Stunning is the word that most comes to me after Pope Francis' two-day visit to Washington, D.C. The country and the media was reveling in his presence, using language like "amazing," "incredible," and "wonderful" in response to this extraordinary moral leader who literally transformed our public discourse in the 48 hours he was in the nation's capital. What these two extraordinary days mean going forward is the big question on all our hearts and minds.
Source: PBS Newshour | Kristen Doerer
Pope Francis has called “unbridled capitalism” the “dung of the devil” and criticized it for doing little to help the poor.
Source: Cincinnati.com | Louis Lawarre and Henry Zom
The shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this summer has been deeply troubling to us and other people of faith in Anderson Township.
Source: Embassy News | Jim Creskey
What kind of example does the most popular leader in the world, Pope Francis, set for American political leaders who are neck deep in election campaigns?
If you are the one presidential candidate who regularly quotes Francis, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, you have been quoting Francis for some time and have regularly said that you share his views on climate change and economic injustice.
“I’m not quite as radical as the Pope is,” he smilingly told Time Magazine. “But.”
Source: Christianity Today | Christine A. Scheller
An enthusiastic crowd of 11,000 ticketed guests gathered on the South Lawn of the White House this morning as President Obama officially welcomed Pope Francis to the United States.
Among the overwhelmingly Catholic audience there to greet him on his first US visit was a smattering of evangelical leaders.
Source: San Diego Free Press | John Lawrence
The Pope is visiting the US this week to make the case that we should take climate change seriously and start doing something about it. He is really making the case that we should change our paradigm from one of individual self-fulfillment to one of “we’re all in this together,” from individual salvation to collective salvation of our earthly home. This has far-reaching implications. We need to be concerned about what’s happening to the earth as a whole, to humanity as a whole, and not just to our own family, town, state, country.
Source: Christian Post | Lisa Sharon Harper
In 1851, attendees of a feminist convention gathered in a packed hall in Akron, Ohio. It was a time when — even in the midst of a fight for women's rights — mostly men spoke. They talked of dainty women — delicate and deserving of special protection.
Source: Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
Next week, the conversation will change in America. All the media attention recently given to political figures will now shift to a moral leader who is changing the global public discussion about what is compassionate, just, good, and right -- and Christian.
Source: PBS Newshour | Making Sense
TRANSCRIPT
GWEN IFILL: Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the U.S. next week is generating huge interest and expectation.
Part of that excitement is rooted in the different tone the pope has taken on a number of issues, from marriage to the role of women in the church. But he has also issued a tough critique of capitalism and called for more action on climate change.
Source: OnFaith | FaithSource at Auburn Seminary
Pope Francis issued a call to action regarding climate change in hisencyclical on the environment. In it he wrote, “We need a conversation which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots, concern and affect us all.” America’s most influential faith and moral voices are doing just that by Coming Together in Faith on Climate at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. during the pope’s upcoming visit to the United States. Here’s what they have to say on the need for us to join Pope Francis’ call to protect creation...
Source: Thinkprogress | Esther Yu-Hsi Lee
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Faith leaders and immigrant advocates have a new poster child to help push immigration reform through Congress: Pope Francis.
Ahead of the papal visit later this month, immigrants and interfaith leaders held a press conference this week, expressing hope that Francis’ congressional visit could lead “to the beginning of an honest debate of how to fix the broken immigration system.” They also suggested members of Congress should “open their minds and hearts to the Pope’s message.”
Source: Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
Here are the politics of the Iran nuclear deal: Congress returns next week from its summer recess, and among the first orders of business will be taking up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program, recently negotiated with Iran in Vienna by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany.
Source: Nonprofit Quarterly | Rick Cohen
The vituperative attacks on the War on Poverty sound a little gleeful or mean-spirited or nutty—sometimes all three. A quick review of recent press coverage would lead almost anyone to think that Head Start, Legal Services, community health centers, food stamps, ESEA Title I support for education, the Job Corps, and a host of other programs had no connection to the War on Poverty but materialized sui generis to provide vital services to the poor.
Source: Chicago Now | Pam Spano
I had an interview with David Dault, president and CEO of the Chicago Sunday Evening Club. The Chicago Sunday Evening Club was founded by Clifford W. Barnes in 1908 to minister to the business community.
Source: Baptist News Global | Bob Allen
A leading evangelical voice for nuclear disarmament criticized politicians for comparing a widely debated nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran to the Holocaust and saying it fulfills End Times prophecy in the Bible.
Source: Religion News Service
A new collection from RNS blogger David Gushee, along with Isaac Sharp, explores the different roles that scholars and popular figures have played in forming evangelicals’ understandings of Christian ethics.
Source: Religion in American History | Michael Limberg
Wallis’s post on the Iran Deal is a reminder that further work remains to be done in investigating the full richness of progressive evangelicals’ engagement with the world.
Source: Fitchburg Star | Jacob Bielanski
Orion is not your typical teenager.
The 15-year-old student at Madison West studies Latin and is interested in the field of acoustical levitation – the science of using sound waves to suspend and move objects. He claims to be a “huge” Dr. Who fan, though he admits he hasn’t seen many episodes prior to the 2005 reboot.
And Orion – whose last name the Fitchburg Star is withholding at the family’s request – was born with the name “Molly.”
In April of this year, he revealed his new identity to his church congregation at Memorial United Church of Christ, following his announcement that the church would be holding a workshop on the matter. When “Molly” told those gathered that the event was important to him because he wanted to be called Orion and henceforth referred to as “he,” the announcement was met with wide applause, according to pastor Phil Haslanger.
Source: South Jersey Courier-Post | Kim Mulford
The day Michael Brown died in a residential neighborhood last August changed everything for Leah Gunning Francis.
Source: Patheos | Suzanne Ross
Sojourners offers clear-eyed support for the deal as “better than the alternatives” and clearly better than military strikes which “would be, at best, premature, as well as highly unpredictable and morally irresponsible in creating yet another U.S. war with a Muslim country.”