Elie Wiesel’s death is inspiring an outpouring of grief and gratitude from leaders in the religious and political worlds, and ordinary people alike.
1. How the Declaration of Independence Went Viral
“By the time Congress got around to ratifying the Declaration of Independence on August 2nd, 1776, it was already old news.”
2. One Year After Taking Down the Confederate Flag, Bree Newsome Is Still Fighting for Justice
“I think maybe the main thing that has changed is my perspective. I think I’m really recognizing that this a marathon race that we’re in, basically.”
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced June 30 that the military would no longer disqualify transgender people from serving, effective immediately.
Back in July 2015, the Pentagon began a study to determine what it would take to lift the transgender ban.
Jim turned to me and said: “We’re greedy — seeking a second blessing.”
I smiled wryly: “This is my third.”
Bree Newsome, a Christian activist from North Carolina, climbed into history last year when she scaled the flagpole of the South Carolina state house and removed the longstanding Confederate flag. One year later, Sojourners caught up with Newsome, an honoree at The Summit 2016, on what her action helped bring down — and build up.
A lawyer for the Christian legal aid group International Justice Mission (IJM) has disappeared, and was last seen locked in a metal container with his client yelling for help, reports The New York Times.
Willie Kimani, a lawyer in Nairobi, Kenya, was representing the motorcycle taxi driver Josephat Mwenda in a case against a police officer who had shot him accidentally, and when Mwenda complained, retaliated by accusing Mwenda of a variety of false charges. Despite the harassment, Mwenda pursued the complaint in court.
Stuart Levy, a nurse at a Jerusalem hospital, updates his ward’s work schedule several times a week, with staffers’ vacations, birthdays and more religious holidays than many people know exist.
“We have 18 hospital beds, and on any given day we may have an Orthodox Jew next to a devout Muslim next to a Catholic next to a Druze next to a Russian Orthodox patient,” said Levy, head nurse of the oncology/hematology ward at Hadassah Medical Center-Ein Kerem. “And many of our staff are religiously observant.”
Boris Johnson, the frontrunner to become prime minister of the U.K. after David Cameron announced he would step down, said June 30 he would not seek the office, reports the Associated Press.
A bill wending its way through the California Legislature would limit religious colleges’ ability to claim an exemption from federal Title IX regulations that bar discrimination against LGBT students and faculty.
Only schools that prepare students for pastoral ministry would be allowed the religious exemption under California Senate Bill 1146 — which passed the state Senate in May and is scheduled for a hearing in the state Assembly on June 30.
Hoping to make the world safer, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has published a guidebook on countering dangerous speech, authored by a young American who helped quell intertribal conflict in Kenya during its 2013 elections.
Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech , doesn’t reveal exactly how to quell incendiary speech. The nature and context of speech that can lead to violence vary too widely across the globe for any particular prescription to make sense.