Trump's racial comments 'give cover to white supremacists'

Faith and Politics: Your guide to the Democratic presidential debates
Religion Unplugged: Wondering about the religious affliliation of the Democratic presidential hopefuls? This guide profiles each 2020 candidate to show their faith backgrounds and present practices, and how their faith sees their chosen policy issues.
Religion News Service: 5 issues religious liberals will be tuned to in the Democratic debates

National Cathedral leaders: Trump's racial comments 'give cover to white supremacists'
CNN: Leaders of the Washington National Cathedral slammed President Donald Trump's recent attacks on minority lawmakers and the city of Baltimore as a "dangerous" rallying cry to white supremacist violence.

SBC leaders note 'urgent need' along the border
Baptist Press: Marshal Ausberry, first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, traveled to Mexico on a fact-finding trip and said, "We don't get into the politics of it, but as believers in Christ Jesus, we're burdened to do that basic level of care."
KTSM: Pastors, migrant activists march on Border Patrol station in El Paso

Study asks if war makes a person more ... or less ... religious
WBUR: The more profound the impact of war on an individual -- such as the death, injury or abduction of a household member -- the greater the likelihood grew of that person turning to religion, a new study concludes.

Clergy abused an entire generation in this village. With new traumas, justice remains elusive.
Propublica: An entire generation of children survived years of sexual abuse by Jesuit priests and Catholic church personnel shipped to St. Michael, a Yup'ik Eskimo village of 400. Any expectation the Alaska criminal justice system will energetically investigate sexual assault or hold people accountable has been eroded by generations of neglect.

The Question of Meaning with Pastor Carlos

The Question of Meaning

The readings this Sunday invite us to examine our life in terms of the big questions, such as: what matters most to us? What do our choices reflect? What drives our life?

For some young people, the way they answer the question of meaning provides a direction for their life and the commitments they make, and for others, who may have been blessed with having lived a long life, the question of meaning may come toward the end, as they try to frame the choices they made into a meaningful narrative.

 

I spoke the other day with a contractor who volunteered to give me some advice for fixing a problem in the basement of the church. Yet we spoke more about life than about the basement. He shared how he lived with many years with resentment in his heart. When he was much younger, another man had tried to rob his father of his life. Although he restrained his impulse for vengeance thanks to both of his parents who insisted that vengeance would only lead to his ruin, he could not shake off his resentment for years.

He knew in his mind that Christ spoke about forgiveness, but he wanted a sign that indeed Christ was calling him to forgive that man.

One day, he experienced a religious experience, which gave him the peace he was looking for; he received the assurance beyond a doubt that indeed forgiveness was the way forward. Now he finds himself doing something for the church, because despite its flaws, he sees the church as a messenger of God. He can see both its weakness and God’s work despite it.

We have an inborn desire to be happy, but so often we deceive ourselves and become driven by something like vengeance... or like Jesus says in the Gospel: greed. The good news is that if we’re humble about our limitations and steadfast in our search, God will find us and break down our illusions to then satisfy us with more than we could have dreamed.

God bless, Fr. Carlos, OSA

Pope Francis Explains How Jesus Taught Prayer

On Christian Prayer

Church's final gift: $3.6 million for homelessness services

Church leaders look at options for future of denomination
UM News: Sierra Leone Bishop John K. Yambasu urged church leaders to find "a new way forward through consensus" while also saying, "Every United Methodist now knows our denomination is heading for a separation."

Priests accused of sex abuse turned to under-the-radar group
AP News: For nearly two decades, a small nonprofit group has operated out of unmarked buildings in rural Michigan, providing money, shelter, transport, legal help and other support to at least hundreds of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse.

Too busy for church? There's an app for that.
The Christian Science Monitor: Should church be convenient? As online services and Bible apps expand, some people are finding an expanded definition beyond a building. But others worry community is being lost.

How to do strategic planning like a futurist
Harvard Business Review: Deep uncertainty merits deep questions, and the answers aren't necessarily tied to a fixed date in the future.

Church's final gift: $3.6 million for homelessness services
The Seattle Times: A church that closed in March lives on through its largest final gift: over $8 million from the sale of its property, spread among local charities and faith organizations.

A Vision Worth Living and Dying For

A Vision Worth Living and Dying For

How God called Christianity Today’s new leader, Dr. Timothy Dalrymple, and a glimpse into the ministry’s expanded direction.

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Raising Kids in Ministry

Blessings and Boundaries for Raising Kids in Ministry How can pastors integrate their children into their work without souring them on church? Ashley Emmert

In an article for Leadership Journal, Lillian Daniel, senior pastor at First Congregational Church in Dubuque, Iowa, wrote, “I can’t go anywhere without seeing a current, former, or potential parishioner. It’s gotten so my teenage children refuse to eat out with me in our city. They ...

