by UrbanFaith Staff | Mar 26, 2014 | Feature, Headline News |
c. 2014 Religion News Service
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) The escalating slaughter of elephants and rhinos is drawing the anger of conservationist clerics, who have begun enlisting church members in the battle to save Africa’s wildlife.
The clerics are driven by a view that these animals are God’s gifts to nature and a critical part of Africa’s heritage.
In Kenya, their concerns heightened in mid-March after the conservation group Wildlife Direct said 16 rhinos had been gunned down in the first three months of the year. More than 30 elephants have also been slaughtered since January.
“We must now treat poaching as an emergency,” said the Rev. Charles Odira, a priest who heads the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Commission for Pastoral and Lay Apostolate. “It must be declared a national disaster.”
Odira said priests and lay leaders in wildlife zones were dedicating time each Sunday and during evangelization gatherings to educate communities on the value of wildlife.
“We are targeting attitude change because the poachers pass through the communities’ lands when targeting the animals. We want to change an existing view that animals are dangerous and need to be fought,” said Odira.
International cartels kill the animals to feed a growing illegal ivory market in Asian countries, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service. In Asia, rhino horn powder is wrongly believed to cure cancer and to be an aphrodisiac. A kilogram of ivory is worth approximately $1,500 on the black market, while a rhino horn can fetch $65,000 to $100,000 a kilogram. This is about 2.5 times the value of gold.
Two years ago, National Geographic reported that the ivory was carved into baby Jesus and Catholic saint figurines, Muslim prayer beads, Coptic crosses, amulets for Buddhists and elaborate Buddhist and Taoist carvings.
The Rev. Patrick Maina, a Presbyterian pastor in the Rift Valley of Kenya, which hosts many private wildlife ranches, is also carrying out educational efforts centered on conservation.
“I am engaging pastors’ fellowship on the dangers of charcoal burning. It is destroying local habitat for the wildlife,” said Maina.
Through his efforts, some youths are also manning electric fences in the reserves.
African religious leaders have reached out to Asian religious groups to raise awareness about where their ivory comes from and the toll that poaching takes on African wildlife.
The understanding in Asia is the tusks are plucked to support “evangelization,” said Odira. “We have to change this religious worldview. ”
But for Imam Idi Kasozi, Ugandan Muslim conservationist, corruption and poverty are escalating poaching in Africa.
“Some community members see poaching the ivory as a quick way of escaping poverty,” he said. “This is greed and I believe stronger punishments will deter them and their accomplices.”
Copyright 2014 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by Jeneba Ghatt | Mar 21, 2014 | Feature, Headline News |
In less than 10 days, the bell tolls on the Affordable Healthcare Act enrollment period. Faith-based organizations have been essential to assisting the Obama administration in getting as many uninsured people covered as possible. Earlier this year, the US Health and Human Services stated that 6 out of 10 African Americans would be eligible for free or subsidized healthcare. The challenge: to get them to sign up.
In fact, the pressure is on and the White House has been working overtime, primarily through grassroots efforts, to get the word out and get as many uninsured people as possible to sign up for healthcare coverage as mandated by the 2010 law. Ideally, 6 million people needed to enroll in the first year with that number gradually increasing to 24 million over time, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates.
By March 31, all Americans are supposed to be insured per President Barack Obama’s landmark law, euphemistically called Obamacare. Late last year, some reports indicated that many were still unaware about several aspects of the law, that healthcare was mandatory and were perhaps swayed by rhetoric from those who oppose the law.
“You can’t deny the impact of the intensity of the vitriol in the debate around moving towards the ACA, all of the politics and strategies utilized…the inane debates in Congress, the 40 plus attempts to repeal… the confusing array of information that’s out there,” Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter said on a January call with reporters. “The general public has real lives and real problems and they don’t have time to sit around having esoteric debates about this.”
