(OPINION) It’s difficult for most Americans to understand what is happening in the streets at this time. That’s because most of us have a poor media diet. To better understand racism and protests, we need to read older books, too.
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Family and friends of George Floyd, along with several celebrities, politicians and Christian leaders gathered today in Houston for Floyd’s final memorial at The Fountain of Praise Church in Houston, Texas.
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Black alumni in a letter last week called for Jerry Falwell Jr. to change his behavior or step down as Liberty University president after he tweeted an image of a face mask imprinted with a photo of one man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes.
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An alumnus of the private Christian university in Arkansas says the daily chapel venue’s namesake, George S. Benson, was “a vocal racist and supporter of segregation.” The petition proposes renaming the auditorium in honor of Harding graduate Botham Jean, a black man who was shot to death by a white police officer in Dallas in 2018.
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(OPINION) Journalists needed to give readers both sides of a debate so that they had some chance to fully understood and assess what is happening. Otherwise, they’re only telling half the story. Right?
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Locked and loaded parishioners acting like John Wayne of the church pews may be a new chapter in church history. Historically, Christians were hesitant to deploy violence for self-protection. While the Bible and church history illustrate tension around violence, armed resistance isn’t completely foreign to Christendom.
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Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, announced his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer on Sunday.
Read MoreIn the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in Louisville and Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, Georgia, segments of Atlanta’s Jewish community decried violence against African Americans and called for greater efforts to counter racism at the individual and institutional levels. The statements they issued struck common themes as well as differences reflecting how each views its mission.
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(REVIEW) “Just Mercy” follows civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson as he represents a black man on death row in Alabama, wrongly accused of murdering a white 18-year-old girl. The movie based on a true story is about systemic racism and corruption within the justice system, but it’s also about how those injustices can change.
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This week’s Weekend Plug-in includes a pop quiz on President Trump’s photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church and other top headlines in a busy week of religion-related protest and pandemic news.
Read More(OPINION) A young black Christian woman in New York had not attended previous protests because she thought revenge, anger and bitterness characterized the Black Lives Matter movement. Then Brooklyn churches organized a “prayerful protest.”
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(OPINION) Although President Trump exploited the Bible as a symbol of peace, throughout the gospels Jesus displays righteous anger against unethical money changers and societies who alienated strangers. Trump invoked the Bible to divert attention to the economy, but God always sides with the oppressed.
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Dr. Syra Madad, the senior director for the System Wide Special Pathogens Program for New York City Health and Hospitals, has been on the front line preparing for pandemics before the novel coronavirus hit. Now she's a leader in the response to COVID-19 in New York. Religion Unplugged sat down on Zoom with Dr. Madad to talk about the role her Muslim faith and religion overall plays in her medical mission to fight the spread of disease.
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St. John’s Episcopal Church, where Trump posed with a Bible on June 1, is known as the “Church of the Presidents.” Here are five facts about the historic church that you probably didn’t know, involving Abraham Lincoln, a marriage record of both enslaved and free African Americans, a presidential pew and more.
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After four nights of violent clashes between police and protesters and looting in New York City, more than 100 congregations organized a peaceful protest march in Brooklyn against police brutality and racism.
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(OPINION) When the Georgia legislature reconvenes in mid-June, there is a chance that a bill with enhanced penalties for bias or hate crimes will make its way to the governor. In the grand scope of things, putting a hate crimes law on the books in Georgia should be important on a level with, say, reopening massage and tattoo parlors, nail salons and bowling alleys.
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A Virginia church’s building, in the heart of downtown Richmond, was just one of many structures damaged by rioters and protesters over the weekend. “We’re more concerned with the personal damage than the physical damage — the souls of those who did the damage,” said James Nesmith, minister for the West Broad Church of Christ, a predominantly black congregation.
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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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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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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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