‘Time is Water’: How Indigenous Leaders are Fighting to Save the Amazon

New documentary follows Sacred Headwaters Alliance as they travel the territory they are trying to save

By Francesc Badia i Dalmases, Juan Manuel Crespo , Pablo Albarenga

January 10, 2025

Source: Opendemocracy

YURIMAGUAS, Peru – The Sacred Headwaters Alliance brings together 30 indigenous peoples of the upper Amazon in Ecuador and Peru, who are self-organising to defend a forest devastated by unchecked extraction that is rapidly consuming their territory. Their leaders are on high alert due to the devastating effects of climate change on nature, which they perceive as a living being with a spiritual entity.

The Sacred Headwaters Alliance is focusing on climate mitigation and adaptation, as well as on teaching younger generations to resist the ongoing destruction of the Amazon. This initiative is crucial as the Amazon Basin has been severely impacted by record wildfires, with more than 22.4 million hectares (55.3 million acres) scorched between January and September 2024 in Brazil alone. Extreme heat and drought conditions have also exacerbated the crisis, affecting evaporation processes and pushing almost all major rivers in the Amazon – vital for indigenous communities’ livelihoods – to their lowest-ever levels.

How do they face this existential crisis? What worldview do they propose to save the forest and the planet? Are we still in time to prevent a tipping point? These are the critical questions grappled with in openDemocracy’s ‘The Time of Water’ documentary, which follows two of the Sacred Headwaters’ leaders as they travel the territory and work to protect both their cultural heritage and the environment.

This short documentary was produced thanks to the support of the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Reporting Grant and Mongabay.

A Reality Check on Our ‘Energy Transition’

By Andrew Nikiforuk

January 7, 2025

Source: The Tyee

Image by WikiRigaou, Creative Commons 4.0

The much-vaunted “energy transition” that promised a great leap forward from fossil fuels to renewables along with a cornucopia of technologies is now struggling with history and complexity. A few facts tell the story.

Despite all the talk of “decarbonization,” global coal production reached a record high in 2023. The dirtiest of fuels accounts for 26 per cent of the world’s total energy consumption. And despite all the promises of a green revolution, oil, gas and coal still account for 82 per cent of the global energy mix.

Meanwhile greenhouse gas emissions galloped to a new high in 2023. The concentration of carbon dioxide gases in the atmosphere has increased 11.4 per cent in just 20 years.

At the same time, the explosion of AI and data centres is now competing for new sources of electricity from renewables, methane and nuclear energy. That demand, some experts believe, will create an “insatiable demand for power that will exceed the ability of utility providers to expand their capacity fast enough.”

Unless we face such facts and make a dramatic course correction in how we behave and consume energy, we are surrendering human civilization to the vagaries of a prolonged climate crisis and the prospect of collapse. Given that a technical fix isn’t going to lower emissions on its own, isn’t it time to ask what kind of political, behavioural, demographic and economic transitions societies must consider to prepare for both climate chaos and limits to energy consumption?

Some clear-eyed experts are urging we rethink our response to climate change or face calamity.

One is French historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, who is not surprised by our seeming inability to replace and subtract fossil fuels with renewables that require fossil fuels for their construction.

‘The wrong way to frame it’

A green energy transition on the scale promised by global power brokers simply won’t happen, Fressoz says in his new book More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy. In fact, he refuses to endorse the term green energy transition, calling the phrase a delusion and “a delaying tactic that keeps attention away from issues like decreasing energy use.”

In two recent interviews, one with nuclear advocate Chris Keefer on the podcast Decouple and another published on the site Resilience, Fressoz laid out his reasoning as well as our startling history of energy consumption.

The problem, explains Fressoz, is that humans don’t neatly shift from one energy source to another like marionettes. Nor do they march in lockstep from biomass to coal to oil to renewables like some robot army.

Evolving high-energy societies incorporate their old energy addictions into new ones to solve more problems. As a result, they consume more energy of any kind.

Transition is just “the wrong way to frame it,” says Fressoz. He has a different phrase to describe our dynamic energy state. He calls it “symbiotic expansion.”

It’s the basic idea that technological society exploits different forms of energy to accelerate flows of material goods. In the process, society adds more energy sources than it ever subtracts.

This history suggests that adopting material- and energy-intensive technologies such as carbon capture and storage or electric vehicles to battle climate change won’t achieve net-zero carbon by 2050, and that only a radical reduction in energy and material consumption might make a difference.

False energy tales of the past

Most schoolchildren and even the odd university student have heard the story about how the growing use of coal lowered demand of wood (biomass) for heat and thereby saved the forests. Indeed, biomass provided 98 per cent of energy for humans before 1800, but the tale is profoundly incomplete.

The advent of coal-fed furnaces and coal-powered steam engines did not conserve forests, says Fressoz. It merely repositioned the consumption of wood in the economy.

As the demand for coal increased, nations built more coal mines. And all of these new mines needed timbers to support the roofs and walls from caving in. Here’s a stunning fact: Fressoz calculates that coal mines actually used more timber for roof support in the 19th century than England burned in the 18th century.

“Forget the story about coal substituting wood. It didn’t happen that way.”

Now add the impact of steam-powered trains and the need for more tracks, which resulted in the consumption of 20 million cubic metres of wood for railway ties in the United States. That equalled 10 per cent of U.S. wood production in the 1800s.

“It is an entanglement of coal and wood that made the industrial revolution.”

