trump
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Bishops will examine proposals to amend or replace Obamacare but said that “for now that a repeal of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act ought not be undertaken without the concurrent passage of a replacement plan that ensures access to adequate health care for the millions of people who now rely upon it for their wellbeing.”
I sat on the first wooden pew of the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C., on New Year’s Eve, with 500 faithful from across the country and thousands who watched online, to worship, testify, and encourage each other.
We came together in the tradition of the 1862 “watch night” service, when enslaved and free African-Americans, abolitionists, and others awaited news that the Emancipation Proclamation would become law and would free black people living in the South. We came together also in the tradition of Jesus, who told his disciples to “keep awake” while he prayed on the night before his crucifixion.
7. How Has the ACA Affected Your Life? Tell Us Your Story.
We may feature on Sojourners’ online publication.
8. WATCH: Trailer for ‘I Am Not Your Negro’ Brings James Baldwin’s Words to Life
“I Am Not Your Negro uses Baldwin's unfinished manuscript for Remember This House as the basis for exploring the history of Black racial justice movements from the Civil Rights Movement to the present.”
9. Cher Will Produce, Star in Movie About the Flint Water Crisis
“Cher will play the key role of a Flint resident whose family is seriously impacted by the water crisis.” Flint, Mich., is a predominantly black city.
Image via Cathy Grossman/RNS
“You want it to be meaningful not only to your president-elect, but you want it to be meaningful also to the nation,” Graham said.
“I’m taking time just to pray and ask God to give me wisdom and guidance because it’s a responsibility that I take very seriously.”
This is the third inauguration Graham will have attended, he noted. The first was to assist his father Billy Graham at the second inaugural of President Bill Clinton in 1997; the second, to offer the invocation at the first inaugural of President George W. Bush in 2001.
1. David Fahrenthold Tells the Behind-the-Scenes Story of His Year Covering Trump
The winner of the Post’s first Ben Bradlee Prize for his coverage of the 2016 election pens an essay on his experience covering Trump. “I thought I’d be through with the story in a day or two. I was wrong. I didn’t understand—and I don’t think Trump understood, either—where that one check, and that one question, would lead.”
2. 2016: The Best Year for Black Musicians Since ‘Purple Rain’
If you noticed that a staggering amount of the music you loved from the past 12 months was made by black artists, there's data to back that up.
3. The Internet Law That Explains Why 2016 Was So Terrible
Spend most of 2016 feeling crazy? That’s thanks to Poe’s law, which “stipulates that online, sincere expressions of extremism are often indistinguishable from satirical expressions of extremism.”
Russell Moore preaching at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on Oct. 9, 2011. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
When some claim that Southern Baptists are partisan hacks, Moore finds a way to challenge the Republican establishment while holding the line on cornerstone conservative issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
Image via Cjames Fotografia/Flickr
“As a black lesbian growing up in the South, being in a room filled with Christians excited and ready to engage with the powers that be at all levels of government is something I could only have dreamed would exist,” Victoria Kirby York, National Campaigns Director for the National LGBTQ Task Force, said.
“We must love our neighbor as ourself. And it is radical, and it is broad, and it is all-encompassing.”
For the last two thousand years, our salvation has come via that peaceful, sleeping baby, weary from being a tiny human. A revolution for a better world begins from the most ordinary of miracles, from small, gasping breaths after a good cry. This is where we will rise, those of us hopeless from the election results, from the margins, from the outside, from the ordinary, miraculous moments of our lives.
Like many people in the nation, I was deeply disturbed when I stayed up late watching the election results on Nov. 8. This country elected Donald Trump to succeed the nation’s first African-American president — a deed that was in no way coincidental. President Obama’s election was an historic moment: the United States sent a black family to live in the house that slaves built as a residence for the highest political office in the land of their captivity. And with the election of Obama to that high office, the White House became home to free ancestors of the slaves who built it. Obama’s election felt like an earthquake of sorts. When the dust settled, it seemed that some old, terrible things had been demolished, and other things were moved around. From all appearances society had been recalibrated.
Image via Google doc/SURJ-DC.
“Remember that this isn’t the only conversation/interaction you’re going to have,” writes Christena Cleveland.
The New York Times had Clinton supporters and Trump supporters ask each other these questions. Listen to their results here.
If all efforts at engaging have stalled, SURJ has a holiday hotline to help. “Get stuck? Simply text SOS to 82623.”
