Anthea Butler

The pope's instruction for priests to forgive may mean, in some cases, the difference between a woman staying in the Catholic Church or leaving for a more understanding and empowering church nearby. ”

The text, 'Is God a White Racist', By Rev. Dr. William Jones, is still studied by theologians and academics and taught in institutes of higher learning. The book called into question the chief construction of black liberation theology: that God is on the side of the oppressed. ”

In the past, candidates' performances of 'Christianity' have been strong points for voters, but Trump's ascendancy with evangelicals has eviscerated that expectation. Evangelicals, like other voters, can be very pragmatic about the issues they want addressed by the leadership they support. ”

Rightwing organizations like Turning Point USA or Leadership Institute spend considerable amounts of money and time to train students with conservative values how to 'fight back.' ”

Evangelical women are also large consumers of evangelical media and ministries, and their support of these organizations is crucial. Should they shun both Trump and the predominately male evangelical leadership, it may have a ripple effect in these organizations' fundraising abilities and their ministerial efforts. ”

Spatial racism, the erasure of black faces in a predominantly white city, is in full effect in both Crown Heights and Center City Philadelphia. This racism demands that bodies that don't conform to a mandated 'white' status quo can be redlined out of a space. ”

While the 1963 Birmingham church bombing is the most historic, there also was a series of church burnings in the 1990s. Recognition of the terror those and similar acts impose on communities seems to have been forgotten post-Sept. 11, 2001. ”

Black churches have long been targets of white supremacists who burned and bombed them in an effort to terrorize the black communities those churches anchored. One of the most egregious terrorist acts in U.S. history was committed against a black church in Birmingham, Ala., in 1963. ”

Black women care deeply about civic engagement, democracy, education, children, and justice. ”

Gun rights advocates - many whom also believe that the US constitution is divinely inspired and that the rights it enumerates are God-given - face a conundrum. Their very insistence that the government not restrict guns in public spaces or limit their sales in any way also obviously inhibit other Americans' rights as covered by the US constitution. ”