The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has selected scholar and activist Linda Gaither as the recipient of the 2022 John Nevin Sayre Award. The award, established in 1979, is given every three years to an Episcopalian who has shown “courageous witness in the cause of peace and justice.”
On April 11, Cathy Chang, a Presbyterian missionary living in the Philippines, discovered she had been “red-tagged” by the Philippine government after meeting with a progressive political candidate.
According to Human Rights Watch, red-tagging is a decades-long practice in which the Philippine government publicly accuses individuals or organizations of supporting the communist New People’s Army. The Philippine military often harasses, tortures, or kills suspected communists.
On April 21, Izani Bruch, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile, was appointed chaplain of the Palacio de La Moneda of Chile, the national headquarters of governmental affairs and ministries.
“As a church we are very happy and we receive it with humility, with fear and trembling, but also with great hope and commitment to make this new Chile, which we are all dreaming of, possible,” Bruch said.
One of the most celebrated and influential United Methodists is lending his name to an institute at Vanderbilt University that will promote and study nonviolence.
James Lawson, who has been called the “architect of the civil rights movement,” has given his blessing to the James Lawson Institute for the Research and Study of Nonviolent Movements at Vanderbilt University.
Lawson, 93, said in an interview that he will act as “spiritual adviser” to the institute, along with his ongoing work advising, teaching, and writing.
The City of Boston so clearly violated US law on religious liberty that a normally divided US Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the city on May 2.
At issue was a flagpole owned by the city. The city offers civic groups the opportunity to fly their flags briefly on the pole to encourage civic engagement. Yet when a conservative Christian group called Camp Constitution applied to fly its flag—which is widely known as the Christian flag—city officials denied the request, citing the religious nature of the flag’s “speech.”
Muslim and Jewish organizations are expressing concern about billionaire Elon Musk’s impending ownership of Twitter, warning that the aerospace tycoon could roll back moderation policies and unleash a new wave of harassment against religious minorities often targeted on the platform.
“It strikes me as deeply troubling and potentially dangerous that two people—Musk and [Facebook cofounder] Mark Zuckerberg—essentially control the public square,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. “That seems like a sad day for democracy.”
Catholic bishops in California have asked the US Supreme Court to review a case challenging a state law that expands the time survivors of childhood sexual assault have to file their claims.
The petition, first reported by the Catholic News Agency, was filed April 15 by nine California Catholic dioceses and archdioceses after the California Supreme Court refused to consider the case—Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland v. Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County—in November.
Jamie Manson, head of Catholics for Choice, was watching Netflix when Politico published US Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion arguing for overturning Roe v. Wade. Like many Americans, even devoted activists on the issue, Manson wasn’t expecting the news. She said it took multiple calls from her staff to get her attention.
The decision, however, did not surprise her.
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary professor Reginald Blount has been tapped to lead the school’s Center for the Church and the Black Experience. He succeeds Taurean J. Webb, who has served as CBE director since 2019.
The CBE, which was founded in 1970, provides leadership training for Black seminarians and pastors. Blount is an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and currently pastors Arnett Chapel AME in Chicago.
Mennonite Church USA announced that Sue Park-Hur will fill the denomination’s newly created director of racial-ethnic engagement position. Park-Hur had been MC USA’s denominational minister of transformative peacemaking.
According to a press release, the new position was created to help leaders in the country’s largest Mennonite denomination define its diversity, equity, and inclusion goals as well as its standards and desired outcomes.