Patrick Murphy's execution was again halted Thursday because Texas death row inmates' final access to spiritual advisors of their faith differs for Christians and Buddhists. Murphy, a 58-year-old Buddhist, is one of two surviving members of the infamous "Texas Seven," a group of escaped prisoners who committed multiple robberies and killed a police officer near Dallas in 2000 during more than a month on the run. Four others have already been executed, one killed himself when police caught up to them in Colorado, and one other remains on death row with Murphy.
Several top diplomats repeatedly warned of the consequences of rescinding legal protections for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti, but the Trump administration ignored them, according to a report out Thursday from the Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“We have seen many reported examples of abuse within our private prison population,” Cardin said at a briefing on private prisons. “We know that there are problems there, but we don’t have the information we need because they are exempt from the same requirements prisons run by the government need to comply with.”
In May 2018, more than a year after taking office, President Donald Trump issued an executive order establishing the position of adviser to his “Faith and Opportunity Initiative.” Last week, more than a year after the issuance of that executive order, and only a year before the next presidential election, the White House confirmed that it has tapped televangelist Paula White to fill this role. In light of these developments, it’s a good time to take a brief look at the history of White House partnerships with faith-based and neighborhood organizations as well as standards that should be used to evaluate such work.
Unfortunately, Romans 13 is often interpreted by those who favor obedience to the status quo as saying that God demands that we always submit to the authorities, because their power comes from God. The most egregious example of this position in recent months is when children were being torn away from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called family separation “biblical,” citing Romans 13.
Jesus is King is the most pointed and concise album of Kanye West’s catalogue. He had a clear goal in mind — to praise Jesus for all that he has done for Kanye. Kanye approaches that goal and this album with blinders on, trampling over his hypocrisies of his own life and the way he views the word of God.
Honoring the labor, expertise, and material resources used to make clothes is an essential way to honor God.
That guilt — whether over the privilege into which he was born, or from a sense of inferiority over never meeting parental expectations, or survivor’s guilt for outliving his brother Fred whose alcoholism led to an early death at 42 — is what I believe has motivated Donald Trump for much of his life.
In the second episode of this new season of The Soul of the Nation, the Rev. Jim Wallis interviews Secretary Julian Castro. Throughout this special season, Wallis will sit down with the 2020 presidential candidates to discuss the intersection of faith and politics. The candidates explain how personal faith has shaped their passion for public service and positive social change.