1. Read the First Chapter of Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Sequel
Happy Christmas in July! Read this excerpt of the much-anticipated Go Set a Watchman — due to be released on Tuesday. Or listen to the chapter, featuring narration by Reese Witherspoon, over at The Guardian.
2. Pope Apologizes for Catholic Church’s ‘Offenses’ Against Indigenous People
"I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America."
3. When Algorithms Discriminate
So there’s this, from the Upshot: "Research from the University of Washington found that a Google Images search for ‘C.E.O.’ produced 11 percent women, even though 27 percent of United States chief executives are women. (On a recent search, the first picture of a woman to appear, on the second page, was the C.E.O. Barbie doll.)"
The decision to focus just on the Christian relationships takes away from the complex and morally grey issues surrounding war. As a younger viewer, I left the film with a series of questions: did the directors think the U.S. intervention in Vietnam was justified? Should we have left at an earlier time? How do we deal with the ethical atrocities that were committed by U.S. forces, such as the use of napalm?
While Little Boy and Faith of Our Fathers are films made by different teams and creators with different interests, they both reflect an intrinsic tendency in the Christian film industry to "clean things up." Both films ignore the darker moral implications of the symbols they choose. While the filmmakers clearly want to remember the people who fought in these wars, their attempts at cleaning up history so that it’s family friendly doesn’t do the veterans the justice they deserve.
Pope Francis correctly points out that while “we are not yet tearing one another apart … we are tearing apart our common home," and that not defending our common home “is a grave sin."
The scientific community, Pope Francis believes, “realizes what the poor have long told us: Harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem," Through human-made decisions that resulted in pollution and exploitation, Pope Francis declared, "The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished."
What I am learning is that the new normal is not that I no longer experience God, but that God is meeting me in new ways. The new normal is that I don’t need to hear people play guitar telling me to feel God’s love from a stage. I find God’s love in much less conspicuous places, from the stranger behind me who felt too awkward to shake my hand, to the silly doodles my kids were making on the church bulletin. The new normal is that I no longer find authority in celebrity pastors preaching at me, but I do find it listening to unheard voices of small bloggers and older people who aren’t social media savvy.
The new normal is that I hear the "Roman Road" gospel preached and find it dull and superficial, and yet feel overwhelming conviction in the cross lived out by people who forgive their enemies.
The new normal is that although God has not changed, I have changed. And like a parent who stops cooing in baby talk, God is starting to speak in new, fresh ways to me.
Much more than an event or a conference, The Summit was the growing edge of the beloved community — a gathering of emerging leaders with deep reach into neighborhoods and communities that are outcast but vibrant, marginalized but standing tall. It was creative and radically inclusive, bringing together people with very different experiences in the struggle for a more just and peaceful world.
To be included as an elder for such an event was a humbling and lovely experience — even more so to share that experience with such wise and faithful disciples as C.T. Vivian and Eliseo Medina, Heidi Neumark and Terry LeBlanc, Katherine Marshall and Roy Sano. I gained much more from each conversation than I could possibly have given!
When I first noticed the figure, I assumed it must be a man or a woman. On this day, however, something made me stop to look more carefully. Schmaltz’s sculpture is realistic in form though slightly diminutive in scale. I stepped in closer to inspect its details. I reached out to touch the supplicant hand. The sculptor probably wanted such a response — appreciating the object while objectifying what it represents. After all, one can’t stop and stare at an actual street person, stepping back and forth to gaze intently. One certainly can’t touch that person’s skin to see what it feels like. This particular art object is unusual because it mimics live human beings who sit nearby. The juxtaposition packs a wallop. At least, it does for me.
Today, at 4:00 p.m. EST, Governor Haley of South Carolina intends to sign a bill to take down the Confederate battle flag that is currently flying over the state capitol. The flag itself will be removed at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, and moved to a museum.
Calls for the removal of the Confederate flag, seen as a symbol of racism and oppression, have been buildingsince the murder of nine African-American men and women at Emmanuel AME in Charleston, S.C., last month. Dylann Roof, the accused murderer who is alledged to have been motivated by racial hate, has several pictures online posing with the flag as a symbol of white supremacy.
The flag itself increasingly been seen as a symbol of hate, even among traditionally conservative white southern Christians, with Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention going so far as to say that “the cross and the Confederate flag cannot co-exist without one setting the other on fire.”
This decision to take down the flag made its way through a marjoity vote in the South Carolina House earlythis morning. The vote comes nearly two weeks after Bree Newsome, a Christian activist, took down the flag herself in an act of civil disobedience on June 27. For her, this was an act “not only in defiance of those who enslaved my ancestors in the southern United States, but also in defiance of the oppression that continues against black people globally in 2015.”
When members of the House Republican leadership met with several evangelical and Catholic leaders in 2014, they promised to our faces that they would bring serious immigration reform to the House floor for a vote. They failed to live up to that promise, deciding instead to cave to their white-washed right wing base. Some Republican members admitted to us that many of their constituents were expressing clear racial biases.
I believe Donald Trump is deliberately and directly appealing to that white racist core of the Republican Party, and that’s why he is currently number two in the Republican polls. He is selling racism and he is winning.
I know and trust Republicans and conservative friends who reject such racism — want to purge it from their party — and long for a wider, more diverse Republican Party for the future. Indeed, the Republican votes, and even impassioned speeches, to take down the Confederate flag in South Carolina show a tale of two Republican parties — and that is a hopeful contrast to the racist elements of the party to which Trump is selling himself.
It is time for them to stand up to Donald Trump and what he is selling.
Actor and writer Dylan Marron is the creator of Every Single Word, a popular tumblr and video series dedicated to exposing the lack of racial diversity in mainstream Hollywood films.
For the series, Marron, a biracial native of Venezuela best known for his work on the cult-favorite podcast Welcome to Night Vale, chooses a well-known, recent film and edits it down to only the lines spoken by people of color. The results are damning. None of the videos in Marron’s series last over a minute. Some, like Noahand Into the Woods, which feature no actors of color at all, simply cut directly to black.
Marron spoke with Sojourners about the origins of the project, the long-term effects of poor diversity representation onscreen, and systemic struggles facing people of color in the entertainment industry.
Despite threats from some conservative Christian dissenters, civil disobedience may turn out to be an irrelevant response to gay marriage.
To understand why, we have to think seriously about what civil disobedience really is.
Here’s a good definition: If a government mandates what religious people believe God forbids, or forbids what religious people believe God mandates, civil disobedience may be required.
In the first case civil disobedience involves the refusal to do what government commands, and in the second case it involves the continued practice of an act that government has banned.
Could this apply to the new legalization of gay marriage nationwide?