In the latest “Weekend Plug-in,” columnist Bobby Ross Jr. interviews an all-star panel of religion journalists about the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on LGBT employment rights.
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(OPINION) Religion can help people find meaning and wholeness, which can lead to happiness even after a traumatic experience or just a rough patch in life. This is valuable in an ever more shallow world that puts a premium on materialism, and is driven by greed and wastefulness.
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(OPINION) Thousands of Christians in Nigeria have been affected by a litany of mass atrocities perpetrated by Boko Haram and Fulani herders. The Nigerian government should respond with comprehensive investigations and prosecutions, but it is clear that will not happen until we, as an international community, recognize the nature and severity of these crimes.
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(OPINION) Prayer is paramount and education is critical. But is it essential that they lead us to act. We cannot hide in our prayer closets or behind our books. Perhaps what is most important for the current moment, is for us as Christians to do all we can to support structural changes that will reduce the frequency of incidents such as the death of George Floyd.
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(REVIEW) Season 2 of “Ramy” follows a young American Muslim man in his earnest struggle with sexual impurity and relationships. He wants to practice Islam dutifully, but the consequences of his actions serve as a haunting reminder of how he’s failed — or maybe an encouraging reminder that it’s never too late to start over.
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In this Friday’s Weekend Plug-in, a tie-in between the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957 and a Houston teen who stood up for a friend called the N-word. The teen is the great-grandson of the Arkansas mayor who asked President Dwight D. Eisenhower to send federal troops to allow the school’s desegregation.
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(OPINION) It appears the general consensus in Kenya is that the U.S. police are a racist lot who derive much fun from bullying people of color. However, some Kenyans are questioning why their compatriots are so irked by what is happening in far away USA while not condemning similar prejudices in their own country.
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(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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(OPINION) While media reports focus on protests in Minneapolis, New York and beyond surrounding George Floyd’s killing and other racial injustices committed by law enforcement, atrocious violence against black women, children and men is surging in Nigeria. And we hardly hear a word about it.
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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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(OPINION) A recent government appointment of board members for Serbia’s Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, which includes studies of religious ideas, is showing the increasingly small space for critical thinking in Balkan institutions.
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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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(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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(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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Weekend Plug-in looks at the faith of George Floyd, houses of worship reopening amid the coronavirus pandemic and other top headlines from the religious world.
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(OPINION) A Nigerian Christian recounts her experiences struggling with mental illness and letting go of the idea that if she had enough faith, God would heal her.
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(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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