Presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg addresses the first day of the Black Church PAC presidential candidate forum at the Young Leaders Conference in Atlanta on Aug. 16, 2019. Video screengrab
Need to know: Monday, August 19, 2019
Democratic hopefuls talk prayer and politics at black church forum
Julián Castro, Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker spoke to the 5,000 black millennials in Atlanta, assembled as a joint venture of the Black Church PAC and the Young Leaders Conference.
‘A celebration for the whole church’: ELCA women reflect on 50 years of ordination
The ELCA Churchwide Assembly kicked off a year of celebrations: 50 years of women's ordination, 40 years of women of color being ordained and 10 years of LGBTQ people serving freely in the mainline Lutheran denomination.
Israeli court fails to stop city concert that barred men and women sitting together
An Israeli city wanted to ban men and women from sitting together at a publicly funded concert aimed at an ultra-Orthodox audience. Women's advocates said the concert violated anti-discrimination laws. Israel's high court agreed, but the ruling came too late to stop the concert.
Israel’s ‘PR Masada’ over Omar and Tlaib violates Zionism
Whatever else Zionism is, it is about a historically disempowered people who have empowered themselves to make their own decisions, to build their land, and to defend themselves, writes Jeffrey Salkin.
I’ll cry if I want to: Positive thinking, prosperity gospel and the vulnerability of faith
To be vulnerable, to be too much, feels like a failure in today's wellness culture. But we cannot positive-think our way out of the human condition, writes Tara Isabella Burton.
I’m a rabbi, and I understand Israel is not a democracy
I believe one day U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib will be able to visit her grandmother without forfeiting her commitment to justice to do so. That day is hastened when we see Israel for what it is: not a flawed democracy, but no democracy at all, writes Alissa Wise.
Trump administration proposes protecting federal contractors who fire or hire workers based on religious beliefs
Some religious organizations praised the proposed rule as providing much-needed clarification, but opponents quickly decried it as a license to discriminate against LGBT people, single mothers and other workers.
Latest news from RNS
‘A heavy lift’: Religious black voters weigh Buttigieg’s bid
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) — In South Carolina, part of the dialogue focuses on a conflict between a cultural openness for same-sex marriage and the deeply held religious convictions that could impede support for Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
Israel grants Tlaib West Bank visit on humanitarian grounds
Israel's interior minister said that Tlaib had requested and been granted permission to enter the West Bank to see relatives, including her 90-year-old grandmother.
Truck drives into line of Jewish demonstrators protesting ICE in Rhode Island
Organizers say roughly 400 people gathered for the protest and at least 30 participants formed a human barricade blocking the entrance to the Wyatt Detention Facility.
More views from RNS
Red Summer, Trump Summer and the politics of hate
(RNS) — Calling Trump 'un-American' exhibits an ignorance of the violent forces — conquest, enslavement, annexation and immigration — that made America.
‘Christian left’ is reviving in America, appalled by treatment of migrants
(The Conversation) — The high profile, religiously based moral outrage at Trump’s immigration policies does seem to be spurring some long-overdue rethinking of what it means to be Christian in America.
‘Blinded by the Light’ makes a savior of Springsteen
(RNS) — A distant American icon comes alive for a Sikh and a Muslim in a British factory town and changes their lives forever.
