Going hand in hand with the hurried third act of Chaos Walking as a movie is a few notable changes to the movie not found in the book. One major plot point of both is Viola needing to contact her ship and in the movie she successfully does so by the end of Chaos Walking. But, in the novels, this doesn’t happen until the second book. Then, there’s a lot that happens on the abandoned ship they use for communication in the film, such as Viola killing him so she can contact said ship, but in the book she does it so Todd doesn’t have more blood on his hands. Plus, in the movie Mads Mikkelsen’s Mayor villain seems to have died in a final face off between him and Todd, perhaps with the possibility of surviving his plummet? But in the books, the Mayor takes over all of the New World, leading into a bigger plotline for him in the rest of the trilogy.
When megachurch pastor J.D. Greear became the 62nd president of the Southern Baptist Convention, he saw all kinds of statistics headed in all kinds of directions.
After decades of growth, America’s largest Protestant flock faced steady decline as many members joined thriving nondenominational evangelical and charismatic churches. Ominously, baptism statistics were falling even faster. On the other side of the 2018 ledger, worship attendance and giving to SBC’s national Cooperative Program budget were holding strong.
But one set of numbers caught Greear’s attention, he told the SBC’s executive committee, as he nears the end of his three years in office.
“Listen, I made diversity … one of my goals coming into this office, not because it’s cool, or trendy, or woke,” he said. “It’s because in the last 30 years, the largest growth we’ve seen in the Southern Baptist Convention has been among Black, Latino and Asian congregations. They are a huge part of our future. … Praise God, brothers and sisters.”
Greear’s blunt, emotional address came during a Feb. 22 meeting in Nashville in which SBC leaders ousted two churches for “affirming homosexual behavior” by accepting married gay couples as members, and two more for employing ministers guilty of sexual abuse.
Those issues loomed in the background during Greear’s remarks, which ranged from a fierce defense of the SBC’s move to the right during 1980s clashes over “biblical inerrancy” to his concerns about “demonic” attacks from social-media critics who are “trying to rip us apart.”
“I’ve read reports online that I was privately funded by George Soros with the agenda of steering the SBC toward political liberalism,” he said. “My office has gotten calls from people who say they’ve heard that I am friends — good friends — with Nancy Pelosi and that we text each other regularly; that I am a Marxist; a card-carrying member of the Black Lives Matter movement and that I fly around on a private jet paid for by Cooperative Program dollars.”
Greear urged a renewed focus on evangelism and church planting, with a steady drumbeat of references to the Great Commission — the command by Jesus that Christians should spread the faith worldwide. After all, back in 2012, the SBC’s national meeting approved the use of “Great Commission Baptists” as an unofficial name — a move hailed by those seeking distance from the term “Southern” and the convention’s roots in an 1845 split over slavery.
“Do we want to be a Gospel people or a Southern, Republican culture people?” asked Greear. “Which is the more important part of our name — the ‘Southern’ or the ‘Baptist’?”
The ultimate challenge, he said, will be creating a “movement of churches that engages all of the peoples in America, not just one kind. … That is very difficult. Bringing together people of different backgrounds and cultures and ethnicities into one body creates challenges, and anybody who says that that’s not true has never actually done it. People bring in their music and their style preferences and political approaches and they all are as passionate about these things as we are, and that creates friction. But it is biblical.”
In recent months, leaders of the SBC’s National African American Fellowship have expressed concerns about statements by seminary presidents that — while condemning racism outright — claimed “affirmation of Critical Race Theory” is incompatible with the Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal statement. Several prominent Black pastors, in response, led their congregations out of the convention.
Greear stressed the need for SBC leaders to commit to more “robust, Bibles open, on our knees” dialogues with Black church leaders on what parts of CRT are inherently secular and clash with biblical teachings on racism and sin.
“We should mourn when closet racists and neo-Confederates feel more at home in our churches than do many of our people of color,” he said.
The painful reality is “that if we in the Southern Baptist Convention had shown as much sorrow for the painful legacy that racism and discrimination have left in our country as we have passion to decry Critical Race Theory, we probably would not be in this mess. It’s not that clarity about the dangers of Critical Race Theory is not important. It is. It’s that, as Jesus said, we’ve ignored some of the weightier parts of the law — justice, mercy and compassion.”
Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.
The United States is warning of European Union plans to impose environmental taxes on imports. US special envoy for climate protection John Kerry of the Financial Times said on Friday that such a survey could be only a last resort and would have serious implications for the economy, international relations and trade. The European Union is considering taxing some goods imported from countries with lower environmental standards.
This is to prevent distorting the competition. Additional VAT charges, import duties, and expansion of trade in carbon dioxide emissions rights to other countries are being discussed.