Overall wood energy has fallen from 11 per cent of the world’s primary energy mix in 1960 to four per cent today. But consumption of wood has now reached an all-time global high (four billion cubic metres in 2022) thanks to chainsaws and feller-bunchers powered by oil.

“Raw materials and energy don’t go in and out fashion,” notes Fressoz.

The same can be said for oil. It did not replace coal but found new uses for it. In fact, every tonne of oil required 2.5 tonnes of coal to be extracted. The coal helped to make steel for pipes, trucks and wells needed for oil extraction.

“Instead of a transition we have a story of symbiotic expansion of energies.”

Meanwhile the oil industry likes to tell the story that its kerosene products helped to save the whales from extermination by eliminating the demand for whale oil for illumination.

But petroleum didn’t suppress the whale trade at all. It found new uses for whales (from corsets to lubricants) and actually accelerated the slaughter of whales thanks to fossil-fuel-powered ships that could catch more and larger whales more rapidly. As Fressoz notes, three times more whales were slaughtered in the 20th century than in the 19th century.

“The energy transition is a slogan but not a scientific concept,” explains Fressoz. “It derives its legitimacy from a false representation of history. Industrial revolutions are certainly not energy transitions, they are a massive expansion of all kinds of raw materials and energy sources.”

Others who echo Fressoz

Fressoz is not the first to make the dramatic assessment that faith in a green energy transition is misplaced because it ignores the complexity of the energy use (and its connections to everything) as well as the difficulty of designing a simpler civilization that uses fundamentally less energy.

The Australian geologist and mining engineer Simon Michaux has added up the sheer volume of metals and minerals needed to replace approximately 46,000 fossil-fuel-based power stations with nearly 800,000 renewable ones. His conclusion: there will be severe material shortages and bottlenecks to the extent that “the green transition will not work.” He proposes a total rethink.

Vaclav Smil, the noted energy ecologist, has also raised concerns about the sheer material intensity of renewables and the unsustainable demand for more materials.

The U.S. sociologist Richard York stated in a 2018 paper that the term “energy transition” is entirely misleading and counterproductive because history shows only a constant addition of energy sources over time. “It is entirely unprecedented for these additions to cause a sustained decline in the use of established energy sources.”

York warned that the production of more renewable energy sources, due to their material intensity and poor energy density, would merely encourage more growth in energy consumption.

Nate Hagens, one of the world’s leading energy critics, has made similar observations in his Great Simplification podcast and presentations.

He notes that solar and wind are indeed growing rapidly and now make up 2.5 per cent of total energy consumption. The figure is probably closer to 5.6 per cent, according to the Energy Institute. But global fossil fuel production has grown by 21 per cent in the last 15 years. “So far there has not been a green revolution, only a green addition.”

To further illustrate the point, Hagens notes that the use of biomass (animal dung and plants) is now greater today than it was in 1850 before petroleum. In fact, consumption of biomass has doubled since 1800. The conversion of wood matter into pellets (electricity generation) and packaging explains the dismal trend.

In fact, approximately six per cent of B.C.’s electricity on any given day comes from the burning of biomass. That’s more than wind or fossil fuels combined.

The late geologist Peter Haff made similar points but from a different perspective. He urged us to contemplate our entrapment within a “technosphere” of our own construction that acts as a parasite on the biosphere.

Haff explains that humans have used fossil fuels to construct a technological world dependent on a constant and growing supply of energy that appropriates rivers of materials to build complexity. Haff describes the technosphere as a largely autonomous phenomenon of which humans are mere components.

As a result, Haff doesn’t think the technosphere will tolerate a subtraction of energy sources. “Whatever the future of particular renewable energy sources, the driving forces are already in place for transition to rates of energy consumption that are larger than, and perhaps much larger than, the current power level of fossil fuel use.”

The price of clinging to delusion

The Canadian energy analyst David Hughes adds another critical perspective.

He soberly confirms that all the nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, biofuels and other renewables built since 1973 have only increased per capita energy consumption and not reduced per capita fossil fuel use.

Chart by David Hughes.

But he warns a dramatic change is coming whether it is planned or not.

“I would qualify Fressoz’s statement,” he told me, offering these bold-faced revisions: “An energy transition is unlikely to happen voluntarily, but an energy transition will most certainly happen, as fossil fuels are finite.”

He notes that industry cannot maintain current oil extraction rates for more than a decade due to depletion rates, and the increasing energy costs of producing poorer and poorer quality resources such as bitumen and fracked oil.

Global economies have been consuming more fossil fuels than they have discovered for decades, adds Hughes. In 2023, 10 barrels of oil and gas were consumed for every new barrel discovered, calculates the energy researcher.

Fressoz’s work and that of Hagens, Smil, Michaux and York also begs another question: Just where did the term “energy transition” come from? Fressoz provides a historical answer.

It actually originated with atomic scientists in the 1950s who were concerned about the depletion of fossil fuels and overpopulation. They imagined a utopian future in which nuclear energy might produce endless energy and desalinated water but not until the 23rd or 24th centuries. So the term “energy transition” really originated with nuclear engineers who envisioned a world totally propelled by breeder reactors.

Fressoz then asks a good question: “How come this very strange futurology became the dominant futurology?”

“And there is a kind of, you know, scientific scandal, I think, that we recycled a notion, energy transition, which was supposed to take place in three or four centuries, and which was driven by the increasing price of fossil fuels… to climate change which is a completely different problem” and one that has to be addressed in three or four decades.

Fressoz offers no utopian solutions to our energy predicament.

