The lecture March 5 by the founder of the Ark Encounter — a $102 million, 800-acre Noah’s Ark theme park that opened in Williamstown, Ky., two years ago — came weeks after the university’s student government association rescinded an invitation for Ham to speak on campus. Some students, who deem Ham homophobic, objected to student funds being used to bring him to campus.
The Academy Award nomination was a cause for celebration throughout the country. President Uhuru Kenyatta tweeted after the 90th Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles on March 4: “You have won our hearts as a nation … Keep telling our stories through your camera and you will win next time.”
When Europeans “founded” America, they took any land that wasn’t “Christian” and claimed it “for God” — which meant that they were given full reign by the church to decide who looked saved and who didn’t. The Doctrine of Discovery gave them full permission to oppress, and because of it, my own Potawatomi ancestors walked the Trail of Death from the Great Lakes region of the United States into Kansas and Oklahoma.
My bookshelf represents a poverty of influence. So for Lent, we — two white middle-class millennial women — decided to fast from white voices and white-dominated media. For 40 days, we’re committing to only read books, watch films, and listen to podcasts written or directed by women of color.
The first edition, printed in 1830, is most precious to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because Joseph Smith, the faith’s founder, personally oversaw its production in a small storefront printer’s shop in Palmyra, N.Y. Thousands of Mormons visit a restored version of the shop in Palmyra each year.
Black youth get tired of seeing negative depictions of people of their own race in movies, said Gary, who wore a yellow and brown African dress to the movie showing. “When we found out that this was going to be an epic tale that actually was written by black writers, costumes designed by black costume designers, we were just, like, ‘We have to go see it.'"
Among President Trump’s many concerning stances on U.S. immigration policy is his proposal to end the long-standing family reunification immigration policy, the process by which nearly six out of 10 Asian immigrants enter the United States.
The Apostle James tells us, “Faith without works is dead.” That is why Jim Wallis is calling for a national church boycott of the National Rifle Association to give life to the thoughts and prayers we send the friends and families of the victims of mass gun murders. By making enormous financial contributions to politicians on the one hand and bullying those politicians who support common sense gun safety laws that are overwhelmingly approved by the vast majority of Americans, the NRA has perverted our democracy and thwarted the will of the people at the expense of the lives of our children while they attend school.
Each holy sacrament — baptism, eucharist, confirmation, reconciliation, marriage, holy orders, anointing of the sick — is a way for Catholics to show that we are with God, and God is with us. And we are with each other.
In this environment, it has been easy to overlook what in any normal week would be a top story. Since Feb. 22, West Virginia public school teachers and employees have been forcing the state's 55 county boards of education to shut down, citing inadequate pay and climbing health insurance costs. That is every teacher, every public school, in the entire state. Though a strike of this scale is extraordinary, it is not without precedent. In 1990, West Virginia teachers in 47 counties stopped work and earned an across-the-board $5,000 pay increase for teachers throughout the state.