US President Joe Biden wants to focus more on climate protection than his predecessor and has brought the United States back to the Paris Agreement. However, Kerry was reluctant to accept the French proposal that the United States and the European Union should develop a joint environmental financing system. “It goes without saying that the United States has a great interest in preventing excessive regulation,” Kerry told the newspaper. (Abba)
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In the dispute over controls on importing goods to Northern Ireland, the European Union Commission wants to file a lawsuit against Great Britain for violating the Brexit treaty. On Friday, she said the body had received support from member states this week from European Union constituencies. Thus, the procedures could start “from next week.”
Background to this struggle over the extension of the transitional regulations for the import of British goods into Northern Ireland. Britain recently unilaterally extended it until October. The European Union considers this a violation of the Brexit treaty and has threatened legal action.
The Northern Ireland Protocol, which is part of the Brexit treaty, aims to prevent border controls from becoming necessary again between the British province and the European Union member Ireland. Because, according to both sides, this could spark a bloody conflict in Northern Ireland. So controls have to take place between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
According to information from European Union departments, the Commission wants to initiate violations proceedings due to the expanded transitional regulations. She was describing the violations first in a letter calling for a fix. Ultimately, proceedings could lead to the European Court of Justice through a number of stages. It could impose fines on Great Britain if it decided in favor of the European Union.
The commitment of “good faith” was not fulfilled
In the second measure, the Commission wants to activate the dispute settlement mechanism in the Brexit Treaty. She added that Great Britain should be accused of failing to fulfill the “good faith” obligation of the Brexit Treaty.
Here the dispute is handled first in a joint committee responsible for the proper implementation of the withdrawal agreement. If there is no solution there, the European Union can request the creation of an arbitration board.
Its decisions will be binding on both sides. Fines are also possible here. If one party does not abide by the arbitration award, the other party can suspend parts of the withdrawal agreement. (afp)
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It’s a hymn that the faithful start singing whenever a Baptist church organist plays the opening chords – because everyone knows it by heart.
All together now: “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul.”
Chicago attorney Horatio Spafford wrote those words after losing his son to scarlet fever and then, a few years later, all four of his daughters in an 1873 shipwreck. His wife, Anna, survived, and her telegram home from England began: “Saved alone. What shall I do?”
No one should be surprised that worship leaders frequently turned to “It Is Well With My Soul” as their people wrestled with the coronavirus pandemic, said the Rev. Roger O’Neel, who teaches in the worship and music program at Cedarville University in Ohio.
“People were feeling their way in 2020,” he said. “It wasn’t just the pandemic and people being locked down, worshipping in (online) streamed services. We were also facing all the bitter political conflicts in our nation and the racial divisions that we were experiencing. … People were trying to find hymns that would speak to all of that, to the pain that everyone felt last year.”
Faithlife, a Bellingham, Washington, company that publishes online worship and Bible study tools, recently released a report covering 2020 trends spotted in its Proclaim software. “It Is Well With My Soul” topped the hymns list, with usage increasing 68 percent after the pandemic hit.
The classic hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” came next, with a 64 percent increase. It begins: “Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father; there is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not; Thy compassions, they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be. Great is Thy faithfulness! … Morning by morning, new mercies I see; all I have needed, Thy hand hath provided – great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.”
In contemporary music, the unofficial pandemic anthem was “Way Maker,” by Osinachi Kalu Okoro Egbu of Nigeria, a Pentecostal songwriter known as Sinach in America. This hit topped charts in Christian radio and was No. 1 in the Faithlife “worship songs” list, along with the year’s rankings with Christian Copyright Licensing International. Christianity Today noted that “Way Maker” was sung by many marchers calling for racial justice.
It’s easy, agreed O’Neel, to see how these lyrics spoke to millions in 2020: “You wipe away all tears, you mend the broken heart. You are the answer to it all, Jesus. … Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, Light in the darkness – my God, that is who you are.”
For centuries, hymn writers and pastors have wrestled with sobering questions linked to the theological term “theodicy.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines theodicy as a “vindication of God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.”
There was no way to avoid dealing with that in 2020.
“I don’t want to debate the theological intricacies as to whether God is allowing the virus or caused the virus, but I do know that He is in control,” wrote O’Neel in an online essay for clergy and students, posted early in the pandemic. “I don’t want to presume to know what He is doing in allowing this in our lives and in the lives of people all around the world. …
“Perhaps God is making us lay down for some rest or spiritual renewal,” he continued. “If so, embrace the rest. Don’t spend too much time thinking about what you are missing, worrying about the virus or economy. … Maybe your Shepherd is making you lie down.”
Now, many worship leaders are contemplating what they have learned after months away from sanctuaries packed with worshippers belting out Christian-rock anthems, hands raised high in the air.
