Unpredictable weather patterns, extreme drought, and torrential rain have affected millions across Central America’s “dry corridor,” which includes the countries of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Changing atmosphere-ocean circulation patterns near Central America, such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, are increasing temperatures and this can cause intensified precipitation. Without intervention, people in this region of the world will continue to experience the harmful environmental, health, and social effects of a changing climate. Many will be forced to migrate.
But it’s not the absence of Chadwick Boseman — whose death in 2020 is paralleled by T’Challa’s fate in the film — that makes the film fall short. Wakanda Forever suffers from the same ailment as much of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe: It tries to offer individualistic answers to systemic evils. Unfortunately, there are evils in the world we can’t simply punch to death
This election is just the most recent manifestation of deeper social divides in both the U.S. and Brazil. Benjamin A. Cowan, a historian at the University of California San Diego, notes that, since the 1980s, both countries have experienced a coalescing of “moral majorities” and right-wing populist groups, often with conservative Christians on the front lines. In Brazil, like in the U.S., certain affinities are grouped together. In the United States, a political slogan like “Jesus, guns, babies” attracts conservative constituents. In Brazil, conservatives rally around “beef, Bible, and bullets.” No wonder it feels like Texas.
“Stay woke” is a common phrase these days, a cultural call to arms designed to galvanize people’s attention to social and political issues. Wikipedia traces its etymology to African American vernacular English, but while that is true of its current popularization, followers of Christ recognize its scriptural heritage. “Stay awake,” Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica, warning them against being lulled into a false sense of peace and security.
Since 2020, a rolling coup of voter suppression laws has left 55 million voters living in states with restrictions on who, how, when, and where people can vote. Also alarming are reports that the majority of Republican candidates in the midterms “deny or question” the 2020 election results. At times, it feels as though the loudest political opinions are coming from people who want to suppress the vote or peddle lies about the 2020 election. But when poor and low-income people, alongside clergy, moral leaders, and activists vote for an agenda that promotes human rights and dignity, we have the power to make a difference.
I don’t often turn on a non-news network television show and expect to learn. Instead, I expect to laugh, maybe cry (I’m looking at you, This Is Us), see loads of inaccurate depictions of medical interventions, or simply be entertained. But ABC’s new primetime drama Alaska Daily has me expanding my perspective on the possibilities of network TV. And that’s thanks to the light it’s bringing to a dark truth: the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Yet, in this charged atmosphere, Jesus calls us to be peacemakers — regardless of our political leanings or party affiliation. So, what does peacemaking look like during the upcoming midterms?
About one in five Americans mostly agree with ideas consistent with the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute. That’s an increase from one in seven since last year.
As soon as the pastor began to speak, I rose and turned up the aisle, only looking back once in a small act of self-righteous defiance. I hoped the speaker would catch my gaze and feel convicted over the heresy he preached. Pictures of Black Lives Matter protests scrolled across the screen, confirming in my mind that leaving was the right decision.
The message of assimilation makes me uncomfortable because it requires me to celebrate the loss of other people’s culture, traditions, and languages in order to alleviate the fears that white people, including Christians, might have about a diverse society where their position as power brokers of society may be threatened. It is akin to saying, “White Christians, please do not fear immigrants because they, too, will submit to white supremacy and blend into it as best as they can, even with their non-white skin and features.”