In recent months, Lara Martin’s life has been one disaster after another.
Tornadoes in Tennessee. Wildfires in California. A derecho in Iowa.
Now, Hurricane Laura.
“We’ve been busy,” said Martin, the interim director of US disaster response for the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the array of worship services offered by Lovers Lane United Methodist Church included one in American Sign Language. About two dozen people came on a typical Sunday.
On March 22, when the Dallas church could no longer safely meet in person due to the fast-spreading coronavirus, the sign language service moved online.
It came together quickly—and a bit primitively. For want of a tripod, a cell phone with a video camera was propped up by hymnals on an upright piano.
The board of Liberty University has accepted the resignation of its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., after a roller-coaster day in which Falwell resigned, then withdrew his resignation, then resigned again late at night on August 24.
“I am so encouraged by the unity of Christ that I saw exemplified by our Board today,” acting board chairman Allen McFarland said in a written statement. “Liberty University’s future is very bright and in capable hands of leaders who are committed to being good stewards of what the Lord has entrusted!”
When the first COVID-19 cases hit Brazil in March, the government agency in charge of protecting the country’s Indigenous peoples, the National Indian Foundation, ordered all civilians to leave the Indigenous reservations. Only essential workers, such as health-care personnel and those involved in food distribution, could remain.
But a new law signed by President Jair Bolsonaro on July 7 has made an exception for one group: Christian missionaries. A simple form from a doctor vouching for a faith worker’s health is enough to allow the person to stay as an essential worker.
Speaking before a crowd at Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore on August 26, Vice President Mike Pence, a self-described “born-again, evangelical Catholic,” sprinkled his address to the Republican National Convention with references to God and prayer.
But Pence, who accepted his party’s nomination for vice president during the speech, sparked outcry in some Christian circles when he closed out his remarks. He combined at least two Bible verses—and replaced references to Jesus with patriotic imagery.
Christian Century contributor and open media advocate William Fore died July 30 at the age of 92.
Fore, who was ordained in the United Methodist Church, spent 25 years leading the National Council of Churches’ broadcasting and film commission. In that role, Fore not only helped create hundreds of educational programs for network television, he also played a key role in improving the balance in television news.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, one of the first Muslim women in Congress, has joined the Congressional Freethought Caucus.
Launched in 2018, the caucus seeks to promote secular government, separation of church and state, freedom of conscience, and policy “based on reason, science, and moral values,” as well as to oppose discrimination against nonreligious people.
Members do not need to identify as nonreligious.