News

Image via RNS / Yonat Shimron

At a time when the far right often cites the inability — or refusal — of Muslims to assimilate, these young volunteers are ready, willing, and able to do what other religious groups in this country have been doing for decades: providing emergency aid, labor, and comfort to people suffering the effects of natural disasters

Image via RNS / Catholic Diocese of Arlington

In his 20s, while a student at the University of Maryland, Aitcheson was charged with making bomb threats, manufacturing pipe bombs, and threatening to kill Coretta Scott King in a letter.

Aitcheson pleaded guilty to several cross burnings, including one in the front yard of an African-American couple in 1977.

Photo via AP Photo/Ben Curtis/ RNS 

“This is a fast-growing humanitarian situation which we have never seen before,” said Benson Okabo, World Vision’s West Nile Refugee Response operations manager. “We are concerned that the donor assistance has been little.”

the Web Editors 8-25-2017

1. Northeast D.C. Gets a New Mural Honoring the Workers Who Built the Lincoln Memorial Statue
The mural features the African-American men who quarried the stones that built to memorial.

2. I’m a Historical Curator. Removing Confederate Statues Isn’t Erasing History.
He works to contextualize a statue of Jefferson Davis at a Southern University. Here, Ben Wright knocks down each of the arguments being made for keeping Confederate statues one by one.

Kimberly Winston 8-24-2017

Image via  Nicole S Glass / Shutterstock.com

“Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side: the Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists who brought their hate to a peaceful community. They must be roundly condemned at all levels.”

Image via Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com

Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a letter posted on his Twitter account that Trump had failed to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis, part of "a broader pattern of behavior that enables sexism and racism, and disregards the welfare of all Americans, the global community and the planet."

The logo of Exxon Mobil Corporation is shown on a monitor above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, December 30, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo

Supran and Oreskes said that while, as early as 1979, Exxon scientists acknowledged burning fossil fuels was adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and causing global temperatures to rise, the company's position in newspaper ads remained significantly different by consistently asserting doubt about climate science.

Kimberly Winston 8-23-2017

Paula White speaks at her church, New Destiny Christian Center, on Jan. 1, 2017, in Apopka, Fla. RNS photo by Sarah M. Brown

“They say about our president, ‘Well, he is not presidential.’ Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness,” White said. “And I mean that with all due respect. Because in other words, he is not a polished politician. In other words, he is authentically — whether people like it or not — has been raised up by God.”

Sandi Villarreal 8-22-2017

Donald Trump delivers remarks at Liberty University commencement May 13, 2017. Shealah Craighead [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

More than 100 Liberty University graduates have pledged to withdraw support and return their diplomas to the office of university president Jerry Falwell Jr., citing his continued support of President Donald Trump after Charlottesville — along with a letter expressing their concerns, copied to Liberty’s board of trustees, by Sept. 5.

Photo courtesy of European Union 2014 - European Parliament/Fred Marvaux/RNS

Francis’ politically pointed message was made on August 21 in view of the Catholic Church’s 2018 world refugee day, celebrated Jan. 14. It comes amid mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe and beyond after waves of migrant arrivals and Islamic extremist attacks.

Astasia Williams 8-22-2017

Students attend the March to Reclaim Our Grounds. Photo by Kaylah Jackson / Medill News Service

Instead of preparing for the first day of school Tuesday, several hundred students at the University of Virginia spent Monday night rallying to call for more racial diversity at the school and to highlight its history of discrimination.

Kimberly Winston 8-22-2017

Monuments associated with Serra have been vandalized before. Within days of his elevation to sainthood in 2015, the historic mission in Carmel, Calif. was vandalized and gravestones were toppled. Serra’s remains are buried at the Carmel Mission, which was founded in 1770.

8-21-2017

Pastor A.R. Bernard at Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Photo by Michael Chan via arbernard.com

Preaching days after he became the first member of the White House’s evangelical advisory board to resign after the president’s comments on Charlottesville, Va., the Rev. A.R. Bernard said he sees the controversy swirling around the board as a sign that “God is at work.”

the Web Editors 8-20-2017

Amid calls for President Donald Trump's evangelical advisers to step down from his Evangelical Advisory Board in the wake of the president's statements on last weekend's events in Charlottesville, one of those advisers, Jerry Falwell Jr., went on ABC's This Week to defend Trump and explain why he still supports him.

White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon (L) and then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
 

President Donald Trump fired chief strategist Steve Bannon on Friday, the White House announced, ending the turbulent tenure of a rabble-rousing conservative media entrepreneur and political activist who was a darling of Trump's base.

the Web Editors 8-18-2017

1. What Trump Gets Wrong About Confederate Statues in One Chart

There are two peaks in the timelines of Confederate statue installations across the country. Guess what the two time periods have in common.

2. Young Immigrants at Risk as Sept. 5 Deadline Looms

An Obama-era executive action allowed 800,000 young undocumented immigrants to register with the government, get work permits, and avoid deportation. Now 10 state attorneys general are threatening to sue the Trump administration if he doesn’t cancel the program by Sept. 5.

President Donald Trump speaks about the violence, injuries, and deaths at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York,  Aug. 15, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
 

President Donald Trump dug in defiantly on Thursday in his response to racial violence in Virginia, echoing the position of white nationalists by intensifying his opposition to the removal of monuments to the pro-slavery Civil War Confederacy.

the Web Editors 8-17-2017

A Charlottesville vigil reading of "Still I Rise," by Maya Angelou. Image via Rick Stillings/Flickr.

 Chanting "love wins" and singing hymns and songs, the vigil attendees in Charlottesville held small candles in a striking visual rebuke to the torches that swept through just days earlier.

Image via Religion News Service/ Americans United

“As a leader in my religious community, I am strongly opposed to any effort to repeal or weaken current law that protects houses of worship from becoming centers of partisan politics,” reads the letter faith leaders who support church-state separation delivered to Congress on Wednesday.

Zach Hoag 8-16-2017

The Rev. Bill Shillady and Hillary Clinton. Photo courtesy of Abingdon Press/RNS

How would you describe Clinton’s faith? What are your impressions of her religious and spiritual life?

She’s a very deeply committed Christian. I know many people are critical of that and don’t believe it, but in my heart of hearts, from the conversations that we have had and from the good that she does, she’s a deeply committed disciple of Christ. And she’s a good Methodist. Methodists don’t talk about their faith very much. She doesn’t wear her religion on her sleeve, but I know that she practices it and she has spiritual disciplines, including reading the Scriptures every day and praying every day. People aren’t going to want to believe that, but it is true.