Larycia Hawkins, who left Wheaton College in the wake of controversy over her statement that Christians and Muslims worship one God, has a new gig: a fellowship named for a Muslim military hero.
The University of Virginia announced March 3 that she will join its Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture as the “Abd el-Kader Visiting Faculty Fellow,” named for a 19th-century Algerian leader who was committed to intercultural dialogue.
It’s time to put the moral crisis over the political one. Donald Trump’s potential nomination by the Republican Party is not just a crisis for that party and for election politics in general, it is a moral crisis for the country, for democracy itself, and for the state of faith in the nation.
The media can act shocked about Trump failing to quickly and very clearly denounce David Duke and the KKK and their support for him, but they didn’t seriously ask the more important question: Why do the advocates of white supremacy like and advocate for Donald Trump?
"Donald Trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University," said Mitt Romney on March 3, speaking at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the University of Utah.
If Donald Trump is telling the truth, he only recently learned that David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, is an avowed segregationist. Apparently, the KKK and its history have faded from many white Americans’ memory. Jeffrey Lord argued on national television this week that the Klan is an invention of “the left.” As native sons of the South, we could forgive these men their ignorance. (“Bless their hearts. They ain’t from around here,” is the polite way to say it.) But we can neither forgive nor ignore the way 400 years of white supremacy have been naively reduced to whether a candidate will disavow the support of a hate group leader. Racism lives on in policies that perpetuate racial disparities, with or without the KKK.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has rejected a plea to block an EPA air pollution rule. Despite the fact that the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 last year that the mercury and air toxics standards rule is illegal, Roberts unilaterally rejected twenty conservative states' request to block it, in a big win for the Obama administration.
Migrants are stitching their own lips shut to protest the French government’s clearing of the refugee camp in Calais, known as the "the Jungle." Authorities are clearing the southern half of the camp and relocating the refugees, they say in response to unsanitary conditions. They bulldozed a church and a mosque in the camp on Feb. 1.
There is intense anticipation in the Catholic Church — and no small amount of anxiety for traditionalists — over what Pope Francis will say about communion for divorced and remarried Catholics in a key document expected in the coming weeks. But Francis has already made an intriguing change in this area, albeit one that only concerns the Vatican’s arcane diplomatic protocol and a very, very select group: Catholic heads of state.
The world-renowned leader of an environmental and indigenous rights group in Honduras has been killed. Berta Cáceres, General Coordinator of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 for her work organizing indigenous Hondurans to successfully block the construction of the Agua Zarca Dam. Late on the night of March 2, two unidentified individuals broke down the door of the house where Cáceres was staying, shot, and killed her.
We cannot control or shape the place of our birth. It gives us our bounds for understanding ourselves on this earth. It is difficult to grow beyond our background to include others who are different within the scope of our compassion. Most often we are inclined to feel loyalty only to people who are similar to us in critical regards.
The Texas Department of Public Safety trooper who arrested Sandra Bland — a 28-year-old black woman who later was found dead in the Waller County jail — has been formally fired, three months after a grand jury indicted him on a perjury charge related to the arrest. For the Class A misdemeanor, Brian Encina faces a $4,000 fine and up to a year in the same jail where Sandra Bland died.