Back in January, an estimated 6.8 million African Americans lacked coverage. That is when the mayors from most cities were meeting in Washington and the White House used the gathering to call on some the mayors of urban cities with high minority populations like Mesa, Arizona’s Mayor Scott, Mayor Kevin Johnson and Sacramento, California and Baltimore’s Stephanie Rawlings-Blake who were also on that January call with Mayor Nutter. Each took turns to share what they were doing to get the word out about the law and each said they relied heavily on the faith community and coordinated programs with churches and mosques. It’s been all grassroots work with the churches on a national level as well.
Beginning last fall, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and its HHS Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, as well as the Office of Public Engagement, have been working with mayors in urban cities and the faith community to pump up enrollment numbers.
In September, about 1800 faith leaders participated in an information call and later the Health and Human Services department released a tool kit to churches, mosques and temples. Over 21,000 people participated in 120 webinars HHS held for faith and community leaders, the White House reports.
Meanwhile, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett reached out to faith leaders like the Bishop TD Jakes of The Potter’s House; Reverend Luis Cortés, President of Esperanza; Rev. Otis Moss Jr of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church; and Rev. Gabe Salguero, President of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition.
And it’s not just churches either. This past February 18th. , the White House partnered with the National Council for Jewish Women to put on the Jewish Community Day of Action for Health Care Coverage, where various groups nationwide held events and promoted “18 Ways to Make an Impact.” The number 18 represents “life” in the Jewish tradition which was also why the Day of Action was held on the 18th.
In the Muslim community, groups like the American Muslim Health Professionals (AMHP) have galvanized young Muslim health professionals nationwide to take lead to convince their community and mosque leaders and members to enroll before the deadline.
This week, the White House proudly stated that so far, 5 million people have signed up for insurance and that it is on track to meet internal deadlines. But if that number is truly accurate, and reflects actual sign-ups, then it would be a great payoff for the grueling grassroots efforts and the cooperation of the faith community for certain.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Mar 20, 2014 | Feature, Headline News |
(RNS) For five years, bombs and bullets from Nigeria’s Islamist group Boko Haram have ripped through churches and their members, raising concerns over the security of Christians in majority Muslim regions of the country.
But as similar attacks ignite violent reprisals by pro-Christian militias in the Central African Republic, Christian leaders in Nigeria continue to insist on a path of dialogue and nonviolence.
The clerics have also pressed President Goodluck Jonathan to use the state security services against the militants.
These Christian leaders want Jonathan to negotiate with Boko Haram leadership and end the campaign of terror.
Recently, militants have slaughtered both Christians and Muslims in the states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe.
“We are living in perpetual fear and tension here in Maiduguri,” said the Rev. John Bakeni, secretary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri in Borno.
On Friday (March 14), gunmen from Fulani, a largely Muslim ethnic community, attacked villages in Kaduna state in central Nigeria, killing more than 100 people.
The Fulani who migrate with their livestock have a long-standing land conflict with farming Christian communities, according to church leaders.
Humanitarian agencies say the attacks have forced hundreds of Christians to flee to the south and neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Human Rights Watch says more than 300,000 people have been forced out of their homes since 2009.
Boko Haram means “Western education is sinful” in the Hausa ethnic language. It is also known as “Jama’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-da’aw wal-Jihad” in Arabic, or “Congregation of the People of Proselytism and Jihad.”
A young firebrand Muslim cleric known as Mohammed Yusuf founded the group in Borno around 2002. It gained prominence in 2009, when Yusuf issued a video to Jonathan calling for revenge after 17 of the group’s fighters were killed in a clash with police. Yusuf died the same year, while under police custody.
Since then, attacks by Boko Haram have escalated.
Driven by the view that non-Muslims are infidels, the militants have attacked churches, government security installations and other institutions. By 2013, more than 10,000 civilians had been killed.
“Nigerians are dying like chickens,” said the Rev. Evaristus Bassey, national director of Caritas Nigeria, in a statement last week.
More than 400 churches have been attacked and destroyed since the launch of the group, according to the Northern Christian Elders Forum, which advocates for peace in Nigeria. About 20 of those churches are Roman Catholic, said Archbishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri.
