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In his 20s, while a student at the University of Maryland, Aitcheson was charged with making bomb threats, manufacturing pipe bombs, and threatening to kill Coretta Scott King in a letter.
Aitcheson pleaded guilty to several cross burnings, including one in the front yard of an African-American couple in 1977.
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“Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side: the Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists who brought their hate to a peaceful community. They must be roundly condemned at all levels.”
Paula White speaks at her church, New Destiny Christian Center, on Jan. 1, 2017, in Apopka, Fla. RNS photo by Sarah M. Brown
“They say about our president, ‘Well, he is not presidential.’ Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank goodness,” White said. “And I mean that with all due respect. Because in other words, he is not a polished politician. In other words, he is authentically — whether people like it or not — has been raised up by God.”
Pastor A.R. Bernard at Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Photo by Michael Chan via arbernard.com
Preaching days after he became the first member of the White House’s evangelical advisory board to resign after the president’s comments on Charlottesville, Va., the Rev. A.R. Bernard said he sees the controversy swirling around the board as a sign that “God is at work.”
From left, Ronnie Floyd, Rodney Howard-Browne, Adonica Howard-Browne, Johnnie Moore, and Paula White stand behind President Trump as he talks with evangelical supporters in the Oval Office at the White House. Photo courtesy of Johnnie Moore/
In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fake news. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has long been sleeping. — 2 Peter 2:3
On Wednesday, when President Trump shut down his business advisory committees just ahead of his business advisers’ resigning en masse in the wake of Charlottesville, one of his evangelical advisers, Johnnie Moore, delivered a statement on ABC News that concluded the following.
Pope Francis meets President Trump during a private audience at the Vatican on May 24, 2017. Photo courtesy of Reuters/Evan Vucci/Pool
President Trump’s evangelical Christian advisers are requesting a meeting with Pope Francis after a Vatican-approved magazine published a piece condemning the way some American evangelicals and Roman Catholics mix religion and politics.
News that scientists for the first time successfully edited genes in human embryos created a stir this week. In the experiment, outlined in a paper in the journal Nature published Wednesday, scientists essentially snipped a mutant gene known to cause a heart condition that can lead to sudden death.
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A neo-Nazi had walked into a gurdwara — or Sikh temple — in Oak Creek, Wis., and gone on a rampage, fatally shooting six worshippers and wounding several others, including a police officer. To this day, the attack on the Oak Creek gurdwara remains one of the deadliest acts of violence on an American house of worship in our nation’s history.
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Musk urged a group of governors to proactively regulate AI, which he views as a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”
“Until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal,” Musk said.
Zuckerberg shot back, saying fearmongering about AI is “irresponsible.”
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“It’s the best Bible study that I’ve ever taught in my life,” Ralph Drollinger of Capitol ministries told CBN News. “They are so teachable, they’re so noble, they’re so learned.”
According to Capitol Ministries’ website, the sponsors of the White House ministry includes the regular attendees, as well as Vice President Pence, House and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
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At 9:50 a.m., Rosalynn Carter, who turns 90 in August, takes a seat in the fifth row along the wall to my right.
A few minutes later, Jimmy walks in, his weathered face smiling, microphone in hand.
Today, he says, we’ll be reviewing “one of the most difficult sections of the Bible.”
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“It’s hard to really put into words,” said Marita Rother, a nun and younger sister of the priest who was shot to death on July 28, 1981, while serving as a Catholic missionary during Guatemala’s bloody civil war.
“I think the whole thing is beyond what any of us would expect to be happening,” she added.
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“We’ve added definition to the picture of evolution that has deepened and enriched our understanding of biological processes,” Donovan Schaefer, an Oxford lecturer in science and religion who co-organized the conference, told the opening session of the July 19-22 meeting.
But he added: “It would be naive to imagine that the grander questions about biology, religion, the humanities, and evolutionary theory generally have been put to death.”
Interfaith clergy carry a cardboard coffin while leading a procession to protest attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act during a rally on Capitol Hill, on July 25, 2017. RNS photo by Madeleine Buckley
For the third week in a row, clergy showed up on Capitol Hill to protest Senate action on health care.
As in past weeks, some were arrested. But on this Tuesday, the group ratcheted up the drama by marching to the Capitol, carrying a cardboard coffin and poster-sized death certificates for those who would lose health insurance.
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In the recollections of many evangelicals, America was then a tranquil, moral land deeply rooted in a specific set of traditional Christian values: the shining city on the hill, an idyllic small-town nation dominated by a white male leadership group.
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The church’s predominately black congregation once mirrored the neighborhood’s demographics. But today hip and eclectic East Nashville, with its rising property values and trendy restaurants, draws white millennials, said the Rev. Morris Tipton Jr., the church’s pastor.
Given the neighborhood’s shift, is Tipton worried about the church’s future?
President Trump, flanked by evangelical leaders Paula White, right, and Jack Graham, in blue suit, speaks during the National Day of Prayer on May 4, 2017. Photo courtesy of Reuters/Carlos Barria
Squeezed among two dozen other evangelical supporters of the president, Southern Baptist Richard Land added his hand to the others reaching to pray for President Trump. The July 10 Oval Office prayer session, which has been panned and praised, is just one example of the access Trump and his key aides have given to conservative Christian leaders — from an hourslong May dinner in the Blue Room to an all-day meeting earlier this month in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door.
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In the midst of a raging discussion about what it means to be American, it is worthwhile to reflect on the profound ambivalence of American civil religion — perhaps the most powerful force for creating a shared national identity.
In 1967, Robert N. Bellah’s seminal essay, “Civil Religion in America,” created a template for how both the right and the left defined civil religion to cultivate a sense of belonging, particularly in an era of turbulence. During this period of increasing polarization, Bellah’s words are more relevant than ever.
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Do churches and religious organizations have a positive impact on the way things are going in the United States?
Americans are divided on that point, according to a Pew Research Center survey released on July 10 that shows they align along predictable party lines.
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Amid ceremonies this year marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, one of Protestantism’s leading branches has officially said it now agrees with the Vatican on the main issue at the root of its split from the Roman Catholic Church half a millennium ago.