Wendell Griffen: "Chickens of Racism, Materialism and Militarism Have Come Home to Roost in the Convergence of Trump’s Presidency and the COVID-19 Pandemic"

 I'd like to point readers to a valuable essay my friend Wendell Griffen published two days ago in Baptist News Global. It's entitled "Our national curse: the cruel convergence of Trump’s presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic." Wendell does an impressive job of connecting the dots to show that "the chickens of racism, materialism and militarism have come home to roost in the convergence of Trump’s presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic." He writes:

In the News: Another Day, Another Police Shooting of Unarmed Black Man; POTUS Race-Baits Again; White Evangelicals Stage Coup

These are thought-provoking things I've read in the past several days I thought I'd pass on to you; if any theme links them, it’s, Only in America:

Remembering Martin Luther King's Death: "Such Barbarism and Inhumanity . . . Are Not Really Past"

"In Reality, a Gospel without Justice Is No Gospel at All": Implications for the Catholic Church and LGBT People, and for Catholic "Bridge-Builders"

I wish I had realized sooner how some American Christians make social justice into a boogeyman by constantly saying that such concerns "replace" the gospel. In reality, a gospel without justice is no gospel at all.

— Jemar Tisby (@JemarTisby) November 20, 2017

A key implication of Jemar Tisby's statement that, "[i]n reality, a gospel without justice is no gospel at all," is that the gospel itself — the good news of God's salvific, redemptive love for everyone offered in Jesus Christ — is unavailable to those who are not accorded justice. The good news of God's all-inclusive love for the world through Jesus is unavailable to those who are not accorded justice by Christians and Christian institutions proclaiming the gospel to the world.

Where Have All the Christian Intellectuals Gone? (Does Anyone Remember John Paul's and Ratzinger's Purge of Catholic Theologians?)

It's a thing now among journalists and religion commentators to ask what has happened to the public intellectuals of the churches in the past few decades — as Catholic commentator E.J. Dionne does in this Commonweal essay. Where have they gone? Why are they not with us any longer — the Niebuhrs (or, as Fred Clark points out, the Martin Luther Kings who never get mentioned in this discussion, and isn't that curious, and noteworthy)?

From Strawberries on the Cake to the Diaconate: Commentary on Pope Francis's Remark About Studying Women and the Diaconate

As many of you will perhaps know, Pope Francis made an off-the-cuff remark to a closed-door meeting of superiors of religious women last week, about the possibility of studying whether women might be admitted to the diaconate, and the media and twitterverse lit up right away with reports that the pope of grand surprises might be opening the door to women's ordination to the priesthood. However, as AP reported almost immediately afterwards, Vatican officials then began "tamping down expectations" with alacrity as the Vatican media guru Father Lombardi announced that the pope had not meant to signal any openness to ordaining women deacons, let alone women priests.

On Evil and Angelic Troublemakers: What Bayard Rustin (and Martin Luther King and Gandhi) Were About

Colleen, thank you for reminding me that angelic troublemakers should not forget their vocation to be troublemakers. The point on which I'm insisting over and over in comments here lately is that I think we should struggle to keep aiming at the angelic side of the equation, too.

From Nuns on the Bus Town Hall Meeting in Little Rock: Rev. Wendell Griffen on Radical Revolution of Values

I recently blogged about the town hall meeting the Nuns on the Bus held in my community of Little Rock on 13 September, which my husband Steve and I attended. The video above is our friend Wendell Griffen talking about the needs of our community in response to a question the Nuns on the Bus asked each table to discuss among ourselves. In Wendell's view, the "radical revolution of values" from profits and property to people, to which Dr. King was pointing American society at the time he was murdered, remains the most imperative need of our society today.