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it’s time to retire our favorite evangelistic phrase

Excerpt | CT Magazine The Apostles Never ‘Shared’ the Gospel, and Neither Should We Why it’s time to retire our favorite evangelistic phrase. Elliot Clark

For some time now, American Christians have conceived of their witness in terms of “sharing the gospel.” Read any book or listen to any talk on personal evangelism, and you’ll inevitably encounter the phrase. On one level, the terminology is positive, conveying the gracious act of giving others a treasure we possess. However, if by “sharing” we imply a kind of charity where we only give the gospel to willing recipients, then our Christian vernacular has become a problem. ...

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The Ratzinger Option

The Ratzinger Option

James Kalb
 

We live in a time of dissolution, in which natural and traditional ties are growing thinner, and also in a time of consolidation – in which all life is being absorbed by a global economic machine. The results, of course, are becoming less and less livable for most people. The Church is presented with an […]

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Challenging the Courts: It’s Long Overdue

Stephen M. Krason
 

Governor Mike Dunleavy of Alaska made national headlines with his novel challenge to a decision by state’s supreme court, which requires the Alaskan state government to fund abortions. Dunleavy vetoed a portion of the state’s appropriation for its judicial branch: a portion equal to the amount the court requires the government to provide for abortions […]

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It's time for more Christians to address gun violence

A Protestant push for gun reform, deep in the heart of Texas
The Trace: The Rev. Deanna Hollas is being touted as the country's first minister of gun violence prevention. Sponsored by the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, her role is to provide pastoral care to people who are scared of becoming gun violence victims and to mobilize leaders in Presbyterian churches to enact gun reforms.
Relevant: It's time for more Christians to address gun violence

Boris Johnson's confusing and contradictory religious history
The Economist: The new British prime minister's spiritual antecedents, and his present convictions, are a bundle of contrasts and confusion. In a nutshell, he has Muslim, Jewish and Christian ancestors. He was christened a Catholic by his mother. He was confirmed in the Anglican faith (thus formally lapsing from Catholicism) while attending Eton College.

Symposium: The new court and religion
SCOTUSblog: Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh will likely adopt a free exercise clause that provides robust protection of religion, a change from their predecessors on the court, writes Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC-Berkeley School of Law.

Ebenezer Baptist's pastor says ministers shouldn't stay silent on issues of race
AJC: The Rev. Raphael G. Warnock says mass incarceration isn't just one more manifestation of racism in America. He sees it as the struggle for America's soul. "I think people of faith, who have moral courage, have to stand up to mass incarceration in the 21st century the way people of faith stood up to slavery in the 19th century through the abolitionist movement and Jim Crow segregation," Warnock said.

The last days of John Allen Chau
Outside: In the fall of 2018, the 26-year-old American missionary traveled to a remote speck of sand and jungle in the Indian Ocean, attempting to convert one of the planet's last uncontacted tribes to Christianity. The islanders killed him, and Chau was pilloried around the world as a deluded Christian supremacist who deserved to die. Alex Perry pieces together the life and death of a young adventurer driven to extremes by unshakable faith.

An Immodest Proposal

Correcting the Synods of Surprises

Joshua Hren
 

During the heady days of Vatican II, while spirited disputes over the schema raged on, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre proposed that the governing structure of the episcopal conferences undergirding the Council was “a new kind of collectivism invading the Church.” Lefebvre wasn’t fearmongering when he told the missionary-journalist Fr. Ralph Wiltgen that a handful of bishops […]

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An Immodest Proposal

Fr. George W. Rutler
 

A fad for picturesque ruins grew luxuriantly in the Romantic Revival from the end of the eighteenth century to about the mid-nineteenth, and where there were no real ruins, “follies” recreated them. Real ruins remain in a kaleidoscope of times and climes: Machu Picchu in Peru, Ayutthaya in Thailand, Stonehenge in England, Luxor in Egypt […]

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Christian street preacher compensated after wrongful arrest in London

·      John Paul II Institute responds to student and faculty criticisms

The Pontifical John Paul II Institute issued a statement Monday, defending recent changes at the school. But some students and faculty members say the explanations do not represent the full picture of issues at the theological institute.

·      Christian street preacher compensated after wrongful arrest in London

·      Poor and vulnerable most hurt by budget cuts, say Alaska's bishops

·      Archbishop says he never vetoed Sr. Joan Chittister's invite to Australian conference

·      NIH issues new guidelines for funding research on aborted fetal tissue

·      Vatican official offers message of hope to Church in Venezuela

·      Cardinal Ouédraogo elected president of African bishops' conference

·      Archbishop Lori defends Baltimore after Trump tweets

·      Polish priest attacked in sacristy during apparent robbery

·      Vatican: Remains of missing teen not found among bones

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