be dangerous and disruptive. Assault charges can take a year or two to wend their way through the system, a period during which abuse can continue or worsen. https://t.co/LFPBLORdee

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 28, 2021

O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst warn us to prepare for the day when thou shalt come to be our judge: Mercifully grant that being awake from the sleep of sin, we may always be watching and intent upon the work thou hast given us to do; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer#charleston #StMichaels #Anglican #advent #church pic.twitter.com/f04nmnkId0

— Cynde (@cyndemwalton) November 28, 2021

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.

–Psalm 1:1-3

Hidden gem alert!

The @BLMNational Meadowood Special Recreation Management Area in Virginia is an autumn wonderland.

Despite its small size (800 acres), this little-known spot has miles of trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding. pic.twitter.com/ed1wlDYi8c

— US Department of the Interior (@Interior) November 28, 2021