He doesn’t think humanity’s habit of energy additions can be broken with unrealistic rhetoric about transitions. But the evidence on energy additions strongly suggests that communities must prepare to adapt to the climate storms now raging across the planet.

“And then we have to talk about sufficiency and degrowth. I think part of the aim of the book is to show that these topics, which have been completely neglected by economists… should be taken more seriously.”

Elizabeth Kolbert, the New Yorker journalist who has written about the science of climate change with wit and vigour for decades, recently concluded that climate change isn’t a problem that can be solved with “will.” Nor does she think it can be “fixed” or “conquered” for many of the reasons expressed by these critics.

“It isn’t going to have a happy ending, or a win-win ending, or, on a human timescale, any ending at all,” wrote Kolbert in H Is for Hope. “Whatever we might want to believe about our future, there are limits, and we are up against them.”

Or as David Hughes puts it: “In summary, Mom Nature will take care of the coming energy transition if humans won’t.”

Luce, the Vatican's anime-style Jubilee mascot, has taken on a meme life of her own

(RNS) — Luce, or ‘light’ in Italian, is designed to engage with youth throughout the Holy Year.

“Luce and Friends” are mascots of Jubilee 2025.

 (Simone Legno/tokidoki/Vatican Media)

Marissa Greene
January 9, 202

FORT WORTH, Texas (RNS) — When Jason Whitehead first saw the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee mascot, Luce, it “was a bit of a surprise,” he said.

The anime-style character was a far cry from the traditional Roman Catholic style art the Fort Worth Diocese’s director of the department for evangelization and catechesis was familiar with. The cartoon character, with her scallop shell eyes — a traditional symbol of pilgrimage and hope — yellow raincoat, muddy boots, missionary cross and pilgrim’s staff, was a bid to engage younger Catholics, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, chief organizer for the Jubilee year.

The Jubilee or Holy Year, celebrated every 25 years, is an opportunity for Catholic faithful to visit Rome in search of spiritual replenishment or forgiveness of sins. Officially kicked off with the opening of the sealed holy doors on Dec. 24, this year’s Jubilee has the theme “Pilgrims of Hope” and is expected to bring over 30 million visitors to the Vatican.

RELATED: Rome and the Vatican prepare to inaugurate the 2025 Jubilee

Luce’s pilgrimage attire is meant to reflect the colors of the Vatican flag and symbolize journeying through life’s storms. Her eyes feature scallop shells, a traditional symbol of pilgrimage and hope. Luce, or “light” in Italian, was designed by Italian artist Simone Legno. His company, tokidoki, draws from Legno’s “deep love of Japan and fascination with world cultures.”




The official mascot for the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year is named Luce, which is Italian for “light.” (Simone Legno/tokidoki/Vatican Media)

Interacting and connecting with young Catholics in 2025 means engaging in pop culture and social media, said Whitehead, whose role overseeing how the faith is taught within the Fort Worth Diocese includes vetting curricula and guest speakers and helping pastors interview candidates for parish youth ministers and religious education coordinators.

“Once Luce was revealed, I was naturally curious as to what was going on and I came to find out just how popular anime and Japanese art is within youth culture, and within the general comic book world,” Whitehead said.

Millennials and Generation Z make up 66% of the anime-watching population in the U.S., according to 2022 surveys by Polygon and Vox Media. Some young consumers of the genre consider it their “preferred go-to media.”

The mascot has gone viral online since its unveiling in late October, amassing thousands of memes and art renditions in both Catholic and secular online groups.

In a CatholicMemes subreddit, a Luce meme template — styled after a popular meme with stills from Drake’s “Hotline Bling” video — uses Scripture and other words to talk about the faith.

A meme account on X, formerly known as Twitter, with over 14,000 followers reposts various fan art renditions of Luce. The mascot has also inspired the creation of the Luce Token, a cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of over $50 million.

Her popularity has gained both fans and critics online, Whitehead said.

“This is brand-new for the Vatican, and this is why it’s causing a bit of an uproar because, to be fair, Luce is not what you would generally consider traditional Catholic art,” he said.
RELATED: Pope Francis’ eco-village to promote ecological conversion at 2025 Jubilee

The Vatican has faced criticism for the decision to commission the art from tokidoki, which sells two products under its LGBTQ “Pride” section. The company has also previously partnered with Lovehoney, a brand that sells adult sexual products.

Others have called her anime-like style “dumbed-down Catholicism,” questioning how “a vaguely androgynous, although putatively female, anime character” is expected to draw young people to the faith, George Weigel, a distinguished senior fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public Policy Center who holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies, wrote in December.

The Catholic Church is not using Luce just for the Holy Year, Whitehead said, but instead to engage with youth in other spaces where mascots are more common.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization hosted a space dedicated to “Luce and Friends” at Italy’s Lucca Comics and Games convention in late October and early November, marking the first time the dicastery participated in a comics convention.

“In my experience, once people know what exactly is this and why we are doing it, I have found, at least everyone I’ve spoken to, it makes sense to them,” Whitehead said.

Luce, along with her trusty dog Santiago and other pilgrim friends, Fe, Xin and Sky, will be going to Osaka, Japan, in April in the Holy See’s pavilion at Expo 2025.

In the meantime, the faithful have posted Luce sightings on banners, as a large inflatable and as a poster inside churches. Those who make their pilgrimage to Rome can purchase keychains, pins and PopSockets of Luce and her friends displayed along the shelves and walls of the Jubilee Official Store.

This article was produced as part of the RNS/Interfaith America Religion Journalism Fellowship.

