Last week, a black professor told me he always asks his white students if they have ever heard racism called a sin in the pulpits of their churches growing up. The answer is almost always no. That will be absolutely key to a revival for racial reconciliation and justice — seeing racism as much more than political, but rooted in sin, repentance, morality, and faith. That’s why I wrote America’s Original Sin and hoped it would become a tool for new conversations within and between churches across racial lines.
Source: The Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
Source: WDET | Stephen Henderson
Many evangelical Christians who voted Trump into office have advocated for the president’s heavy-handed approach toward immigration.
But some spiritual leaders say it’s fundamental to the faith that Christians open their arms and actively campaign for the rights of all, including and especially immigrants and refugees.
Source: ABC 11 Eyewitness News | DeJuan Hoggard
As the soloist belted a soulful rendition of Great is Thy Faithfulness, attendees of the 11th annual HKonJ Mass Meeting & Worship Service rose to their feet, impassioned for Saturday's Moral March. The event was hosted by the NC NAACP and was held at Rush Metropolitan AME Zion Church in Raleigh.
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Source: The Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
In my Georgetown class last week, we got into a lively discussion about President Trump’s refugee travel ban. One of my students has her law degree from Harvard and is now studying for a Master’s degree in public policy at the McCourt School of Public Policy, where I teach. She had been at D.C. airports most of the previous weekend, trying to help many of the international arrivals who had been detained. “This administration just doesn’t accept the rule of law,” she lamented, and said how discouraged she was feeling.
Source: Minnesota Public Radio | Kerri Miller, Marcheta Fornoff
What is American feminism? Is it more inclusive — economically and racially? Are younger women more interested in identifying as feminists? We asked three women for their opinions.
Source: The Huffington Post | Antonia Blumberg
More than 800 Christian leaders are calling on President Donald Trump to honor the tenets of his professed faith ahead of Thursday’s National Prayer Breakfast.
Source: WDET | Laura Weber-Davis
In order to make positive change for marginalized people, privileged people must care about and stand up for equal rights. The story of Viola Liuzzo shows us how deep the impact of true empathy is felt. Created Equal co-hosts Stephen Henderson and Laura Weber-Davis speak with Wayne State University Governor Kim Trent about Liuzzo, who traveled from her comfortable home and family in Detroit to help with the march on Montgomery, Alabama from Selma in 1965. Liuzzo felt compelled to help Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other freedom fighters in making the march.
Source: The Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
This has become the biggest question in the first week of Donald Trump’s presidency, “What is truth?”
Source: The Huffington Post | Carol Kuruvilla
“It’s theological hypocrisy,” Jim Wallis, an evangelical and the founder of progressive Christian outlet Sojourners, told The Huffington Post.
Wallis pointed to the Biblical passage of Matthew 25, which talks of how at the end of times, “all the nations” will be gathered together and their people will be judged according to how they fed the hungry and welcomed strangers.
“Again and again, [the Bible says] that rulers, the government, society will be held accountable to God for how they treat the poor, the stranger, the immigrant,” Wallis said.
Source: The Huffington Post | Carol Kuruvilla and Antonia Blumberg
The Women’s March on Washington emerged as a response to the election of President Donald Trump. But it is also a movement for human rights. According to organizers, the goal of this powerful demonstration is to “affirm our shared humanity and pronounce our bold message of resistance and self-determination.”
Source: Religion News Service | Adelle M. Banks
“Help us to do deep interrogation of the things we have believed that led to this moment,” prayed Lisa Sharon Harper, chief church engagement officer of Sojourners. “And so, God, I pray that you will give us strength, strength to resist.”
Source: The Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
How did we get here? People are still asking how a man like Donald Trump can become president of the United States
Source: OC Today | Greg Ellison
The group’s inaugural effort is a series of monthly meetings discussing Rev. Jim Wallis’ 2016 book, “America’s Original Sin: Race, Privilege and a New Bridge for America.”
Source: Radio National | Andrew West
If you paid even the slightest attention to the US election in 2016, you could not have missed the powerful phrase “Black lives matter”. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and other young black Americans at the hands of police triggered this new civil rights movement.
Source: The Denver Post | Francis Wilkinson
The religious left is the Sasquatch of American politics. It leaves footprints in the snow but recent sightings of the creature itself are rare, and not always credible
Source: The Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
A conservative evangelical national leader called me during the election campaign. He reminded me how much he cared about abortion, religious liberty, and the Supreme Court. Then said, “But in Christian conscience, I cannot help put a man in the White House who is intellectually incompetent, has lived an amoral personal and public life, is dangerously immature, and is a racial bigot.
Source: The Times-Herald | Jim Ketchum
If the leaders of America’s white evangelicals need ideas for New Year’s resolutions, I have a suggestion: Hold the guy you helped win the presidency to your espoused high moral standards.
Source: The Huffington Post | Carol Kuruvilla
It’s been a tough year for America’s progressive faith community.
The religious left in this country is a racially and theologically diverse contingent of people who see social justice and progressive social values as an important part of their faith practice. The movement traces its legacy back to the Civil Rights Era and to the development of liberation theology ― the idea that people of faith must always stand up for the poor, oppressed, and marginalized of society.
Source: Relevant | Jesse Carey
New Years is just around the corner, and one of the most rewarding resolutions you can make is to read more.
Good books aren’t just entertaining—they provide us with a new perspective on the world we live in and show how we can help be agents of change.
Here’s a look at six books about poverty, injustice, faith, the criminal justice system and human rights that will change the way you see major issues, and provide insight in how to effect them.
Source: The News & Observer | Henry Gargan
On the day of 2015’s racially motivated attack on nine black worshipers in Charleston, S.C., Pastor Kyle Meier of Peak United Methodist Church picked up the phone to call Rev. James Taylor at nearby St. Mary AME Church.