“We’ve joked that some people had to learn how to do church without their smoke machines,” said O’Neel, referring to the clouds of mist that make lighting more dramatic in some modern sanctuaries. “We want to get back to normal, but what is ‘normal’? One guitar or one piano? When will we have a full band? When will we reach the stage where choirs return?
“We all had to pause this year and ask questions about how we worship.”
Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tenn. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.
Farmers union slams free pass for EU imports as UK food exports face red-tape and higher costs
The National Farmers Union has criticised the government’s approach to trade with the EU, arguing UK exporters are still facing financial losses not felt in europe.
The Farmers union is accusing the government of allowing the EU continued market access burden free, while UK exporters struggle with rising costs from border checks.
“Our exporters face additional costs and run the risk of financial losses if products are turned back or held up at the border, NFU President Minette Batters said.
“It is crucial that we achieve a level playing field with pragmatic checks on imports and exports as quickly as possible.”.
In response to the disruption, Batters is urging the UK and EU to agree a long-term arrangement as a matter of priority so trade can flow as smoothly as possible.
UK exports to the EU plunged 40 per cent between in January. With agriculture exports dropping by 56.2 per cent.
Under the government’s new border operating model, physical checks at the border will not take place on food products and high-risk plants until 1 January 2022. While checks on live animals will not take place until March 2022.
The EU imposed complete border controls on goods entering the bloc from the UK, when the Brexit transition period ended. However, instead Boris Johnson opted to have a transition period for goods coming the other way.
As a result, the new customs procedures caused extensive delays and product waste for some British exporters, with the seafood and meat industries particularly affected.
Among recommendations set out by the Farmers Union to reduce further red tape and trade barriers include: the digitalisation of outdated paperwork requirements for organic certificates, and streamlining physical and administrative checks at the border.
Prior to leaving the EU, £9.37bn worth of food per year was exported to the EU including meat, dairy and vegetables.
With 109,000 farmers be working in the UK during 2020, the President is worried about the impact certain foods being banned or held up for checks by the EU might have.
“We also need the continued ban on exports of UK seed potatoes to be urgently addressed. While the ban remains in place, our government must set out how it will support the British growers affected,” Batters added.
The popular American evangelist and Bible teacher Beth Moore made headlines when she said she is no longer a Southern Baptist and ended her longtime partnership with the evangelical denomination’s publishing arm, Lifeway Christian Resources.
Some commentators have asked, will it matter? Will something happen to white evangelical women, or will Moore just be seen as crossing over the cultural divide to the liberals? Can she play a bridging role?
When a high-profile person like Moore leaves the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, it is likely bound to impact white evangelicals wrestling with their direction.
The story of her departure was broken by Religion New Service and a central characeter in her tale is the former president, Donald Trump.
Moore retweeted the RNS story, but her spokesperson told The Tennessean that Moore has no plans to comment further on her decision.
The ministry focuses on aiding women who desire to model their lives on evangelical Christian principles.
Ashlie D. Stevens wrote in Salon on March 11, “Moore has been viewed for decades, as the ‘Evangelical Julia Roberts meets Oprah,’ according to Anne Helen Peterson’s recent ‘Culture Study; newsletter.
Moore has published over 20 Bible studies, and her Living Proof conferences drew thousands of women who would pack into stadiums to hear her speak about topics like insecurity, forgiveness, and godliness.
A 2008 simulcast of her speaking called “Living Proof Live” is estimated to have been watched by over 70,000 people at 715 locations, Salon reported.
As a Southern Baptist, Moore established herself as a singular voice in a denomination that male thought leaders dominate and offered a generation of evangelical women an opportunity to see themselves in her and through her work, Stevens wrote in Salon.
“Now, however, Moore has announced she’s breaking from the Southern Baptist Convention largely because as a sexual assault survivor, she couldn’t reconcile with evangelicals’ overwhelming hypocritical support of Donald Trump. This raises the question of whether her followers and other women will follow suit.”
STILL A BAPTIST
Moore told RNS, “I am still a Baptist, but I can no longer identify with Southern Baptists.”
“I love so many Southern Baptist people, so many Southern Baptist churches, but I don’t identify with some of the things in our heritage that haven’t remained in the past.”
RNS described her as having been for nearly three decades “the very model of a modern Southern Baptist.”
“She has been a stalwart for the Word of God, never compromising,” former Lifeway Christian Resources President Thom Rainer said in 2015, during a celebration at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville that honored 20 years of partnership between the Southern Baptist publishing house and Moore. “And when all is said and done, the impact of Beth Moore can only be measured in eternity’s grasp.”
Moore said she had understood why evangelicals supported Trump, who promised to nominate anti-abortion judges for the federal judicial system.