Amerikan Televangelist Joyce Meyer pauses program at Daystar, citing scandal at network

(RNS) — Meyer, whose popular show 'Enjoying Everyday Life' aired daily on Daystar, is the latest in a series of Christian leaders to break ties with the network after a controversy involving allegations of an abuse cover-up.

Joyce Meyer speaks during “Enjoying Everyday Life,” broadcast on Daystar on Friday, Jan 10, 2024. (Video screen grab)
Kathryn Post
January 10, 2025


(RNS) — Joyce Meyer, the bestselling Christian author and longtime ministry leader and speaker, is pausing her programming with Daystar Television Network after years as a leading host at the influential Christian television broadcaster, according to an email obtained from an unnamed spokesperson for Joyce Meyer Ministries.

Meyer, whose popular show “Enjoying Everyday Life” has aired daily on Daystar, is the latest in a series of Christian leaders to break ties with the network after a controversy involving allegations of an abuse cover-up. Her ministry will pause its programming with Daystar starting on Monday (Jan. 13).

“Daystar has been a long-standing broadcast partner, helping our ministry to share the life-changing message of Jesus around the world. However, in recent weeks, we have become troubled by allegations surrounding the Daystar Television Network,” Joyce Meyer’s son, Dan Meyer, wrote in an email to staff of Joyce Meyer Ministries.

“Due to the nature of these allegations and my mom’s own story, we feel a profound responsibility to stand for truth and create space for its discovery. In addition, we must always be sensitive to the hearts of those walking on this journey with us. As many of you are aware, we have received a significant and growing amount of concern from our partners and viewers regarding the Daystar situation.”

The email, sent to staff on Friday, indicates that Joyce Meyer Ministries may consider returning to Daystar “when and if this situation is satisfactorily resolved.” According to internet archives, Meyer’s program has aired on Daystar since at least 2005. Her program “Enjoying Everyday Life” can be viewed on the Joyce Meyer Ministries website, Joyce Meyer app, YouTube and several other TV networks, including TBN and Lifetime.

Daystar did not respond to requests for comment regarding Meyer’s departure. On X, Daystar released a statement Friday afternoon saying it loves Meyer and “we appreciate her desire to see closure in this situation.”

“Her time slots will be filled by programmers from our waiting list, ensuring our mission remains uninterrupted. We have it on good report that law enforcement is concluding their evaluation of the facts with no charges, and we are confident these false allegations will soon be put to rest. Daystar remains steadfast in our commitment to preaching the Gospel. We refuse to operate in fear, trusting God fully and standing on the assurance that truth is prevailing.”

Joyce Meyer in an episode of “Enjoying Everyday Life,” broadcast on Daystar on Jan 10, 2024. (Video screen grab)

Unlike Meyer, four of the most recent leaders to exit the network — evangelical heavyweights Jack Graham, Jesse Duplantis, Lance Wallnau and Hank and Brenda Kunneman — did not cite the Daystar scandal as reason for their departure. Canadian author Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson cut ties with Daystar in November over perceived “ethical deficits” of senior executives, and an international ministry led by Baruch Korman halted its program with the network a month later due to unspecified concerns with the network’s ability to “embrace God’s standards.”

In fall 2024, investigative journalist Julie Roys reported that Joni Lamb, president of Daystar, was accused by her son, Jonathan Lamb, and his wife, Suzy Lamb, of covering up abuse against their 5-year-old daughter, an allegation Joni has repeatedly denied.

Prior to news of Meyer’s departure, Daystar told RNS the recent exits represent a small percentage of the network’s 100 third-party programmers and said it’s typical for Daystar to see small turnover near the Dec. 31 contract renewal deadline. Some of the programmers who left indicated they hope to return to Daystar in 2026, according to the network. Daystar said the departures of Graham, Duplantis, Wallnau and the Kunnemans were not related to Daystar or the ongoing scandal. Jonathan and Suzy Lamb have also accused Joni Lamb of spiritual abuse and financial misconduct, allegations Joni Lamb also denies.


Joni Lamb speaks during a faith summit hosted by the National Faith Advisory Board. (Video screen grab)

“Daystar does not support these false allegations and is deeply saddened by Jonathan’s refusal to participate in and work toward peaceful reconciliation and relational restoration, for which Daystar and other Lamb family members had hoped,” Daystar said in an email to RNS on Wednesday.

Joyce Meyer has been public about being sexually and emotionally abused by her father from childhood until age 18. Since establishing her own ministry in 1985, Meyer’s practical approach to faith, spirited speaking and personal testimony, which includes crediting her faith in God for giving her the strength to heal from abuse, has made her a bestselling author and luminary among evangelical and charismatic Christian audiences.

The 81-year-old preacher and televangelist has also been criticized for her promotion of the prosperity gospel, which teaches that faith and donations lead to wealth and happiness, and for her luxurious lifestyle, though she has walked back some of her prosperity gospel teachings in recent years. She continues to resonate with many Christians today, hosting sold-out conferences and touting a staggering 6 million followers on X


RELATED: Rash of charismatic Christian leaders departs Daystar amid ongoing scandal

The “Enjoying Everyday Life” page on the Daystar website has been removed. (Screen grab)

In July, Meyer withdrew from speaking at Gateway Church, a megachurch based in the Dallas area, due to the abuse allegations against church founder and pastor Robert Morris, who in June admitted to “inappropriate sexual behavior” with a minor. At the time, an anonymous spokesperson for Joyce Meyer Ministries indicated to The Christian Post that the decision to withdraw from the Gateway event was due to Meyer’s opposition to abuse.

