“Austin,” which opened to the public on Feb. 18, during the season of Lent, has so far drawn 12,000 visitors to the grounds of the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. Many of them are, no doubt, nonbelievers too. But even they have taken note of the work’s spiritual leanings.
There is a tragedy happening within U.S. denominations and religious institutions that cripples the witness of the church in the wider society. Bonds of Christian fellowship are being torn asunder by the debate over the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the church, creating untold pain and suffering for many LGBTQ people and others, while sharpening disunity in Christ. And all this is unnecessary, and unfaithful.
Since 26 students and teachers were murdered and two injured by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., there have been 10 more fatal shootings at American elementary, middle, and high schools. In all, 57 people were killed, excluding the shooters.
A Wrinkle in Time is bright and colorful, not only applying broad imagination to its settings and costumes, but also daring to extend that same concept to its diverse cast. In addition to the multiracial identities of the three Mrs., Meg is biracial and the adopted Charles Wallace is asian. These choices clearly come from a very personal place for DuVernay, and it’s lovely to see that diversity communicated with earnestness and intention. A large part of the film’s message is self awareness and self-love and it’s important that this message comes to audiences through the experience of a young girl of color, addressing universal pre-teen feelings of awkwardness or self esteem issues through a character who relates to more than just a white audience.
In the midst of the Time’s Up movement, we agree that now is the time for equality and to end sexual and gender-based violence once and for all. While the entertainment industry is doing a great job of raising awareness, other groups need to step up and enact change. A critical group that must be involved is the faith community.
1. 15 Remarkable Women We Overlooked in Our Obituaries
Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries: of heads of state, opera singers, the inventor of Stove Top stuffing and the namer of the Slinky. The vast majority chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones; even in the last two years, just over one in five of our subjects were female. The Times’ new project, Overlooked, aims to correct that.
2. Black Girl Power: Exploring Love and Rage in Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time
“Little black girls deserve a hero all their own. Someone who looks like them, worries like them, fights like them, and, in the end, saves them. While this world may demand its specific service of black heroines, black girls deserve themselves.”
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that delayed the Trump administration's March 5 deadline, leaders from the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, Esperanza, Christian Community Development Association, Bread for the World, as well as U.S. Catholic bishops referenced Matthew 25 to address the biblical calling to "treat the immigrant with dignity, respect and love, providing the same welcome that we ourselves would hope for."
Spiritual bypassing is not exclusive to Christians or white people, but I would argue we are the most guilty collective of practicing and enforcing it. We maintain systems and cultures that coerce all of us to assimilate into the practice of bypassing pain. In our anger-phobia, we shame oppressed people into the compliance of feigning joy. Worse than that, we tell them and ourselves — either simplicity or explicitly — that justice work is a distraction from the gospel message.
I return to Sojourners — nearly a decade since I served as the Senior Political Director, and after a great deal of prayerful discernment — inspired by the courage and boldness of a new generation of young activists. The protests and activism of the Black Lives Matter movement has forced the issue of racialized policing and police violence onto the public agenda. Student survivors of the horrific massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School this past Ash Wednesday continue to speak out with such moral clarity about the need to address the fraudulent and pernicious state of gun violence in our nation. Dreamers are reframing the narrative and debate around immigration with their personal testimonies and bold advocacy to expand opportunity and justice, not simply for themselves but for all immigrants in this nation.
“I am sure the largest currency used on the black market, for [buying] haram things, is the U.S. dollar. So if the question of a currency being haram is what it is used for, the dollar would be the most haram,” Sabree said. “Just because a tool is used for something haram, doesn’t mean the tool is haram.”