"No matter what an officer has done to a black person, that officer can always cover himself in the running narrative of heroism, risk, and sacrifice that is available to a uniformed police officer by virtue of simply reporting for duty."
"I can’t listen to you any more. I can only listen to my elders."
At the risk of going all Get Religion over nothing: it’s a little weird to read articles about Ben Carson’s vegetarianism that fail to mention that the presidential candidate is a member of a church that promotes vegetarianism.
"It doesn’t bother me. The dying is my next career."
"Romero’s aversion to politics earned him the appointment as Archbishop."
"The world does not care about us. All they are interested in is the stones of ancient Palmyra."
The controversy over Rodney Kennedy’s decision to baptize a baby has been fascinating. The prominent American Baptist pastor told RNS that he is “no longer interested whether confession of faith comes before or after baptism,” given the larger issues facing the church.
Many other Baptists, especially Southern Baptists, very much disagree. “The Christian community needs to have a conversation about baptism,” said Kennedy.
We’ve had one, actually.
"The Gulf situation is a miniature version of the chicken-and-egg question that bedevils Amtrak as a whole."
"The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy."
There’s little for us mainliners to celebrate in this new Pew study. We’re losing people, and fast. I appreciate Heidi Haverkamp’s realistic-yet-hopeful words here and Rob Rynders’ there. But, like them, I’m not interested in spinning an argument that the numbers are somehow lying.
The numbers are clearer, however, than the reasons for them.
Weeks ago, the recycling carts disappeared from our alley. We live in a Chicago three-flat, and the City is supposed to provide single-stream blue carts for all residential buildings with four or fewer units. It hasn’t replaced them yet.
Larger buildings are required to provide recycling services themselves, but this doesn’t always happen, either.
"My friend, do you think liberation theology is a political party and I am its general secretary?"
"I was stunned. But not because Morgan lost his cool with the cop. I was stunned that it had taken him so long to do so."
I’m just back from Toronto, where I attended the annual gathering of the Associated Church Press. The event was capped by an awards ceremony for work published in 2014, at which the Century was given the “award of merit” (i.e., second place) in the best in class category for national and international magazines.
We also won seven additional awards honoring specific work from last year.