Posts in North America
Church van plays gospel music to calm police and protesters in Brooklyn

Tension between protesters demanding justice for George Floyd’s death and New York police officers fizzled out for a time when a church van playing gospel music strategically inserted itself into the mix. The crisis response team is led by Jamaican immigrants with a passion for Jesus and a history of social justice and community outreach.

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Amid protests, looting and COVID-19, a Minnesota black church hopes and prays

A church in the historically black neighborhood of St. Paul reopened this weekend after loosened coronavirus guidelines and days of violent protests nearby after the death of George Floyd. Pastor Dwight Buckner remembers the riots in the sixties and conjures Martin Luther King Jr.’s calming words, while a 22-year-old church member whose mother is recovering with COVID-19 tells how a white man stopped him at gunpoint on Saturday.

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Holy Land Hoop Dreams: Why Americans love playing basketball in Israel

Scores of African-American players have called the Israeli Basketball Premier League home, drawn there for a chance to play professionally and earn decent money. In the process, these players have become ambassadors for the Jewish state — some marrying Israeli women, serving in the country’s army and converting to Judaism.

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The Great Divide: Why The Church Isn’t Connecting With #BlackLivesMatter

(OPINION) Black Lives Matter is a departure from past social justice movements. It is not attached to any religious institution, and it is anonymous with no defined leadership. Unlike past civil rights movements spearheaded by ministers and laypeople, in the Black Lives Matter movement, the church has been relegated to the back seat.

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Christian TikTok videos are censored and deleted in the US, creators say

Researchers have grown concerned over the China-based app’s reach and the possibility of it bringing Chinese-style censorship to mainstream U.S audiences. After pro-life accounts were disabled and reinstated, now Christian TikTokers say their accounts and videos are being censored without explanation.

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What climate change and COVID-19 have in common for the faithful

(OPINION) A young evangelical writes about what God is teaching us during a global pandemic about our responsibility to care for other people and the environment.

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Shuttered churches could fuel death of Catholic newspapers

(OPINION) Like secular news outlets, Catholic media also face financial hardships created by the pandemic. This is a trend that has, of course, affected all news media and across many other industries, such as hospitality and tourism to name just two.

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Newly ordained Divinity grads grapple with adapting to a pandemic

The newly ordained must take everything they learned and adapt it to serve their communities during a pandemic. New chaplains in particular are jumping into virtual pastoral care and may have to wait on certifications that lockdowns have delayed.

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Could Democrats win over Mormon votes? Here’s where they diverge from evangelicals

(ANALYSIS) Both Mormons and white evangelicals lean heavily right-wing in American politics. But while Mormons look like white evangelicals in terms of partisanship and ideology, they don’t vote in lockstep. And one of those reasons may be policy, specifically on gun control, abortion and immigration.

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Class of COVID-19: 3 Commencement Addresses That Highlighted Faith

Like everything else that involves large gatherings, the global pandemic has forced many schools to either hold their ceremonies online or postpone them to a future date. For the colleges and universities that did decide to hold ceremonies this month, the topic of God wasn’t far from the minds of commencement speakers like actor Tom Hanks.

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'AKA Jane Roe' documentary misrepresents her work, pro-life activists say

The FX program airing Friday says Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” in the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S., made a “deathbed confession” that she was not pro-life and that pro-life organizations paid her nearly $500,000 during the decades she spoke out for the pro-life cause. However, the film doesn’t make it clear that many of these payments were fees for speaking engagements, and those who knew her insist her conversion to Christianity and repentance of pro-choice activism was genuine.

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How a leading Jewish community center is adapting summer plans

As the pandemic alters summer plans and disrupts long-held traditions, the Jewish community in Georgia adapts camps and activities to the new reality.

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Methodists are reviving 19th century 'love feast' rituals online

The “love feast” was regularly practiced by early American Methodists who were scattered across the frontier and had to wait for a quarterly visit from traveling ministers to have communion. In the absence of their minister, communities would gather to share stories of how God was working in their lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Methodists who had never or rarely held love feasts before are now hosting them online.

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COVID-19 is creating new burdens for religious minorities

(OPINION) The chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed governments across the world the liberty to heighten existing religious persecution. Many religious minorities are discriminated against in healthcare provision and some are even being blamed for the spread of the virus.

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Templeton Prize awarded to Francis Collins, pandemic response leader

The geneticist and physician is a leading voice in the conversation about faith and science, and has been a steady voice urging religious communities to have faith in science. His agency is hard at work in the global race to find treatments for COVID-19.

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