the Web Editors

1. Inside the Faith-Led Counter-Protest to Charlottesville’s White Supremacist Rally
Starting this evening, clergy are gathering in Charlottesville, Va., to pray and protest the “Unite the Right” rally scheduled for this weekend.

2. How Fossil Fuel Money Made Climate Change Denial the Word of God
The story behind evangelicals’ resistance to climate science.

President Donald Trump and Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) on Wednesday unveiled a plan at the White House to overhaul the rules for legal immigrants, a proposal that would slash numbers overall and focus on skilled immigrants, the White House said.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would not allow transgender individuals to serve in the U.S. military in any capacity.

1. The Survival of a Southern Baptist Who Dared to Oppose Trump
CNN profiles Russell Moore, Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty lead, and chronicles his past couple of years from staunch opposition to Trump, to nearly losing his job amid evangelical backlash, to ensuring denominational condemnation of the alt-right, and finally, to finding himself back in the good graces of denominational leadership.

2. Clergy Arrested Outside McConnell’s Office While Protesting Health Care Bill
Rev. William Barber II was among those arrested.

3. What Keeps Bike Share So White?
It’s not a lack of interest.

Sexual orientation change efforts — more commonly known as "reparative therapy" or "conversion therapy" — are currently legal in the United Kingdom. While the government condemns the practice, conversion therapy is not illegal. In March, a petition seeking to change the practice's legal status failed to garner enough signatures to be considered in Parliament. 

1. ICE Officers Instructed to Take Action Against All Undocumented Immigrants, Regardless of Criminal Histories
“Between February and May, the Trump administration arrested, on average, 108 undocumented immigrants a day with no criminal record, an uptick of some 150 percent from the same time period a year ago.”

2. Officials Say the Answer to Chicago’s Violence Is Jobs. But On What Scale?
WBEZ Chicago did the calculation. Here’s how much it would cost in the first year to employ the target group of more than 30,000 people.

3. Liberating Theology from the Intellectual One-Percenters
How can people who do not reside within academia gain access to the treasure trove of knowledge that is Christian theology?

When will the killing end? Why does the government, 31 states and the U.S. Supreme Court, sanction the killing of people who kill to show that killing is wrong? Some 140 countries, including the European Union, and 19 states in the U.S., no longer practice the death penalty. On Jan. 17, 2017, we, 12, along with many others, went to the Supreme Court, the highest Court in the land, to call on the Court and the nation to stop executions.

1. Who Gets to Use Facebook's Rainbow 'Pride' Reaction?
“Is Facebook’s rollout of rainbow flags a case of algorithmic hypocrisy, user protection, or something else? Using their ability to detect people’s location and interests, the company's algorithms are choosing which people get the rainbow flag while hiding it from others.“

2. As Climate Changes, Southern States Will Suffer More Than Others
Maine may benefit from milder winters. Florida, by contrast, could face major losses, as deadly heat waves flare up in the summer and rising sea levels eat away at valuable coastal properties.

Identifying as a "progressive Christian and Democrat," Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware offered what he believes is the answer to hyperpartisanship and a deadocked Congress: prayer. 

Coons, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday, pointed to the Senate's weekly prayer breakfast he attends each week as something that gives him hope for progress through partisan division. He said about two dozen people of all faiths gather for an hour to do two uncommon things: "We trust each other and we listen ... And out of that experience has come the greatest opportunities for bipartisanship and progress that I've had in seven years."