Christianity

Historic Westside interfaith service celebrates MLK holiday

January 17, 2022

Although Louisiana schools desegregated right before Charles Lee Bilberry’s senior year in 1969, he was not allowed to attend his graduation ceremony, he said, because “the white parents didn’t want their children to graduate with colored children.”

Bilberry collected his diploma from the principal’s office and soon moved to Southern Nevada. He recalled his mother’s hug and kiss on the cheek when she told him, “Son, when you go to Las Vegas, be the best that you can be.”

He spoke of the moment Sunday afternoon during an Interfaith Service at Second Baptist Church in...

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For dying congregations, a 'replant' can offer new life

January 5, 2022

From the time he was a teenager, Min Lee wanted to be a missionary.

Lee, who grew up in a Korean American Christian family, said he gave his life to Jesus during a retreat where a missionary from Costa Rica was the guest speaker — which inspired him to think about missionary work as well.

He studied Spanish and ended up spending six months doing missions in Mexico, along with about two years living in a mostly Muslim neighborhood in Toronto. Lee eventually landed in Los Angeles, not far from where he grew up, doing an internship to become a church planter.

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Rev. Dr. Wes Bixby Is Making Church a Place of Diversity and Inclusion

January 4, 2022

As an ordained minister for 20 years, the Reverend Dr. Wes Bixby has had a calling to create a diverse and inclusive church environment. He found a home at First Congregational Church of Christ in Sarasota, a church he has led for eight years. First Congregational is a denomination of the United Church of Christ, known for standing with social justice issues and for being supportive of LGBTQ members.

“I got into this work because church was always a place where I felt safe,” says Bixby. He wants to create this same...

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The 'MAGA faction' could be a hindrance for multiracial congregations

January 4, 2022

One of the prized goals of evangelical and mainline churches in America today is to create multiethnic congregations. But the same political trends that are making life difficult for pastors also bode ill for multicultural churches.

New research published Jan. 3 in the Washington Post demonstrates that Donald Trump’s rise to power activated a “MAGA faction” that is uniquely “motivated by animus toward marginalized groups.”

Those marginalized people include African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims and the LGBTQ community.

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Orthodox Christians celebrate the end of the Christmas season

January 6, 2022

The Orthodox Christian community at St. Paul Eastern Orthodox Church in Tupelo will be celebrating Theophany, also known as the day in which Jesus was baptized, this Thursday, Jan. 6.

To commemorate this holy day, St. Paul Eastern Orthodox Church will have a blessing of the waters at Veterans Park on Sunday, Jan. 9. 

For many Christian denominations, this day symbolizes Epiphany which is recognized as the day the Magi arrived to the Christ Child. However, Orthodox Christians observe this January day differently.

Source:...

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Ex-boarding school for Native children owning up to its past

January 2, 2022

Middle schooler Rarity Cournoyer stood at the heart of the Red Cloud Indian School campus and chanted a prayer song firmly and solemnly in the Lakota language — in a place where past generations of students were punished for speaking their mother tongue.

Her classmates stood around her at a prayer circle designed with archetypes of Native American spirituality, with a circular sidewalk representing a traditional medicine wheel, crossed by sidewalks pointing to the four cardinal directions.

Lakota language teacher Amery Brave Heart walked quietly with a small bundle...

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Last parent of a child killed in 1963 church bombing dies

January 3, 2022

Maxine McNair, the last living parent of any of the four Black girls killed in a 1963 Alabama church bombing, died Sunday. She was 93.

McNair’s family announced her death in a press release. A cause of death was not given.

McNair’s daughter, 11-year-old Denise McNair, was the youngest girl killed in the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, the deadliest single attack of the civil rights movement. Also killed were three 14-year-olds: Addie Mae Collins, Carole Rosamond Robertson and Cynthia Dionne Wesley.

