Being black in America is a privilege coupled with unique challenges. The privilege is possessing a heritage authentic to only our diaspora no matter how littered and pained our history may be. As a black man, I did not understand the challenges wholly until I grew older. For black women, the challenges are similar but with added layers that exist because of our American male driven capitalistic based economic silo.
The prayer meeting kicked off the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in France — one of northern Europe's hardest-hit countries — to date, local government said. Around 2,500 confirmed cases have been linked to it.
Between 1347 and 1352, 'The Great Mortality' touched a third of Europe's population.
In this first episode of the Sunday Sermon in a Pandemic series, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and the Rev. Jim Wallis discuss making connections to faith and worship, spiritualty and justice, in the digital and social media age.
Like grocery store workers and first responders, domestic workers occupy a space on the frontlines of the pandemic. While some care for the elderly and people with chronic illnesses in their homes, others face dwindling job prospects, with little savings to stock up on the groceries and cleaning supplies Americans have flocked to stores for.
Church in Kairos time, refusing to physically gather for worship, coping with anxiety in a pandemic, and more.
As President Trump has said he’d like to see “packed churches all over our country” on Easter Sunday to help him re-open the country and restart the economy, which he apparently thinks will help him get re-elected, we need the words of the Lord’s Prayer more than ever. The call to reopen comes despite the exact opposite instructions from health are professionals, along with governors and mayors across our nation, to maintain our social distance and closures until the danger of this modern plague are past us. Trump’s dangerous invitation to take our worship and prayers back into our churches before it is safe to do so is not only monstrous political irresponsibility, but religious sacrilege.
The church is called to meet Jesus in the streets with the homeless — for in a time when people are called to shelter in place they have no place to go. The church must also meet Jesus in places like Flint, Mich. where poor people who are already suffering from respiratory conditions related to contaminated water are amongst those at highest risk.
In this moment, Chinese and Asian American communities are facing the double stress of having to reckon with the racism and xenophobia they encounter, compounded with having to deal with the virus outbreak itself.
We can make radical change more quickly than we imagined. COVID-19 and climate change demand nothing less.