The extremists view Christianity as synonymous with Western education and the Western way of life, said Bakeni.
Recently, analysts started questioning the group’s commitment to its earlier stated aim of complete and immediate implementation of Shariah, or Islamic law, in the whole of Nigeria.
“I think they are hiding under religion to gain sympathy and acceptance for their actions,” Bakeni said. “Shariah is no longer the bone of contention. What we are witnessing now is wanton massacre and murder of innocent people, Christians and Muslims alike.”
The group also wants the release of all arrested members from prisons across the country.
“When a brother can stand up and kill a brother, this is not religion,” Archbishop Nemuel Babba, the leader of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria, told the Lutheran World Information Service in an interview.
“As faith leaders, we will continue to appeal to these groups to come and dialogue about what they want instead of using arms. We will preach and advocate peace, as violence only leads to destruction.”
Babba urged the global church community to demand that governments and the international community intervene to stop the killings.
“We want to hear the Christian voice encouraging us, supporting us and pleading on our behalf,” he said.
Copyright 2014 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be reproduced without written permission.
by UrbanFaith Staff | Mar 17, 2014 | Feature, Headline News |
c. 2014 LaborNotes
It’s been a bumpy road for SuperShuttle drivers attempting to organize at three D.C.-area airports. To win recognition, the drivers must prove they are employees—of a global corporation that’s making more money off workers’ fees than customers’ payments.
Over 200 SuperShuttle drivers, mostly West African immigrants, serve the three airports surrounding Washington, D.C. At all hours of the day and night, they pick up airport-bound passengers, who usually book online ahead of time. Drivers also take passengers from the airport to homes and hotels. Rides are shared among multiple passengers.
SuperShuttle calls its drivers “franchisees” and says they’re independent contractors, which disqualifies them from protections like minimum wage, overtime pay, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, and the right to organize a union.
The drivers are working with Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1994, which represents county government workers in Montgomery County, Maryland.
‘YOU OWE THEM’
Patrick Benhene started driving for SuperShuttle at Baltimore Washington International airport six years ago. He leased a van from the company, signed mountains of paperwork, and began driving.
He did not understand the full extent of the fees SuperShuttle would demand from him in exchange for permission to drive the blue and yellow van.
Benhene had to pay a $35,000 “franchise fee,” spread over years of weekly payments, with interest. He has paid that off, but continues to pay licensing fees, insurance fees, a $500 “system fee,” and a leasing fee to use the van every week.
“Before you start the week, you owe them,” he said.
SuperShuttle also takes 10 percent of Benhene’s revenue for the week (drivers at other airports lose up to 25 percent). He said they even deduct this percentage from tips paid online.
Drivers sleep in their cars, working 18- to 20-hour days to pay back everything they owe in fees—and sometimes make a little money to take home. Many end the week with only $300 or $400 in earnings, which must be used to pay for the next week’s gas.
Claire Evans has driven at Dulles International for a couple of years. There have been busy weeks when she worked every day and still lost money, she said.
Both say the fact that they have already paid so much money into the company keeps them from leaving the job.
“You look for a way out,” said Evans, who is still paying off her franchise fee. “You want to get out, but need your franchise money back… [but SuperShuttle] will have any excuses not to get money back.”
According to the union, SuperShuttle actually makes more money from drivers’ fees than from customer fares.
Read the rest of the story at LaborNotes.org
by Nicole Symmonds, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Mar 13, 2014 | Entertainment, Feature, Headline News |
Yesterday afternoon I reached out to one of our contributing writers, Alisha Gordon, to see if she was planning to see Tyler Perry’s latest film, “The Single Moms Club.” “Not with my own money,” she replied. I expected this response. Gordon is a single mother and a graduate student who is increasingly weary of how Tyler Perry tells women’s stories. Her and I continued to talk about why she wouldn’t be paying to see the movie and I came to the realization that Perry might have missed out on a big marketing opportunity in not explicitly targeting single mothers. Not marketing that increases their consumption by way of paying for his movie, but marketing that shows his concern for the plight of many single moms by sponsoring a “Single Moms Night Out.” After all, Perry stands to make plenty of money from the story of single mothers, so why shouldn’t some of the proceeds go toward actual single mothers by way of giving them a space to release and celebrate just as the characters in his movie will inevitably do?
