Editor’s weekly roundup: May 31, 2019
Got a tip for this column? Email Editor-in-Chief Bobby Ross…
Editor’s weekly roundup: July 5, 2019
Our end-of-the-week review of important and/or simply interesting headlines from the world of religion.
Got a tip for this column? Email Editor-in-Chief Bobby Ross Jr. at [email protected].
From the editor
Happy Fifth of July!
OK, that doesn’t have the same ring as “Happy Fourth of July!” But I’m a day late for that.
I hope you enjoyed a wonderful Independence Day. My wife, Tamie, and I certainly did.
We spent the day with family and friends. Some of my favorite parts: barbecue ribs, corn on the cob, homemade banana pecan ice cream, time in the swimming pool and, of course, fireworks. (Plus, the Rangers ended a four-game losing streak!)
From our pages
• ‘More than a song’: For 50 years, the Electrifying Easternnaires have traveled the country, singing a cappella hymns and shaping young lives for service to God. Check out the story and video by correspondent Hamil Harris, reporting from Baltimore.
Stacey Wells Young sings with the Electrifying Easternnaires as her mother, Dorothy Wells, seated at far left, directs. The group performed its 50th anniversary concert in Baltimore.
• Reaching and running for the stars: 2nd Lt. Jaci Smith, a recent graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, says her faith and a cappella hymns helped her persevere in the classroom and on the track. The 22-year-old champion runner is a member of the New Hope Church of Christ in Edmond, Okla. She hopes to compete in the 2020 Olympic trials.
• Editorial: Cancer stinks, but heaven awaits: We are grieving the losses of precious loved ones snatched from this earth by that terrible disease. We join thousands across the U.S. in mourning Laura Jenkins, 57, wife of Jeff Jenkins, preaching minister for the Lewisville Church of Christ in Texas.
Recommended links
• NFL linebacker returns to Kenya to visit well he helped fund: After seeing a young girl carrying dirty drinking water while there last year, K.J. Wright of the Seattle Seahawks decided to partner with Healing Hands International to get two clean-water wells built. Healing Hands is associated with Churches of Christ.
• Texas church member featured in Washington Post: Kelly Davis, a member of the New York Avenue Church of Christ in Arlington, Texas, tells the Post why she has started doing something she once thought unthinkable: buying clothes at Costco. My thanks to Christa Sanders Bryant for tipping me to this trend piece.
More religion news
• The curious mystical text behind Marianne Williamson’s presidential bid: “The New Age author was drawn to an esoteric kind of bible as an aimless young woman in the 1970s,” Sam Kestebaum reports for the New York Times. “It has made her a self-help megastar. And now it has entered the political mainstream.”
• Precision needed in news reporting on gay rights vs. religious freedom: There’s a difference between broad discrimination against a class of people and very, very narrow acts of conscience linked to longstanding religious doctrines and religious rites, as I note in a post at GetReligion.
Finally, a video of Worship Leader Institute flash mob
That video is from this week’s event. Last year’s flash mob at Chick-fil-A went viral and was viewed millions of times.
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