I am very grateful this Thanksgiving for the evangelicals who still realize that being truly “evangelical” means to follow the words of Jesus in Luke 4, which clearly describe the gospel he came to proclaim as “good news” to the poor that will “free the captives,” and “let the oppressed go free.” Drawing a circle of protection around the poor and vulnerable will be the first thing to do with this administration and the new Congress, and I am so grateful for all the people of faith who will unite together to do that.
I am also thankful for evangelicals who are less concerned about being persecuted for their beliefs, and more concerned about their brothers and sisters in Christ — immigrants and other people of color — who are now so afraid of persecution because they were targeted by the election campaign of man who is now president, and whose children are already being verbally and physically assaulted at their schools and on their playgrounds by people who claim to be the new president’s supporters.
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As members of the left, we find ourselves wanting meaning, now, no less than did those who voted to Make America Great Again. We want a theodicy. We want answers. We want, in a sense, a religious explanation for how to proceed next.
It would be intellectually satisfying to come up with new narratives. It would also be lazy.
As Christians, what we are called to do is sacrifice that. We go on living. That’s it. We donate, if we choose to; we participate, when we can, in acts of goodness and solidarity and defiance; we rage against racism when we see it; when men grope women on subway platforms we follow the women to comfort them, as happened to me earlier this week. We do dull, good things, and we vote. We love, but do not soothe ourselves with the softness of that love. We deconstruct our own narratives, especially when they make us feel good.
We cry out in the wilderness. But we do not expect answers — not yet, and maybe not ever. If we are called to anything, now, it is do the work of living without them.
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In the summer of 430, the great Christian writer and bishop Augustine of Hippo lay dying as barbarians besieged his North African city – basically a mop-up operation in the slow-motion fall of the Roman Empire.
Today, in the fall of the year 2016, a lot of Christians can relate.
Image via RNS/Reuters.
Trump argued on The Brody File that religious liberty was under fire, and the situation would worsen with a Clinton presidency. “If Hillary Clinton gets in, you’re not going to have religious liberty.”
Image: a katz / Shutterstock.com
Recently, evangelical groups have gained massive support in denouncing Trump, making it "publicly clear that Mr. Trump’s racial and religious bigotry and treatment of women is morally unacceptable to us as evangelical Christians." While some, like Jerry Fallwell Jr. and Pat Robertson, remain staunch Trump supporters, it seems the candidate is hemmorhaging evangelical support. Enter: Christian Twitter, satirizing #EvangelicalTrump. Here are some of our favorites:
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This petition clarifies that students want to have their own distinct voice to speak for themselves. Liberty is a place where this dialogue is possible, and even encouraged.
Screenshot, via Washington Post/Access Hollywood.
When we come across bullies and predators in our world, we can respond with revulsion, or with silence. Bullies and predators want to have cheerleaders around them, encouraging their awful words and deeds. If we won’t applaud them, bullies and predators want us to at least abstain from criticizing them.
That’s why we’ve seen such a pushback against so-called “political correctness” by hate groups.
Image via Fort Greene Focus/Flickr
Saunders’ spirit of generosity, cloaked in the dark humor and melancholy of his stories, has made him something of a guru to younger writers. A practicing Buddhist, with a childhood in the Catholic Church, Saunders approaches his essays in particular with a spiritual frankness — comfortable with his own limits, unabashedly willing to admit what confounds him, and ready to tell the truth as faithfully as he can.
In July, he published his months-long attempt to understand Trump supporters and how they came to invest so much in a highly divisive, unconventional candidate. He seems both a natural and a jarringly wrong fit to capture this election season — perhaps the writer best ready to chronicle the already-absurd, and the one most willing to take it seriously. And at this moment in 2016, Saunders may be a kinder national narrator than we deserve.
Editor's Note: This week's Wrap was guest curated by Sojourners contributor Juliet Vedral. Read along for her top stories and notes from the week!
1. David Crowder: Christians Have to Speak Up for Refugee Children
There are 21.3 million refugees, half of whom are children. The crises that typically create refugees last about 26 years and nearly 34,000 people are forced to flee their homes because of conflict each day. In this piece, musician David Crowder explains why providing education for these kids is a moral imperative.
2. Trump-Loving Christians Owe Bill Clinton an Apology
If you're going to read one of the many articles about evangelicals supporting Donald Trump's candidacy for the presidency, this might be the most important.
Image via RNS/REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Muslim women around the country — lawyers, entrepreneurs, teachers, activists, artists, mothers and students — have joined on social media to address Trump’s comments, as well as the popular notion that Islam oppresses women.