On Aug. 19, as she accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president of the United States, Harris quoted 2 Corinthians 5:7 expressing her commitment “[t]o the Word that teaches me to walk by faith, and not by sight. And to a vision passed on through generations of Americans ... of our nation as a Beloved Community — where all are welcome, no matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we love.”
“I’m a practicing Catholic. I believe faith is a gift. And the first obligation we all have is, ‘Love your God,’ the second one is, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’” Biden said. The president-elect’s religion and theology had been a central part of his pitch to “restore the soul of America,” which has been reflected in his schedule, policy, and statements from the campaign trail.
It’s been a week of record highs: 143,855,830 people voted for Joe Biden or Donald Trump, and counting; 121,888 new daily cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., and counting.
In Alabama, polling sites in low-income areas of Birmingham were relocated with no explanation and very little warning to residents – many of whom typically struggle to acquire a reliable means of transportation. Luckily, poll chaplain commissioner Sheila Tyson was there to galvanize the community and organize free rideshare services to get these voters safely to the polls and back home.
Preliminary exit polling indicates that religious voters maintained many of the political allegiances they have kept for the past several decades — with one possible exception: white Catholics. About two-thirds, or 68 percent, of voters who identify as Christian cast their ballots for President Donald Trump while 31 percent voted for Joe Biden, according to the latest numbers from Edison Research, which conducts a national exit poll for the news media.
Should the faithful take to the streets in protest to combat political injustice, they will be following the footsteps of religious groups across the globe that have responded with nonviolent action during times of civil resistance.
Politics in Washington, D.C., is often antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. Rev. Jim Wallis and Rev. Rob Schenck, the president of the Dietrich Bonhoffer Institute, discuss the spiritual cost of placing access to power above the gospel.
After President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory in the presidential election at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, he continued to share unsubstantiated claims about dumped ballots, mysteriously found votes, and an effort to rig ballot counts.
In America, too many white Christians say the solution to racism is public acts of prayer and unity while they simultaneously deny the enduring power of white supremacy and their complicity in it. As recently as last month, a high-profile Southern Baptist seminary decided to offer $5 million of their $89.7 million endowment to scholarships for Black students while holding on to the racist narrative, legacy, and structure of their slaveholding founders. As Joseph Gerth in the Louisville Courier Journal points out, pollster Robert P. Jones calls this “the White Christian Shuffle” — white Christians publicly engage in acts of charity while simultaneously holding on to the white supremacist rot that lays at the foundation.