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'Reach the Nones wherever they are': How religious leaders are trying to stem the tide

December 22, 2021

It's a Sunday afternoon in Fort Worth, Texas, and a flock of young people wander into a bar to kick back a few beers, sway to live music and mingle.

And then, they recite the Lord's Prayer.

It's quite a departure from traditional services, which have driven so many away from church in recent years. There's no confession, no fire and brimstone, and nobody's wearing their Sunday best.

Source:...

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When Churches Closed, Religious Leaders Turned To Tech

December 20, 2021

When congregations were forced to turn to online services when the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020, some religious leaders had to embrace digital platforms for the first time.

Not all churches were technologically equipped to produce worship services online. One Methodist pastor had to lend her own digital camera to the church, which had no digital resources. Another duct taped a borrowed smartphone to a ladder in order to stream a service. An Episcopal priest from Indianapolis described feelings of exhaustion and fatigue, saying that her online services fell flat and “wasn’t...

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Across US, houses of worship struggle to rebuild attendance

December 19, 2021

When Westminster United Methodist Church in Houston resumed in-person services late last year, after a seven-month halt due to COVID-19, there were Sundays when only three worshippers showed up, according to the pastor, Meredith Mills.

Since then, attendance has inched back up, but it’s still only about half the pre-pandemic turnout of 160 or 170, Mills estimates.

“It’s frustrating,” she said. “People just seem to want to leave home less these days.”

Source:...

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The little-known Jewish origins of Boston's annual Christmas tree tradition

December 20, 2021

On an unseasonably warm December night earlier this month, some 12,000 people flocked to Boston Common for the lighting of the city’s official Christmas tree: a majestic, 48-foot white spruce. 

The event marked the 50th straight year that the people of Nova Scotia supplied Boston’s tree — a tribute to how the city, led by a prominent Jewish businessman, supported the Canadian province at a time of crisis.

At the Dec. 2 festivities, recently sworn-in Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, who also took part in three public menorah lightings that week, was joined by Nova...

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Mormon women's influence expands despite priesthood ban

December 14, 2021

When she was younger, Sharon Eubank figured she would one day marry and form the kind of nuclear family typically expected of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Today, at 58, she is neither married nor a mother but glad to embody a different image of womanhood as one of the top female leaders in the male-dominated faith widely known as the Mormon church.

“We have to broaden out our approach and talk about family in a really inclusive way,” said Eubank, who is both first counselor of the Relief Society and president of Latter-day Saint...

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What's your religion? In US, a common reply is now 'None'

December 14, 2021

Nathalie Charles, even in her mid-teens, felt unwelcome in her Baptist congregation, with its conservative views on immigration, gender and sexuality. So she left.

“I just don’t feel like that gelled with my view of what God is and what God can be,” said Charles, an 18-year-old of Haitian descent who identifies as queer and is now a freshman at Princeton University.

“It wasn’t a very loving or nurturing environment for someone’s faith.”

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Tarot cards are having a moment with help from pandemic

December 10, 2021

She won’t read your fortune like a psychic might, but 29-year-old Skye Marinda will guide you through a tarot reading to try to find clarity in the present. A self-described “tarot coach” who lives near Capitol Hill in D.C., Marinda began reading tarot decks on her own five years ago and hoped to start publicly reading for others in early 2020.

“I did one event in person at a bar in D.C., and I was like, ‘This is fun, I should keep doing this,’ ” she said. “Two weeks later, everything shut down.”

...
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Catholic, Jewish orgs work to find homes for arriving Afghan refugees

December 10, 2021

Three months after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, prompting hundreds of thousands to evacuate the country, Catholic Charities and its Jewish community partners have helped dozens of Afghan immigrants to find homes and begin new lives in the Greater Boston Area.

In a webinar held on Nov. 22, titled "Together We Respond," representatives of Catholic Charities of Boston (CCAB), Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) shared updates about how they have served people arriving from Afghanistan over the past few months. They expressed...

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