Arts & Culture
Image via Reuters/Bob Ealum/File Photo
If our supposedly secular culture leaps at revelations of hypocrisy, that’s because the concept is deeply embedded in the Abrahamic tradition. The early Hebrew prophets like Amos and Isaiah were all about denouncing demonstrations of piety and religious observance as worth nothing in the absence of righteous behavior.
Image via The Square Trailer
But help is something Christian, and everyone around him, has trouble giving to those who really need it. The Square is full of characters asking for help from unwilling people, including homeless people, charity workers, and women being attacked. Even Christian, an attractive upper-class white guy, can’t get help when his wallet and phone are stolen on the street.
"I will probably be back next week and the week after that forever and ever,” Strong concludes, “because this isn't just a scandal. It didn't just start this week. It's just actual reality for half of the population.”
Image via No Greater Love
In "No Greater Love," a retired U.S. Army chaplain interviews the soldiers from his unit, documenting their service, sacrifice, and suffering.
Brandy Jones prays in front of 26 crosses erected near the site of the shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland, Texas, U.S., November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
Our thoughts and prayers are fleeting breath.
If we just dream of what could be
And do not build community,
And do not seek to change our ways,
Our dreams of change are false displays.
Image via the Murder on the Orient Express movie trailer
Kenneth Branagh’s new big-screen adaptation of Christie’s novel is a diverting, gorgeous-looking film that struggles a little at showing the humbling effect that dilemma has on the great detective. However, it does a good job of portraying the pain at the center of this story, and how it metastasizes in its characters.
Left: Jon Stewart reacts to Ackerman's question at the University of Chicago in 2016, via YouTube. Right: Louis C.K., image via Photo Works / Shutterstock.com
On 2016, David Axelrod, the chief strategist of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, interviewed Jon Stewart at the University of Chicago, my college campus, for his CNN podcast The Axe Files. I was in an audience of students eager to see the former host of The Daily Show return to the public eye, and I’d wanted to ask him a question during the Q&A portion. I didn’t get to, but I am confident that even if I had, my question would not have been as important as Dan Ackerman’s.
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The Ashland County Sheriff's Office stated that the deputy was responding to a call reporting an individual armed with a knife in Odanah. The responding deputy fired shots, striking and killing the teen who was an eighth grader at Ashland Middle School.
Image via RNS
It is, of course, bringing up memories and exposing old wounds that we thought may have been healed throughout the process of time. It’s thrust several members back into that June 17, 2015, time when everything was kind of just moving very rapidly and having a lot of people experience the sheer raw emotions of having their church violated and having their ministerial staff and loved ones murdered within the sacred walls of the church.
She called for the end of "the boyfriend loophole," referring to the 20-year-old Lautenberg Act that barred individuals who are married, in a domestic partnership, or have children to own guns. Outside of that realm, domestic abusers are still allowed to own guns.
Image via Jim Forest / Milwaukee Journal / Flickr
"We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it."
The site of a shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S. November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
In a small town like Sutherland Springs, everyone will be affected by the shooting, Buford said. Police said the youngest shooting victim was five years old.
Mourners attend a candle light vigil after a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S., November 5, 2017. REUTERS/Joe Mitchell
"We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state’s history," Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at the news conference. "The tragedy of course is worsened by the fact that it occurred in a church, a place of worship where these people were innocently gunned down."
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The findings directly contradict the Trump administration's policies on climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency has removed mentions of climate change from their website, with administrator Scott Pruitt denying that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming. "It begs the question, where are members of the administration getting their information from? They’re obviously not getting it from their own scientists," Philip B. Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center, said.
Image via Thor/Facebook.
Much like Thor, many white Americans are only now reconciling with the idea that the narrative we’ve grown up believing cuts out huge chunks of the country’s history. It’s especially pertinent that this perspective comes to us from an Indigenous filmmaker (Waititi is Maori, from New Zealand), whose country has its own long history of racism, and who championed cultural representation on his set.
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The report shows that anti-Semitic incidents spiked during and immediately following the Charlottesville protests that left one woman dead. President Trump ignited a political firestorm in the wake of the violence when he attributed “blame on both sides” — white supremacists, as well as those who marched against them.
Image via Everett Historica/Shutterstock
No one cared to get to know the man that they were killing — in Jesus’ case, and in the case of my friend. The judges and governor had made up their mind on who he was based on media headlines. No one saw any need to sit with the man who was on the execution table, to find out if his life had changed and whether or not he was having a positive influence on those around him. They defined him by a crime he had committed years ago.
While watching the film, seeing one friend sacrifice so much so that the other could have this experience, it becomes clear that the pilgrimage I’ll Push You takes us on is the way of love.
As someone who served as a fulltime Christian minister for more than a dozen years, and who later worked for a nonprofit that mobilized men and boys to advocate for women and girls, I’d like to take a moment to focus on the role of churches. I believe that churches must change how they address sexual violence.