Recently, a friend emailed me that their twenty-three-year-old son had attempted suicide. The young man had been found fairly quickly, but due to the nature of his attempt and his severe depression, he is now in a hospital's psychiatric ward. My friend asked, “How did it get so bad and I didn't know?” She is trying to process guilt and anxiety about what might have happened. Her son is getting the help he needs, but it’s a long journey back to health and wholeness for the entire family.
The leak is so big — 2.6 terabytes of data, the largest in history — that nearly 400 journalists in more than 80 countries spent the last year studying the 11.5 million documents from the firm Mossack Fonseca, provided to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung by an anonymous source. The collaboration, which included the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Guardian, the BBC, and French outlet Le Monde, is also thought to be among the largest investigative teams in history.
On the anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dozens of faith leaders are calling for the U.S. presidential candidates to include a “living wage” for low-income workers in their political agendas.
Although King should rightly be lifted up as a hero of nonviolence and deeply Christian minister, we need to be reminded of King's radical legacy. King harshly criticized white people who failed to support black leadership. And particuarly toward the end of his life, King began to speak out about economic injustice and militarism, decrying the ills of capitalism and the Vietnam War.
As you remember today a leader who was murdered for his political beliefs, take a moment to reflect on these nine quotes:
A decorated veteran Sikh officer is the first to win an approval from the U.S. Army to continue on active duty while maintaining his religiously mandated beard and turban. The Army issued a decision March 31, concluding that to allow beards for medical reasons but ban them for religious reasons is a discriminatory bar to service for Sikh Americans, according to a statement from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, one of the law offices that argued his case.
The image of a tenured African-American political science professor at an evangelical college wearing the hijab in solidarity with Muslims caught the attention of filmmaker Linda Midgett. A Wheaton College alumna, the Louisiana-based Midgett decided the controversy that erupted from former Wheaton professor Larycia Hawkins’ Facebook photo had all the elements of a good documentary.
“Now let me be clear—I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to help this country in extraordinary moments of need, and I believe this is one such moment now. My colleagues in the Department of Justice have assured me this move is constitutional. So has Michelle. Look, we pledged to stay in D.C. until Sasha's graduation anyway, and let's not pretend you all don't wish I'd done this months ago.”
The Bahá'í writings say that human beings are like mines rich in gems of inestimable value and that one of the purposes of this earthly life is to discover our God-given gems, polish them, and bring them out to serve humanity. Today I write about a wonderful woman who has offered her many incredible gems in service.
“The modern homeschooling movement is one of revolt. ...For a small segment of parents and kids who opt out of traditional public schooling, something is changing: They are also opting out of religion.”
2. 3 False Assumptions About Muslims in the Age of ISIS
“Remember that ISIS wants Islamophobia.”
Fifty years ago, when Claire Wilson was eighteen, she was critically wounded during the 1966 University of Texas Tower shooting — the first massacre of its kind. How does the path of a bullet change a life?
Five top female soccer players say they are being paid just 40 percent of what players on the U.S. men's national team make.