Watch the segment here.
Source: Go Erie | Dana Massing
The Erie Times-News Faith page has a copy of “America’s Original Sin” by theologian Jim Wallis to give away this week. The book is subtitled “Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America.”
Source: HuffPost Live
Reverend Jim Wallis joins us to discuss his new book "America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America".
Source: Washington Post | Jim Wallis
Source: Read The Spirit | David Crumm
JIM WALLIS’s new book is so timely that he has been wishing, for months, that he could update its pages as each new headline about racism breaks in national news.
Source: Christian Post | Samuel Smith
Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science | Gavin Stern
The AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion program (DoSER) announced Monday that eight writers and broadcasters will receive the first Science for Religion Reporters Award. The awards are part of a one-year grant with the goal of providing religion journalists opportunities for exposure to forefront science, enriching science communication with their audiences.
Source: OnFaith | Auburn Seminary Senior Fellows
Influential faith leaders mourn following the decision not to indict the officer who killed Tamir Rice.
"Twelve seconds. One-fifth of a minute. Produces a lifetime of pain for a family and now eternal shame for America.”
— Rev. Dr. William Barber II, Forward Together, founder of the Moral Monday Movement, North Carolina
Source: CBC: The Sunday Edition | Michael Enright
Source: Galesburg Register-Mail | Bill Knight
As Donald Trump continues to dominate media that try to balance a fascination for celebrities with a duty to check facts claimed by public figures of all stripes, some critics of the GOP presidential frontrunner may recall 18th century novelist Oliver Goldsmith’s line, “The loud voice that spoke the empty mind.” But a more apt thought may come from the classic 1983 movie “A Christmas Story” (airing on Turner cable networks dozens of times this week).
Remember Ralphie noticing the neighborhood bully?
Source: The Atlantic | Catherine Woodiwiss
On an icy Maine pond one December morning, Chester Greenwood, a 15-year-old boy with oversized ears, was freezing. He cut a few strokes on his new skates before the ear-piercing cold became unbearable. Turning back to his grandmother’s farmhouse kitchen, a sudden inspiration blazed against the chill. The boy gathered a few scraps of farm wire, beaver fur, and cloth. In a moment, he fashioned a solution for the long winter cold: earmuffs.
Source: Lansing City Pulse | Bill Castanier
Social activist, pastor and MSU graduate Jim Wallis, in a visit to East Lansing in 2006, stressed how his involvement in the university’s antiwar protests of the late 1960s changed his life.
“MSU forged who I am,” he said.
It was a turbulent era at the university, and demonstrations against the Vietnam War were a regular occurrence. Most of the campus demonstrations were heralded by simple, often hand-drawn posters that were tacked up on bulletin boards across campus, inviting students to rallies, demonstrations and marches.
Source: Washington Post (The Plum Line) | Greg Sargent
It’s one of the most intriguing sub-plots of the 2016 election: Why are evangelicals, who historically have supported immigration reform and a path to citizenship for deeply felt religious and moral reasons, gravitating towards the two candidates who are most hostile to policy changes that would accommodate and integrate undocumented immigrants into American life?
Source: Charisma News | Bob Eschliman
A coalition of diverse Christian leaders working together to help hungry and poor people in the U.S. praised congressional negotiators for including key anti-poverty provisions in this week's spending and tax agreements.
The Circle of Protection had called on Congress to make previous improvements to the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit permanent. They declared the passage of a bill making that happen a "major victory" for low-income working families.
Source: Huffington Post | Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith
State officials in New York are reforming their policy of keeping people convicted of non-violent offenses in solitary confinement. Some hail the decision; others, including corrections officers, object, saying that solitary confinement is necessary to maintain control, and they say that keeping an individual in solitary confinement is not inhumane.
Tell that, though, to innocent people in prison, wrongly convicted, who find themselves in solitary confinement without hope of ever getting out.
Source: Publishers Weekly | Ken Chitwood
Source: Knoxville News-Sentinel | Ina Hughs
The best gift in Santa’s pack or under the tree as far as I am concerned is a good book. Or several, even better.
This time of year, every publisher and book site on the Internet has its own “best of” list, including reviews to check out, excerpts to read and information on ordering it online.
For what it’s worth, here are some of my favorite books I read this year in case it might help you with your lists.
For fiction readers:
Source: The Star-Ledger | Mark Beckwith and William Stokes
This weekend marks the third anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. It is the second anniversary of the Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath, organized by Faiths United Against Gun Violence, which invites religious communities across the country to engage in prayer, advocacy and witness against the epidemic of gun violence, which claims 30,000 lives a year in America.
Source: Publishers Weekly | Emma Koonse