The past 12 months of violence against unarmed black bodies continues to draw national attention to the ongoing challenge of police brutality in the United States. Under the collective action call of #blacklivesmatter, activists and concerned citizens across the country challenge the ideology of white supremacy undergirding our criminal justice system and demand an end to state violence against black bodies. Yet the #blacklivesmatter movement is about more than an end to police brutality; it is call for the health, wholeness, and vitality of all black communities and a world in which black lives are no longer systemically and intentional targeted for demise. This includes an account of the physical environment in which black communities reside.
The sickness in our society is driven by the way we mistrust and pull away from one another; how we decide to care only about ourselves and our immediate families; the way we choose to serve only those who are like us – same race, ethnic background, sexual orientation, religion, political views.
Everyone else gets minimized and pushed away. We arm ourselves to protect our shrinking little space. We live like moles, wary of predators.
In guns we trust. In fear we live.
Here’s the thing. God is your father and your mother and God transcends those categories because God is neither literally male nor female. But Father Longnecker thinks calling God Father and Mother is just too confusing for people. Apparently, the fact that God is One, yet Three, but really One … that isn’t confusing at all. But to call God Father and Mother … we can’t wrap our minds around that.
Father Longnecker is right that when his disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, he responded that they should pray to the father. Father Longnecker claims this is his slam dunk against calling God Mother. Jesus didn’t teach us to pray to our mother, but to our father.
To be honest, I don’t know how God will provide in this desert. But I won’t stop crying out for it. I don’t know how God is forming us as his people in the midst of this constant tragedy but I trust that his Spirit is at work in us. And I don’t know if we’ll come through our times of testing in the wilderness a more Christ-like people — but it’s my prayer and my hope.
Racism has the insidious ability to show up in both large and small ways. People being hateful over a comic book character pales in comparison to the horror of Charleston, where a racist individual, emboldened by a wider culture willing to dismiss or outright ignore the realities of white supremacy (especially white male supremacy), slaughtered nine people. But that’s the nature of the virus that is societal racism: it infects broadly, shows up in multiple ways, and is far from easily eradicated.
What is a Christian to do? When events like Charleston occur, we, sadly, have been through similar situations enough times to follow an unspoken script. We condemn (though not always in the right way), we pray, we announce solidarity, and then we move on to the next issue. It’s a cycle that has become heavily problematic, almost to the point where our handling of racism is becoming as troubling as the racism that prompts our reaction.
After the tragic events in Charleston, Republican leaders have backed efforts to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the Capitol in South Carolina. There has also been a move among once-supporters of Confederate symbols to take down monuments and other public markers of that era.
Why the change in position? I think one reason is the politics of the flag before the shooting.
In April 2011, Pew did a survey that included several questions on the Civil War (it was the 150-year anniversary of the start of the war). One question asked how people felt when they saw the Confederate flag — was it a positive, negative, or neutral reaction?
As the Vatican continues to work on policies to combat clergy sex abuse, a leading pontifical university in Rome hosted a conference this week on how the Catholic Church can better address the current crisis and released details of a new diploma program on protecting children.
A series of measures pushed through in recent months by Pope Francis has given Vatican officials new tools for dealing with child molesters within the church, but critics argue that the Holy See has been too slow to act on scandals globally.
The Supreme Court upheld the insurance subsidies under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in a 6-3 ruling on June 25.
The ruling leaves the Affordable Care Act unchanged, and protects the subsidies that 8.7 million people receive to make insurance affordable.
On Father's Day — just four days after the shooting at Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston, S.C., left nine dead — the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr., pastor emeritus at Cleveland's Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, and his son, the Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, teamed up to preach a remarkable sermon on prophetic grief.
"A few days ago a young man, drunk on the wine of confederate supremacy, high on the ideological opium of racialized thinking, attempted to start a race war," says Otis Moss III in this powerful video.
"This domestic terrorist was unfortunately conceived by America's original sin, and our largest exported product — better known as racism. Many have tried to define this moment as an anomaly, but terror and terrorism come in many forms. We have met Dylann Roof before. ... We have met him before. ... We met him before."
Pope Francis said June 24 that there are times when it is “morally necessary” for couples to separate, as part of the pontiff’s broader reflection on how to protect children from quarreling parents.
Speaking to crowds in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said that in some cases “separation is inevitable” and “can even become morally necessary” at times.
The pontiff was clear in specifying the extreme cases in which he saw family breakdown as justifiable: “when it comes to saving the weaker spouse, or young children, from more serious injuries caused by intimidation and violence, by humiliation and exploitation, by lack of involvement and indifference.”