“The ministry has not made any public statements about this matter,” the spokesperson told The Christian Post. “But there are many examples readily available of Joyce Meyer strongly condemning all types of abuse and her compassion for survivors.”

This story has been updated to include a statement from Daystar.

American Hindus, including two congressmen, raise alarm on Bangladesh violence

RIGHTEOUS CAUSE OR ISLAMOPHOBIA

(RNS) — ‘Hindus in Bangladesh continue to be targeted today — with their homes and businesses being destroyed and their temples vandalized,’ said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi on the House floor this week.

A new digital billboard about Bangladesh in California’s Bay Area. (Photo courtesy of United Hindu Council)

Richa Karmarkar
January 10, 2025

(RNS) — In the last weeks of 2024, several digital billboards paid for by the newly emerged United Hindu Council popped up around California’s Bay Area.

“Hindus, Buddhists, Christians living in fear in Bangladesh … Ask Yunus Why,” read one.

“Hindu monks are being arrested … Ask Yunus Why,” read another.

The tagline, a question directed toward Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, the interim leader of Bangladesh’s government, asks for accountability on what many Hindus worldwide are calling targeted violence and discrimination against Hindus and other religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim nation. Since the ousting and resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August — a leader whose secular party historically held Hindu support — and the subsequent takeover by Yunus, Hindu advocates say the atrocities have increased with no consequence, including reports of the destruction of homes and houses of worship, looting of businesses and physical assaults by emboldened Bangladeshis.

Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu monk and vocal minority rights advocate formerly of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, was arrested in Bangladesh in November on charges of sedition after allegedly disrespecting the Bangladeshi flag. His arrest has led to protests, violent clashes and international condemnation, reaching a high after Das was denied bail and detained on Jan. 2 of this year.

Bangladeshi Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das shows a victory sign as he is taken in a police van after a court ordered him detained pending further proceedings in Chattogram in southeastern Bangladesh, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP photo)

In the months since the student-led coup against Hasina, Hindu advocacy organizations in the United States have been attempting to gain national attention for the estimated thousands of incidents, and more than 450 deaths, that have taken place against Hindus in Bangladesh. In October of last year, a large airline banner flew over the Hudson River, reading “End Hindu Genocide in Bangladesh.” Sewa USA, a disaster response nonprofit, has been steadily raising funds for Hindus fleeing violence for the past five months.

“People have been asking what they can do as individuals and constituents to let their voices be heard by those in power,” said Ramya Ramakrishnan of the Hindu American Foundation in a recent press release. “They are also tired of the biased media reports omitting accurate facts about the situation of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh and therefore decided that they needed to take action themselves.”

RELATED: Bangladesh’s Hindus need protection amid the country’s political turmoil

This week, two Democratic Hindu members of Congress, Reps. Ro Khanna and Raja Krishnamoorthi, publicly spoke out about the issue.

On Tuesday (Jan. 7), Khanna posted a video to his X account: “I had a long and productive call this morning with (Muhammad Yunus),” he wrote to his constituents. “He assured me that Bangladesh will do everything in its power to protect Hindus & people of all faiths from violence & religious persecution.”

The same day, Krishnamoorthi took to the House floor to raise further awareness among his lawmaker colleagues.

“Hindus in Bangladesh continue to be targeted today — with their homes and businesses being destroyed and their temples vandalized,” he said. “I have engaged with the State Department and called for action in Senate confirmation hearings, but we must do more. I urge my colleagues to act now to protect Bangladesh’s religious minorities.

“The world is watching, and we cannot let history repeat itself.”

U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi addresses the House of Representatives on Jan. 7, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Video screen grab)

Hindus now make up less than 8% of the Bangladeshi population after once accounting for 20%, a fact that many attribute in part to the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, in which Hindus were disproportionately killed, raped and displaced by the Pakistani military and its collaborators. This genocide of more than 2 million Hindus, acknowledged by a U.S. Congress resolution in 2022, caused a mass emigration of Bangladeshi Hindus to India, where many of their descendants remain today.

“It is galling to see (Muhammad Yunus’) continuous disregard for basic human rights, religious freedom and security for Bangladeshi Hindus,” the Coalition of Hindus of North America, an advocacy organization that has been mobilizing for action since August, posted on X. “We urge more lawmakers to speak up.”

Bengali American citizens have urged action at the Bangladesh Embassy, the White House and most recently, in Mar-a-Lago. The Hindu Bengali Society of Florida and other Hindus showed up to protest outside of President-elect Donald Trump’s home on Dec. 27, demanding the release of Chinmoy Krishna Das.

“We have gathered here today as Hindus from all across America,” said Dilip Nath, a former Democratic New York City Council candidate who traveled from the city to Florida. “Hindus, Buddhists and Christians are dying every day. This is our last option: to ask President-elect Trump to help the 18 million Hindus in Bangladesh. Intervene, help, please stop the genocide.”

Before the presidential election last year, Trump posted a message on X, saying, “I strongly condemn the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians, & other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos… It would have never happened on my watch. Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have ignored Hindus across the world and in America.” He has commented on the situation since being elected.

“President Trump will not stand for this!” another protester could be heard saying at the Florida protest. ”No one in America will stand for this!”

RELATED: Bangladesh’s Hindu-Buddhist-Christian council pushes for secular state

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism

A new opening for a Christian understanding of diversity

(RNS) — We don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to diversity.