Given this I scoured Perry’s Twitter feed and the Internet to see if he was already on top of it. Alas no theatres were rented out and no contest was launched to celebrate single moms in a tangible way. Perry speaks of honoring the lives of single moms but what about honoring the daily lived experience of single moms? The single moms who want to see his movie but can’t afford it? Or the ones who have been struggling in isolation with raising a child because her community has cast her to the margins? How could a man benefit from the story of single mothers–including the single mother who raised him–without tangibly giving back to that very community? With that I said to the writer, “I wonder if Perry would consider paying for single mothers to see it.” She challenged me to tweet Tyler Perry and we hope that the rest will be social media history.
I want every single mom on Twitter to tweet @tylerperry and ask him to sponsor a single moms night out to see this movie.
This yielded Gordon, others who are single moms, and even a couple of men who aren’t even single parents sending tweets to Tyler Perry asking him to sponsor a “Single Moms Night Out.” Gordon also sent a widely shared open status message to Tyler Perry on Facebook that read as follows,
Hi, Tyler Perry!
I was wondering: what if you sponsored single moms to see your film #SingleMomsClub this weekend? It would be quite the gesture. I mean, you ARE telling OUR story, right?
Most single moms I know are on a fixed income and spending $15 at the movie theater (plus $ for a baby sitter) is far-fetched and hard to come by.
Yet, you stand to earn millions of dollars off of the stories of women who are often marginalized and ostracized in society.
Single moms live and find rest in the margins — margins that limit and oppress and restrict and constantly remind you of your decision to carry and birth a life you may or may not have been prepared to care for.
In those same margins, the community comes to offer support and guidance as we collectively raise sons and daughters.
You are telling some version of this story (and getting paid well to do so.) Of course, a comp movie ticket to your local theater isn’t justification nor does it placate the need for more in-depth conversation about single parenthood.
[But what it does is not call for the marginalized women whose story you are attempting to tell PAY INTO seeing their story told.]
So, what say you, Tyler? Got a little room to offer your biggest supporters the opportunity to see their story told sans reaching into their pocketbooks?
This post is public, so I’m looking forward to getting the “like” notification from you soon!
Sincerely,
Alisha Gordon
In doing this, our hope is that many single moms and supporters of single moms will flood Tyler Perry’s Twitter feed and Facebook feed with requests to sponsor a “Single Moms Night Out.” We hope that it will create a groundswell that he can’t deny and it will force him to truly honor the women whose stories he dares to tell and to profit from. We know that there are certainly other and better ways Perry can help through programming and advocacy that supports single mothers, but that is another post for another day.
So what do you think, should Tyler Perry sponsor a #singlemomsnightout so that real single moms can see his new film “Single Moms Club?” If so, join the campaign and tweet @tylerperry to encourage him to do so. If not, tell us why. Either way, we hope you’ll join the discussion.
by Nicole Symmonds, Urban Faith Contributing Writer | Mar 10, 2014 | Entertainment, Feature, Headline News |
Here we are, not even a week into Lent, and we are already being faced with the mysterious reality of resurrection, faith and doubt. This is what ABC led many to with the Sunday premiere of “Resurrection.” Based on the debut novel “The Returned” by Jason Mott, Resurrection is about the dead returning to life. This is no, “And on the third day he rose again,” story though. The people on Resurrection, such as 8-year-old Jacob—the first to be resurrected, have been gone for a long time. Jacob was dead for 32 years before coming back to life in a rice paddy in China and finding his way to his aging parents doorstep with the help of immigration office J. Martin Bellamy—played by Omar Epps. The locus of these resurrection stories is Arcadia, Missouri, a town that at once seems small and sleepy but is really full of secrets and sadness. We don’t know why Jacob and others are coming back to life—rest assured this is also not a zombie apocalypse story—nor do we know who is responsible for these resurrections—there is no hint that it’s a God thing, but what we discover is resurrection changes everything and creates questions.
