As churches closed to slow the spread of COVID-19, Elizabeth Eaton, the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, began offering weekly video messages from her home.
But viewers were captivated by more than her words of comfort or calls for prayer and action to address issues like systemic racism. On the wall behind her was a neon sign in the shape of the Luther rose—a coat of arms Martin Luther designed more than 500 years ago for the Protestant Reformation he ignited.
Liberty University in Virginia announced on August 10 that its board had chosen an interim president to lead the school days after Jerry Falwell Jr. began an indefinite leave of absence after one of his posts on social media created an uproar.
Jerry Prevo, who has served as chairman of the school’s board of trustees since 2003 and recently retired as the senior pastor of a Baptist church in Alaska, assumed the role of acting president immediately, Liberty said in a news release.
This spring, Ivy Taylor became the first woman to lead Rust College, a United Methodist liberal arts school in Holly Springs, Mississippi. The college, where journalist and antilynching activist Ida B. Wells- Barnett matriculated, is one of the oldest historically black colleges in the nation.
Voters in at least two states will have the opportunity to vote for former pastor Mark Charles in November. On August 10, the independent presidential candidate—a dual citizen of the United States and the Navajo nation—announced via Twitter that he would be on the ballot in both Vermont and Colorado.
Kamala Harris filled two criteria that Joe Biden wanted in a running mate: she is a woman, and she is black, two critical Democratic constituencies ahead of the November elections.
The video shows Rabih Thoumy swinging a chain censer, sending smoke into the air, when abruptly there is a rumble and then a loud bang as the shock wave from Beirut’s devastating explosion slams into the church.
Thoumy darts for cover as stained glass and other debris fall from above. The camera tips over, coming to rest focused on a carpeting of glass shards covering the floor.
Beyoncé’s visual album Black Is King, released July 31 on Disney+, brings to life the music of her 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift.
Black Is King reimagines the story of The Lion King, which tells the tale of a young lion named Simba who flees home after his father, the king, is killed, only to rediscover himself and return years later.
“It is this human story of both Simba and black people—that we are trying to find home, come back to home and live into who we truly and fully are,” said writer and theologian Candice Marie Benbow.
A rescue ship purchased via crowdfunding, organized by the Evangelical Church in Germany, set sail from Spain in early August. Named Sea-Watch 4, the ship will aid migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.
Kimberly Jackson remembers the disappointment and devastation that erupted after the execution of Troy Davis nearly ten years ago in Jackson, Georgia.
Years of canvassing and protesting ended with activists weeping and embracing outside the prison after Davis was put to death by lethal injection. Davis, a black man who maintained his innocence, was on death row for two decades after being convicted of murdering a Savannah police officer.
Last month, Muslim pilgrims arrived in Mecca for a drastically scaled-down hajj, as Saudi authorities balanced the kingdom’s oversight of one of Islam’s key pillars with the safety of visitors in the face of a global pandemic.
The hajj, which ran from July 29 to August 2, is normally one of the world’s largest global gatherings, drawing about 2.5 million people for five intense days of worship.