First United Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C., hosted hundreds of LGBTQ people and their allies May 1, 2024, for a celebratory sing-along after the United Methodist General Conference lifted a ban on gay ordination. (RNS photos/Yonat Shimron)

Charles C. Camosy
January 9, 2025

(RNS) — There’s not much we can say for sure about the political and cultural moment before us in the United States, but we can be fairly confident in saying that when it comes to matters of diversity, equity and inclusion we are not in Kansas anymore.

The dismantling of DEI came so quickly we hardly saw it. Donald Trump, who ended his first presidential term by trying to outlaw DEI programs, nonetheless gained significant and surprising support from the very people of color they are supposed to help, with even more surprising support from young Black and Brown voters. The unexpected support from these quarters, many argue, was decisive in his winning the popular vote by 2.3 million. Perhaps more oddly, Kamala Harris, selected for vice president in part because she would attract people of color and especially women of color, refused to emphasize this part of her identity on the campaign trail.

LGBTQ activists may also be asking what happened to DEI when it comes to matters of sex and gender. Harris spent the campaign defaulting to simply saying that she would “follow the law,” rather than giving a full-throated endorsement of gender ideology itself. Not unrelatedly, not long after the election, Democratic member of Congress and progressive leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took her preferred pronouns out of her Twitter/X bio. Meanwhile, The Washington Post editorial board has apparently reversed course on the question of whether science or ideology should guide the trans debate. 

Remarkable.

But suddenly, skepticism about all kinds of DEI abounds. Even The New York Times did a long and deeply reported piece on how DEI is failing in higher education, particularly at the University of Michigan, and a firm backlash from supporters of the old DEI guard could not save it. DEI appears to be in serious trouble at many other institutions of higher learning as well.

It would be a shame, however, if diversity, equity and inclusion became so completely tainted that they could never be employed in a positive way. Indeed, the concept of diversity in particular, properly understood, has a place in society, and Christian theology can help with this.

A central point must be acknowledged at the outset: A commitment to diversity only makes sense in the context of a larger and more foundational commitment to unity. The unity gives an explanation for the diversity. It tells us what it is for.

Consider an analogy from basketball: It is good to have diversity on one’s team — not random or neutral diversity, but a range of players: tall people who excel at rebounding and block shots, smaller, quicker ones who can shoot from long distance and handle the ball. Together, a diversity of types wins basketball games, which is the goal. It’s obvious that it doesn’t serve the unity with players who can’t run or who have poor hand-eye coordination.

But as Christians, who find our unity in making up the united body of Christ, we should not hide our unity, or grudgingly admit it, or speak about it only when pushed to the extremes. We can and should be clear and confident about it. The very notion of relationship, as Trinity-worshipping Christians believe, requires difference. We are many parts, baptized into the one body of Christ. We relate to each other for the good of the whole.

In fact, there really is no way of escaping our commitment to unity.

The problem with the understanding of diversity that is championed not only, but often intently, in higher education is that the unity, the reason for the commitment to diversity, is not openly acknowledged. “Every school has a statement of faith,” said a college president who had left the Ivy League to teach at a Christian institution. “Some just write them down.” (My thanks to Philip D. Bunn at Covenant College for this anecdote.)

In many academic contexts, in other words, there is an unspoken orthodoxy that gets dressed up as diversity. Candidates may meet hiring goals regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, religious preference or disability, but if they do not also meet an ideological litmus test, they are never hired. This happens in Christian contexts and secular ones, but as Christians we should explicitly and publicly embrace being united in our diversity. We should be forthright about our foundational commitments and how diversity is related to those commitments.

If we do so, we don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to diversity. Christians can help the broader culture understand that there’s no neutral view from nowhere — we must acknowledge our commitment to a particular unity prior to diversity. We should all be upfront and clear about the particular unity that is driving our commitment to diversity. If we do, academia and the world will be in a better and more authentic place.

And the current moment may be one in which such a message could actually be heard.

(This column is based on a presentation at Beyond the Impasse: Theological Perspectives on DEI, a conference hosted by Princeton University’s Aquinas Institute.)

ONE OF THESE PEOPLE IS GAY

Anita Bryant, a popular singer who became known for opposition to gay rights,  and ERA dead at age 84

NEW YORK (AP)

 — Bryant died Dec. 16 at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma, according to a statement posted by her family.

Anita Bryant is seen at a press conference in Miami Beach, Fla., on June 8, 1977. (AP Photo/Bill Hudson, File)
Associated Press
January 10, 2025


NEW YORK (AP) — Anita Bryant, a former Miss Oklahoma, Grammy-nominated singer and prominent booster of orange juice and other products who became known over the second half of her life for her outspoken opposition to gay rights, has died. She was 84.

Bryant died Dec. 16 at her home in Edmond, Oklahoma, according to a statement posted by her family to news site The Oklahoman on Thursday. The family did not list a cause of death.

Bryant was a Barnsdall native who began singing at an early age, and was just 12 when she hosted her own local television show. She was named Miss Oklahoma in 1958 and soon began a successful recording career. Her hit singles included “Till There Was You,” “Paper Roses” and “My Little Corner of the World.” A lifelong Christian, she received two Grammy nominations for best sacred performance and one for best spiritual performance, for the album “Anita Bryant … Naturally.

By the late 1960s, she was among the entertainers joining Bob Hope on his USO tours for troops overseas, had sung at the White House and performed at the national conventions for both the Democrats and Republicans in 1968. She also became a highly visible commercial spokesperson, her ads for Florida orange juice featuring the tag line, “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.”