“He became the banner, the poster child for the great white hope of evangelicalism, the salvation of the church in America,” she told RNS. “Nothing could have prepared me for that.”
But RNS said that changed with the arrival of Trump as the president.
Moore’s criticism of the former president’s abusive behavior toward women and her advocacy for sexual abuse victims changed her from a beloved icon to a pariah in the denomination she loved all her life, said RNS.
“Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement & power,” Moore tweeted about Trump in Oct 2016, “riffing on a passage from the New Testament Book of Ephesians.”
Stevens wrote, “If you’ve paid attention to news surrounding evangelical leaders over the last several years, it’s not surprising. In 2020, former Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. tumbled into one scandal after another, before finally, officially plummeting from grace.”
The European Union in partnership with the European Union’s School of Transnational Governance has launched the Young African Leaders Programme, a three-month fully-funded fellowship that will take place in Florence, Italy between September and November 2021.
According to a notice issued on Friday by the Administrator: Thematic Programmes Delegation of the EU to Nigeria and ECOWAS, it is a pilot programme that provides a unique opportunity for policy professionals from Africa to further develop their competencies and skills in an international environment amidst scholars and practitioners.
The programme is open to African civil servants, journalists, entrepreneurs and NGO practitioners with a keen interest in and commitment to transnational policy issues and programmes relevant to African countries, including green transition, trade and regional governance, gender, digital technology and sustainability.
The Programme targets mid-career, high potential policy-makers, diplomats, and professionals from Africa, working in national and local authorities, regional, continental, international organisations and development partners, civil society organisations, academia, media and the private sector in Africa.
It is open to young female and male professionals, mid-career and executives alike, who are nationals of African countries, residing in Africa and are under the age of 45.
In the dynamic academic environment of the European University Institute in Florence, selected participants will take part in workshops, training and skills development sessions, conferences, study visits and field trips in Europe.
Interaction with the other fellows, policy-makers and the academic community at the EUI will make this a truly unforgettable experience.
The three-month leadership programme will take place between September and November 2021 and places are fully-funded with a grant of €2,500 per month.
The African experts are expected to live in the area of Florence for the duration of their stay.
The latest edition of the State of the World’s Indigenous People report examines challenges communities face in asserting their rights to lands, whether in the context of agribusiness, extractive industries, development, conservation and tourism.
“Ensuring the collective rights of indigenous peoples to lands, territories and resources is not only for their well-being, but also for addressing some of the most pressing global challenges such as climate change and environmental degradation”, said Elliott Harris, the UN’s Chief Economist, speaking at the virtual launch in New York.
Mr. Harris is an Assistant-Secretary-General in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), which has issued the report.
Indigenous people are often described as “the custodians of our Earth’s precious resources”, DESA said. Their traditional knowledge of the land, and territorial rights, are gaining wider recognition as countries confront the impacts of climate change.
Although the 17 SDGs address key indigenous concerns, they still fall short in some respects, Mr. Harris told journalists.
“For example, the 2030 Agenda does not fully recognize collective rights in relation to lands and resources, or to health, education, culture and ways of living”, he said. “And yet, collective rights lie at the very heart of indigenous communities.”
Land conflicts on the rise
Mr. Harris outlined other serious challenges, noting that in many parts of the world, indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, territories and resources remain limited or unrecognized. Even where there is legal support, implementation is frequently stalled or inconsistent.
Indigenous rights activists have also faced enormous risks and reprisals for defending their lands, ranging from criminalization and harassment, to assault and killings, he added.
Anne Nuorgam, Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, reported that there has been a rise in cases of encroachment onto indigenous lands and territories during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.
“The sources of conflict are many, from resource extraction, logging, land for renewal energy sources and agribusiness to conflict between indigenous pastoralists, nomadic herders and farmers over shrinking grazing lands due to war, and the effects of climate change as well as the establishment of conservation areas”, she said in a statement read at the launch.
“The lack of respect for the principle and the meaning of free, prior and informed consent by both governments and the private sector continues unabated.”
The role of data
The UN report concludes with several recommendations for national authorities as they strive to meet the SDGs.
The authors advise States to include recognition of customary rights of indigenous peoples to their lands and resources in data on secure land tenure rights.
Governments are also urged to collect better data, disaggregated by ethnicity and indigenous identity, so that challenges faced by specific indigenous communities are more accurately reflected in SDG reporting.
INDOOR AND DRIVE-IN WORSHIP SERVICES
Bethesda United Methodist Church, 155 Main St., Preston. 9 a.m. contemporary service in Fellowship Hall; 10:15 a.m. traditional service in the sanctuary. Sundays. CDC guidelines followed. The Rev. Linda Pevey, pastor. …