A moment of contemplating the possibility of resurrection is shattered when loved ones are faced with the full-bodied presence of their loved ones. Existential questions may remain but empirical evidence requires their full attention. When the un-aged Jacob lands on his parent’s doorstep and asks his father Henry Langston, “What’s red and green and goes a million miles an hour?” “A frog in a blender,” his father answers without a second thought and in an instant he is hit by the realization that this could really be his son standing before him. Yet and still the question of whether this is truly possibly is thick in the air. One of the most emotional moments of the show was when Jacob’s mother reached out to touch her son for the first time. With slightly trembling hands hovering over Jacob’s head, Lucille Langston stood as one in disbelief until she touched him. She was an embodiment of Thomas the disciple who didn’t want to believe Jesus had risen unless, “I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side” (John 20:25). My comparing Jacob’s mother to doubting Thomas is probably just the occupational hazard of a former seminarian and forever theology nerd but the show offers up other moments of explicit theological and philosophical reflections.
Jacob’s story connects to several people in Arcadia including Pastor Tom Hale who was his childhood friend. As you can imagine, Jacob’s appearance sends Pastor Hale into a sort of crisis of faith and he begins to wonder how he can go from preaching the miracles of God to believing in the miracle as manifested through Jacob. Pastor Hale’s wife gives him wise counsel by telling him that his job is not to have all of the answers but to be there to comfort people who have questions. As a resurrected Jacob walks into the church, Pastor Hale invokes his wife’s words of wisdom and the spirit of Anselm’s “faith seeking understanding” by telling his congregation that faith is in asking questions not knowing answers. This is how resurrection changes everything.
During my last semester of theology school in a class on Howard Thurman, my professor polled the class and on what we believe is essential to the Christian faith. Some of the essentials we listed as a class: belief in Christ, incarnation of Christ, acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, faith, and, of course, the bodily resurrection. After this non-comprehensive list was formed my professor went back through and polled the class on each essential asking by a show of hands to respond to whether or not these were indeed essentials. Once he got to the question of the bodily resurrection, I was one of six students—in a class of 20 or so—to affirm that belief in the bodily resurrection is essential to the Christian faith. For this my professor put me in the hot seat. “Why do you think belief in the bodily resurrection is essential to the Christian faith?” My professor asked me in front of my fellow students. I was nervous and I spouted a bunch of answers of why it makes sense to me, until he asked me if it is a requirement for everyone to believe. I was asked this question about this time last year, we were also in the midst of Lent already talking about resurrection and I ended my response with a question, “Why wouldn’t you believe in the bodily resurrection if you are acknowledging this liturgical season?” I couldn’t see how most of my classmates would give up in believing in the bodily resurrection that fulfills Jesus’ own words of, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). But the basis of our entire “essentials of Christian faith” discussion was about people coming together to question what it is they believe and even to formulate answers that produce more questions. There was power in the questions and even in some of the answers.
Most of us, if we are willing to admit it, live in a space somewhere between faith and doubt but we shrug doubt off. We’ve been taught that to doubt is to border on unbelief. But to doubt, from time to time, is a part of faith. Theologian Paul Tillich said, “If doubt appears, it should not be considered as the negation of faith, but as an element which was always and will always be present in the act of faith. Existential doubt and faith are poles of the same reality, the state of ultimate concern.” To put it plainly, and in the context of the show Resurrection, to doubt while holding on to your belief in the God of miracles or in the miracle itself is not to withdraw from faith but to exercise faith all the more. It takes a measure of faith to move through doubt. Resurrection, while not a show explicitly about faith, has something to show people of faith about living in the tension of faith and doubt. The characters who are witnessing their loved ones come back to life own the doubt they are experiencing, but they also have enough faith to make the miracle of a resurrection seem more probable than possible.