But in the late 1970s, her life and career began a dramatically new path. Unhappy with the cultural changes of the time, Bryant led a successful campaign to repeal an ordinance in Florida’s Miami-Dade County that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. Supported by the Rev. Jerry Falwell among others, Bryant and her “Save Our Children” coalition continued to oppose gay rights around the country, denouncing the “deviant lifestyle” of the gay community and calling gays “human garbage.”

Bryant became the object of much criticism in return. Activists organized boycotts against products she endorsed, designed T-shirts mocking her and named a drink for her — a variation of the screwdriver that replaced orange juice with apple juice. During an appearance in Iowa, an activist jammed a pie in her face. Her career in entertainment declined, her marriage to her first husband, Bob Green, broke up, and she later filed for bankruptcy.

In Florida, her legacy was challenged and perpetuated. The ban against sexual discrimination was restored in 1998. Tom Lander, an LGBTQ+ activist and board member of the advocacy group Safe Schools South Florida, told The Associated Press on Friday, “She won the campaign, but she lost the battle in time.” But Lander also acknowledged the “parental rights” movement, which has spurred a recent wave book bannings and anti-LGBTQ+ laws in Florida led by such conservative organizations as Moms Against Liberty.

“It’s so connected to what’s happening today,” Lander said.

Bryant spent the latter part of her life in Oklahoma, where she led Anita Bryant Ministries International. Her second husband, NASA test astronaut Charles Hobson Dry, died last year. According to her family’s statement, she is survived by four children, two stepdaughters and seven grandchildren.

____

Associated Press writer Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida contributed to this report.

Bono: The most existentially American non-American

(RNS) — U2 is capable of dissecting this nation — and its religion — with a rare and effective ruthlessness.

Bono performs on the Joshua Tree Tour in Indianapolis in September 2017. Photo by Daniel Hazard/Creative Commons

Tyler Huckabee
January 7, 2025

(RNS) — Bono was far from the first non-American Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, but he may be the most existentially American recipient. Not in the sense of where he was born, but in the sense of his obsessions. Bono has never become an official U.S. citizen, but maybe this slight remove has allowed him to see America a little more clearly. Because when his band, U2, is operating at its peak, it’s capable of dissecting this nation with a rare and effective ruthlessness. And nowhere is this talent more on display than U2’s handling of America and religion.

U2 was a lot of things to a lot of people, and one of those things was a “non-Christian” band Christians were allowed to like. “Non-Christian” is a bit of a misnomer here, because the U2 guys are nothing if they’re not Christian. But they weren’t Christian,™ which meant they were secular, and in the ’80s and ’90s, being secular meant you were on the wrong side of a cosmic battle for the soul of all reality. Some of you reading this know what I’m talking about.

Many evangelical kids were raised to see the world as divided piecemeal between “Christianity” and “Mainstream,” and truly good Christians were maybe sometimes allowed to look but could not touch Mainstream stuff, because that was giving Satan a foothold. Secular movies, TV and, above all, music were gateway drugs to drinking, premarital sex, abortions, being gay and, well, actual drugs. But never fear, Christian kids! Thanks to the Evangelical Industrial Complex, you don’t even need to be tempted to listen to evil secular music, because we’ve got Christianized versions of it. No need to listen to “Paul’s Boutique” when you’ve got “Jesus Freak.” Why listen to Madonna when you could spin Rebecca St. James? These figures and many others were bricks in a wall built between the Christian bubble and all the other bubbles, and they did their job passably well.

Except for U2, who must have been aware of this wall but certainly never gave it any credence. The band’s very existence proved how unnecessary this wall was, and whether the group knew it or not, their ongoing impact was a chief factor in tearing it down.

The “Contemporary Christian Music” scene was in its infancy in 1976, when a 14-year-old Irish marching band geek named Larry Mullen posted a notice to his school’s message board to see if any other musically inclined kids wanted to come over and jam. His notice was answered by four other kids. A charismatic bassist named Adam Clayton and his buddy, a slightly aloof guitar enthusiast named David Evans. They were joined by an artsy weirdo named Paul Hewson, a member of a surrealist street gang that gave each other creative nicknames. This gang had taken to calling Hewson Bonovox, after a local hearing aid store. Hewson hated the name at first but warmed to it when he found out it was Latin for “good voice.” At some point, it got shortened to Bono.

Mullen has since joked that he’d hoped the band would be called something like The Larry Mullen Band, but that was clearly out of the cards the second Bono stepped into the room. Bono had gravitas. Bono had energy. He didn’t know anyone else there, but he had ideas. The guys were thinking of calling themselves Feedback and playing Clash covers, but Bono was already thinking bigger.

America welcomed U2’s early efforts with open arms, as “Boy,” “War” and “The Unforgettable Fire” saw the band graduate from scrappy punk outfit to something more grandiose. The band retained punk’s revolutionary spirit and channeled Bono’s bleeding heart for current events into soaring anthems of beauty and terror.

While the band was touring America, its success led it to rub shoulders with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, all of whom deepened the band’s appreciation for American blues and country. At the same time, Bono was reading Flannery O’Connor, Norman Mailer and Raymond Carver while driving across the U.S.’ vast, empty spaces. Evans, who by then was being called The Edge, was getting inspired by Hank Williams and Howlin’ Wolf.

U2’s love affair with America was matched only by the band’s disdain for the country’s politics. This infatuation and outrage were all spun into a single whole by producer Brian Eno, and the result was “The Joshua Tree,” U2’s finest hour.

