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September 23, 2020

Volume 137, Issue #20

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Features

Critical Essay

White supremacy is a script we’re given at birth

It’s written in our flesh and rehearsed throughout history.

by Reggie Williams

The Indigenous youth fighting for Wet’suwet’en sovereignty

Resistance, resurgence, and renewal in British Columbia

by Lyndon Sayers

Reflection

The 2020 Census and the daughters of Zelophehad

The book of Numbers reminds us why it matters who we count.

by Heidi Neumark

Opinion

Why my church is done singing David Haas’s songs

It’s not because we don’t believe in grace.

by Melissa Florer-Bixler

Beyoncé, Oshun, and the melting pot of American religion

The Black church isn’t in the pot; it is the pot.

by Johnathan C. Richardson

Books

When your partner loses faith

After Stina Kielsmeier-Cook’s husband became a none, she reached out to some neighborhood nuns.

by Elizabeth Felicetti

Dr. King’s voice in verse

Joseph Ross’s poems are an elegy for the civil rights movement’s martyrs.

by Philip C. Kolin

The law in our lives

David Opderbeck’s book about theology, the law, and how we engage with both

by Chris Hammer

Departments

To understand African Christianity, remember the Battle of Adwa

In 1896, a Christian army from Ethiopia defeated the Italians.

by Philip Jenkins

From the Editors

From black and white to Black and White

Why we’re capitalizing terms for racial identity

First Words

We’re not giving away a new car or an all-expenses-paid month in Europe

We hope you’ll support us anyway.

by Peter W. Marty

On Art

Ella Baker, Pauli Murray, Wendell Berry, Bryan Stevenson, by Robert Shetterly

Robert Shetterly never planned to paint portraits. But as he describes it, quoting Terry Tempest Williams, he was filled with “sacred rage.” Everywhere he turned he heard voices lining up denial, lies, and hateful political maneuvering....

art selection and comment by Lil Copan

Faith Matters

When the best of times and the worst of times coincide

At St. Martin-in-the-Fields, we’re living through beautiful, nightmarish days.

by Samuel Wells

News

People

Rashida Tlaib joins Congressional Freethought Caucus

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the first Muslim women in Congress, has joined the Congressional Freethought Caucus....

by Aysha Khan

Majority of White Christians see no pattern in killings

Two days before Rusten Sheskey, a White police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, fired seven shots into the back of Jacob Blake, a Black man, at close range while three of Blake’s young children watched, the Public Religion Research Institute publish...

by Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

New Zealand mosque shooter sentenced to life without parole

On August 27, the White supremacist who slaughtered 51 worshipers at two New Zealand mosques was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the first time the maximum available sentence has been imposed in the country since the...

by Nick Perry

Faith-based disaster relief groups get ready for Hurricane Laura

In recent months, Lara Martin’s life has been one disaster after another. Tornadoes in Tennessee. Wildfires in California. A derecho in Iowa. Now, Hurricane Laura....

by Bob Smietana

Deaf ministries flourish with virtual worship

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the array of worship services offered by Lovers Lane United Methodist Church included one in American Sign Language. About two dozen people came on a typical Sunday....

by Sam Hodges

Jerry Falwell Jr. resigns from Liberty University

The board of Liberty University has accepted the resignation of its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., after a roller-coaster day in which Falwell resigned, then withdrew his resignation, then resigned again late at night on August 24....

by Emily McFarlan Miller

Christian missionaries gain access to Amazon’s Indigenous peoples, despite pandemic

When the first COVID-19 cases hit Brazil in March, the government agency in charge of protecting the country’s Indigenous peoples, the National Indian Foundation, ordered all civilians to leave the Indigenous reservations....

by Eduardo Campos Lima

People

Mike Pence replaces Jesus with patriotic imagery in RNC speech

Speaking before a crowd at Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore on August 26, Vice President Mike Pence, a self-described “born-again, evangelical Catholic,” sprinkled his address to the Republican National Convention with references to Go...

by Jack Jenkins and Emily McFarlan Miller