Sight-Seeing: Practicing prophetic grief
Rev OTIS MOSS III, author, academic and senior pastor of United Church of Christ in Chicago, says that when we grieve pathetically, we may come to imitate our oppressors…
Postcards: Five years after shooting, Mother Emanuel uneasily adapts as pilgrimage site
In an article first published on Religion News Service, MATTHEW J CRESSLER, assistant professor of religious studies at the College of Charleston, reflects on how congregants of the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church have coped in the wake of the 2015 mass shooting in which nine church members were killed…
Five years after church massacre, Charleston officials to remove statue of slavery advocate
Updated: 5.15pm AESTColumbia, South CarolinaAP Despite a South Carolina law protecting monuments, officials in the historic city of Charleston announced Wednesday that they plan to remove a statue of slavery advocate John C Calhoun from a downtown square. Mayor John Tecklenburg announced he will send a resolution to the City Council to remove the statue […]
ESSAY: LET’S NOT ASK BOTHAM JEAN’S FAMILY TO CHOOSE FORGIVENESS OVER JUSTICE
US Christian anti-death penalty activist and author SHANE CLAIBORNE, in an article first published on Religion News Service, reflects on events which took place in a US courtroom recently…
POSTCARDS: BIRMINGHAM CHURCH, 56 YEARS LATER, TO RECALL BOMBING WITH MESSAGES OF LOVE, ACTION
ADELLE M BANKS, of Religion News Service, reports from Alabama…
At victimised Charleston church in the US, Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker condemns gun violence, racism
Charleston, South Carolina, USRNS Invoking God and Christian love, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker railed against gun violence and racism in a speech on Wednesday at the site of a 2015 church shooting that left nine African American worshippers dead. “We’re here this morning in the wake of yet another act of hatred in […]
THE INTERVIEW: JENNIFER BERRY HAWES, REPORTER-TURNED-AUTHOR
ADELLE M BANKS of Religion News Service, speaks with Jennifer Berry Hawes about her new book, Grace Will Lead Us Home, about the mass 2015 shooting at the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina…
As Emanuel AME documentary screens, survivors, families mull grief and guns
Washington, DCRNS Felicia Sanders, who survived the shooting four years ago at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, told a tale of two Bibles. First, there was the holy book she used for the Bible study the shooter infiltrated that Wednesday night in June of 2015, returned to her after she […]
Widower of Emanuel Nine victim, formerly detained pastor call for unity on prayer day
Washington, DCRNS Standing before a National Day of Prayer gathering, Rev Anthony Thompson called himself an example of the day’s theme of loving one another – no matter what. “Can you love someone who hates you because of the colour of your skin?” he asked the crowd of more than 200 assembled Thursday at the […]
THE INTERVIEW: JENNIFER PINCKNEY, WIDOW OF MURDERED MOTHER EMANUEL PASTOR
MAINA MWAURA, of Religion News Service, speaks with Jennifer Pinckney, the widow of Mother Emanuel Pastor Clementa Pinckney, four years after the death of her husband in the 2015 mass shooting at his church, Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina…