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Here's How Faith Groups Are Helping Louisiana Flood Victims
Mercy Chefs founder Gary LeBlanc prays with volunteers in Baton Rouge. Photo credit: PBS Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
In a northern Baton Rouge suburb last weekend, Jared Stockstill watched with alarm as the floodwaters rose on his street.
Then he started hearing that rescue workers weren’t able to reach everyone who needed help. Stockstill is the administrator of Bethany Church, a nondenominational megachurch with five campuses in the Baton Rouge area.
Sikhs Hopeful on Anniversary of Shooting
Aug. 5, 2012 vigil in Wisconsin, RNS photo by Lacy Landre
One year after a gunman opened fire in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., killing six worshippers, Sikhs say they are hopeful about the future and even more determined to be better understood.
“The legacy of Oak Creek is not one of bloodshed,” said Valarie Kaur, founding director of the interfaith group Groundswell, a project of Auburn Seminary in N.Y.
“[It’s of] how a community rose to bring people together to heal and to organize for lasting social change,” she told the PBS television program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”
Bobby McFerrin: Praying as He Sings
American singer and musician Bobby McFerrin. Photo courtesy haak78 / Shutterstock.com.
He’s best known for his iconic 1980s feel-good hit “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” but Grammy-award winning artist Bobby McFerrin explores a deeper side of life in a new album.
Titled spirityouall, the recording includes his adaptations of traditional African-American spirituals and devotional songs that he composed.
McFerrin believes music has a transcendent spiritual power.
50 Years Later, Recalling the Young ‘Foot Soldiers’ of the Civil Rights Struggle
Child marchers, sprayed with fire hoses in May 1963. Photo courtesy Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — In May 1963, thousands of Birmingham school children faced police dogs, fire hoses, and possible arrest to demonstrate against segregation. Now, 50 years later, those who were part of what became known as the “Children’s March” say they don’t want their story to be forgotten.
“We were doing this not just for ourselves but for some higher purpose,” said one of the young marchers, Freeman Hrabowski III. “It focused on civil rights for all Americans.”
Hrabowski is now president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He was 12 when he marched in Birmingham and was arrested for parading without a permit. He and hundreds of other children were held in custody for five days before being released.
Experts say the children’s crusade helped galvanize the civil rights struggle at a time when efforts were flagging.
“That was really the tipping point in a tipping year,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, who has written a series of books about the civil rights movement, told the PBS program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”
Watch Birmingham and the Children’s March on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.
Legacy of Vatican II at Heart of Dispute Between Vatican, U.S. Nuns
A Rally in support of nuns. RNS photo courtesy Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly
Fifty years after Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council to modernize the Roman Catholic Church, the legacy of that watershed summit that revolutionized Catholic life is at the core of a dispute between the Vatican and American nuns.
In April, the Vatican accused the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the umbrella group that represents the majority of American nuns, of “doctrinal confusion.” As LCWR leaders meet this week (Aug. 7-11) to plot their response to the Vatican, many of the sisters say they are just following the spirit of Vatican II.
“This is not just about the Vatican versus the nuns. This really is about the future of how we interpret the message of the Second Vatican Council,” Sister Maureen Fiedler told the PBS program “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.”