Speaking at a black church Sunday (June 9) in a city that is nearly 75% percent African American, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greear, said white Christians who are racially insensitive are disregarding the gospel.
“I do not need to tell this church the church of the West has had a horrible history of racism,” Greear, a pastor in North Carolina, told Sixth Avenue Baptist Church.
“And there’s one primary reason that that happened: Christians lost touch with the gospel.”...

“The gospel teaches us that there’s only one kind of person: human,” said Greear. “We’ve all got the same problem: sin.”

Rachel Maddow had a response for the Republican-led government in Missouri after they criticized her reporting on the state’s attack on women: Get lost.
“The state government in Missouri has let us know they are upset about our coverage,” the MSNBC host said. “But our reporting on this matter is correct and the state has not substantively rebutted any of it.”

Environmental campaigners on Monday welcomed the Canadian government's new plan to ban certain single-use plastics as early as 2021 and work with provinces and territories to make corporations responsible for their plastic waste.
"Ultimately Canada needs to move towards phasing out all non-essential plastics if we are going to truly reduce the awful plastic legacy we are leaving for future generations of all life on this planet," Sarah King of Greenpeace Canada said in a statement. "The federal government's announcements marks the first step in an essential journey to break free from plastic."

The United States has a religion problem, but it is not what most Americans might think. It is not a problem of too many religions, or religion influencing politics or even of Muslim extremists. No, the United States has a religion problem, and this problem is ignorance of religion.

The sad fact is that it is possible to journey from first grade to a doctorate in U.S. school systems having never once taken a survey course on the Bible, much less having been introduced to basic knowledge of the world’s religions. When religion is treated at all, it is usually in bits and pieces — the biblical references in Melville’s “Moby Dick,” perhaps, or the religious issues fueling the Crusades.....

Intriguingly, much of this crisis may be rooted in a myth. School districts and state boards of education fear recriminations if they deal with matters of faith in the classroom. Yet even the American Civil Liberties Union — dreaded in many American school districts for its lawsuits against religion in public education — urges objective teaching of the world’s religions. In its Joint Statement on Current Law and Religion in the Public Schools, the organization declared, “It is both permissible and desirable to teach objectively about the role of religion in the history of the United States and other countries.”

The SPLC’s Lecia Brooks testified today before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (Committee on Oversight and Reform) about the need for federal action to confront the deadly white nationalist movement. Brooks delivered the following oral remarks to the subcommittee chaired by U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, in addition to written testimony.

Thank you, Rep. Raskin, for inviting the Southern Poverty Law Center to participate in today’s hearing.

In our country today, there is without question an escalating crisis of hate-related violence. There are no longer isolated incidents. There are no lone wolves. We are well past the point of cautionary tales. Each senseless act after senseless act is intertwined and connected by bigotry’s sinew, woven by a callous disregard for human life.

If you haven’t seen the video of Fort Worth, Texas, televangelist Kenneth Copeland attempting to answer questions about his private plane and the prosperity gospel in a rare and unexpected interview with Lisa Guerrero of “Inside Edition,” do so. It’s stunning, and important.
It’s difficult to get time with prosperity preachers. I would know, as I used to be one and work with one — my uncle, Benny Hinn...

Wealthy preachers like Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteen, Paula White and my uncle live like rock stars in multimillion-dollar mansions, drive luxury cars, fly in private jets and do it all using donations from their faithful followers. Let’s face it, the prosperity does look pretty good!
This twisted version of Christianity promises that Jesus will make you healthy, wealthy and happy.
The heartbreaking reality of the prosperity gospel is that by the time you reach the top of the pyramid, you’re still empty. Many preachers spend the better part of their ministry exploiting people to have it all, only to weep with regret decades later when they realize they’ve got a date with destiny coming for them.

At Elizabeth Warren’s MSNBC townhall, two women who voted for Donald Trump said that they felt duped, betrayed, and conned by the president.
A voter named Renee said, “I feel duped. I don’t have a lot of faith in political candidates much anymore. They make promises and they make them and break them.”

Churches in Maryland, Illinois, Virginia, Texas and elsewhere have been reaching the same conclusion. RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit organization based in Rye, N.Y., that arranges such debt payoffs, reports a recent surge in participation from primarily Christian places of worship. Eighteen have worked with RIP in the past year and a half, said Scott Patton, the nonprofit’s director of development. More churches are joining in as word spreads.
The mountain of bills they are trying to clear is high. Medical debt contributes to two-thirds of bankruptcies, according to the American Journal of Public Health. And a 2018 Kaiser Family Foundation/New York Times poll showed that of the 26% of people who reported problems paying medical bills, 59% reported a major life impact, such as taking an extra job, cutting other household spending or using up savings. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

For the past few years, I have researched how the Catholic Church, both the institution and individual believers, responded to the intense suffering of the most marginalized during the AIDS crisis in the United States. For those of us who are too young to remember, the scope of that suffering can be difficult to comprehend. According to the AIDS research group amfAR, more than 319,000 people in the United States died of complications related to H.I.V. and AIDS between 1981 and 1995.....

Today, the House of Ruth is a multi-site housing and social services center that serves more than 600 people annually. (It is estimated that about 6,600 people in Kentucky live with H.I.V.) It is one of the largest resources of its kind in the state, which has experienced a surge of new H.I.V. diagnoses in recent years....

Some people, Catholics included, made life more difficult for the vulnerable.

The vast majority of Americans did nothing at all.

But more than a few people provided a gentle touch, free of judgment and scorn. These are just a few stories. Many other people have shared their stories with me, and I am seeking to hear more, because embedded in these histories are lasting witnesses to the power of Jesus’ call to love one another.