Douglas Laycock on U.S. Catholic Bishops and Marriage Equality: "Being on the Losing Side of a Revolution Can Be Very Dangerous for Churches" (the Continuing Ruse of U.S. Catholic Centrism)

Father Thomas Reese reports today at National Catholic Reporter that University of Virginia professor Douglas Laycock thinks "being on the losing side of a revolution can be very dangerous for churches." Reese is summarizing points Laycock made recently in a presentation at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and in an article in the University of Illinois Law Review.

Quote for Day: Wendell Griffen — "'Unrest' Is What Oppressed, Wounded, and Outraged People Do in Their Quest for Justice"

Wendell Griffen at his Justice Is a Verb! blog on how "civil unrest" takes on an entirely new complexion depending on who's discussing the term:

On Martin Luther King, Jr., Day: Jerry Slevin on Pope Francis's Trip to the Philippines, and Catholics' Dream

And another King-day-themed posting: at his Christian Catholicism site, Jerry Slevin comments on Pope Francis's encounter in the Philippines with a street child who poured out her anguish to him immediately before the pope gave a homily reasserting the papal ban on the use of contraception:

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, Legacy: Celebrating the Power of Ordinary People Acting Together to Bring About Effective Change

I have long thought that Martin Luther King, Jr., was put to death by the powers that be when he began to make the connections (a nod to Beverly Wildung Harrison as I use that phrase) between American militarism, the exploitation of working-class Americans of all colors and creeds by unbridled capitalism, and racism. As long as he confined his activist organizing to civil rights for people of color, the powers that be let King be, while keeping a close watch on him through his odious nemesis J. Edgar Hoover.

Andrew Sullivan on Jonathan Rauch and the "Theological Underpinnings" of Marriage as a Gendered Institution: My Take

Andrew Sullivan's take on the Jonathan Rauch essay calling for special tolerance for those who oppose same-sex marriage out of sincere religious conviction — an essay I critiqued yesterday: 

Panti Bliss on "Good" People, What Just Happened in Kansas, Parallels to Civil Rights Movement, and Club Catholic: In Summary

Two days ago, I puzzled, as I frequently do here, over the seeming inability of the "good" people of the world to hear the kind of testimony that Irish drag performer Panti Bliss recently offered in Dublin. Testimony about what it's like to live life in gay skin in a society whose norms are established and parsed by the good people she identified as ministers, senators, barristers, journalists, and nice middle-class folks like herself . . . .

More on Michael Sam's Coming Out: Powerful Testimony of Texas Sportscaster and Implications for Club Catholic

Remembering Martin Luther King: James Cone and Taylor Branch Talk to Bill Moyers

Today in History: Martin Luther King, Jr., Has a Dream

Today in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his "I Have a Dream Speech" in Washington, D.C. Videos of the speech are available online, but the family of Dr. King owns the copyright to the speech, and I have not embedded one of these videos in this posting for that reason. The American Rhetoric website has an audio version and the full text.

In News: SCOTUS on Dignity and DOMA, Chris Hedges on Edward Snowden, Regnerus Cavils, Pam's House Blend

At dotCommonweal, John McGreevy suggests that Andrew Sullivan may be the most influential lay Catholic in the U.S. in the past fifteen years, noting that his liveblog about the SCOTUS decision on DOMA stressed Justice Kennedy's emphasis on human dignity, as Kennedy struck the unconstitutional law down. McGreevy quotes Sullivan:

President Obama's Re-Inauguration on Martin Luther King Day: Commentary on the Synchronicity

Very interesting commentary today on the synchronicity that brings together the second inauguration of President Obama and the Martin Luther King holiday: 

More End-of-Week News: Maciel and John Paul II, Bayard Rustin, and Crisis of Democracy

I apologize that I'm a bit pressed for blogging time today, as I prepare for a day trip to chase down some information for the book on which I've been working--specifically, to see if some distant cousins who grew up with close connections to the book's subject, the 19th-century Arkansas country doctor-cum-philosopher Wilson R. Bachelor, can help identify some old family pictures.  Since I'm preparing to be on the run, I thought I'd post briefly about several articles that interested me when I read them yesterday.