What can you even say about these songs? “The Joshua Tree” opens like a movie, The Edge’s guitar noodling sounding like a soundtrack soaring through the “for spacious skies” and over the “amber waves of grain” that inspired it, a twinkling echo that becomes a roar that becomes a pulsing sprint so bright and gorgeous that the only possible human response is the exact one Bono sings, the first words on the album: “I want to run!”

From there, you’re off on a series of songs so awesomely majestic that no amount of radio overplay or bad mainstream Protestant Sunday morning church covers have been able to defang them. The more action-packed front half finds Bono at his most reflective and spiritually introspective, while the quieter Side B has more of the fiery political calls to arms the band cut its teeth on. “Red Hill Mining Town” is about the U.K. miners’ strike, and “Mothers of the Disappeared” is about the missing political dissidents of Argentina. “Bullet the Blue Sky” is an outlier, a searing screed of U.S. meddling in Central America that really does sound like The Edge had been listening to some good blues music.

It’s thrilling stuff, and it’s not their fault they made it sound so simple it inspired thousands of youth group kids to try to duplicate the whole thing, copy and pasting the explicitly Christian stuff and largely ignoring Bono’s concern for the well-being of Black and Brown people in South America and Africa. It’s an interesting riddle of history that U2 captured the hearts of Christian America at around the same time Ronald Reagan captured their loyalty. The latter’s influence proved a lot more durable, unfortunately.

“Joshua Tree” paved the way for the worship boom, which spread from churches like Vineyard and the JPUSA communities across the country, eventually leading to Passion and Hillsong. Worship musicians are hardly the only artists to draw copious inspiration from Bono, but it is a shame that after U2 handed Christians the keys to moving beyond “Christian rock,” those keys just got melted down and used to make a new wall.

But this was all far outside U2’s concern, and it all sort of dissolves anyway once you pop on, say, “With or Without You,” a patient, twinkly lullaby that starts out with Bono growling like a tiger. As The Edge slowly starts throwing flashy spears of shimmery echoes, the song arches skyward and Bono goes with it, howling to the sky. It’s the blueprint for a hundred worship songs, but it never sounded better than right here.

That’s because U2 knew how to write a good rock song, sure. But it’s also because the band had a keen understanding of the spiritual realm and the earthly one, and how to trouble the waters between the two. Bono knows Americans demarcate what is secular and what is religious in peculiar and nonsensical ways. But he also knows those boundaries are only as real as you make them, and the right guitar note can shatter them altogether.

(Tyler Huckabee is a writer living in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and dogs. Read more of his writing at his Substack. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

OPINION

Pope Francis' critiques of Israel's actions in Gaza are not misguided

(RNS) — The continued bombardment of Gaza that has killed and maimed civilians almost every day since early October 2023 has long ago ceased to be a war of self-defense.

Pope Francis delivers a speech during a Mass on the occasion of the World Day of the Poor in St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican, Nov. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Ron Kronish
January 7, 2025

(RNS) — In a Dec. 25 letter to Pope Francis, the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations joined other Jewish and Israeli leaders in criticizing the pontiff for comments he made in a Christmastime address condemning Israel’s most recent bombing of Gaza that resulted in the deaths of children.

In his Dec. 21 address to the Catholic Church’s cardinals, Francis said: “Yesterday, children were bombed. This is cruelty. This is not war.”

The IJCIC’s letter to the pope said in response that “Israel is engaged in a defensive war against jihadist terrorism following the brutal and unprecedented massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7,” and that it fuels the rise in antisemitism that Jews have experienced around the world.

As a rabbi who has been involved in Jewish-Christian dialogue for decades, including in the past as a member of IJCIC itself, I find the committee’s claims exaggerated and misguided.

The central question raised by the letter is whether or not the Israel Defense Forces are committing acts of cruelty in their war against Hamas in Gaza. The fact is, the continued bombardment of areas in Gaza that has killed and maimed civilians, including many women and children, almost every day since early October 2023 has long ago ceased to be a war of self-defense. The IDF has destroyed most of Hamas’ infrastructure by now. Yet the killing of innocents goes on and on.

These are certainly acts of cruelty and revenge, which deserve to be repudiated, as Francis has correctly done, and as many world leaders have done. Many people in the Israeli print and electronic media and in the country’s public square have also denounced these measures, and rightly so.

The pope has in the past condemned the massacres committed by the Hamas militants on Oct. 7 as acts of unspeakable cruelty. He has also hosted families of hostages at the Vatican and made it clear that the hostages should be released. It would have been better if he had done so again in his Christmastime statements, but this does not change the facts on the ground.

Pope Francis wants this war to end now, with all the hostages to be returned in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Most of the citizens of Israel, including myself, want this too, as does most of the security establishment of the state of Israel. It is the extremist and rejectionist government of Israel led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir that sees advantage in continued hostilities. They have begun to reoccupy Gaza militarily, are planning settlements there and have effectively abandoned the remaining hostages in Gaza (dead and alive).

Secondly, the IJCIC statement seems to imply that “moral clarity” means denouncing only the immoral acts of the Hamas terrorists but not those of the IDF, as if only terrorists commit immoral acts. The continual killing and wounding of so many innocent civilians are not acts of self-defense and cannot be justified as moral. Much of this has been done on purpose, as we learned recently from The New York Times’ recent comprehensive report. Israel has created a huge humanitarian disaster in Gaza, which is clearly unethical and for which Israel has no coherent plan for resolving it.

Equally concerning is the fact that the government of Israel has no plan for “the day after” to offer human and civil rights to the people of Gaza in the wake of forced displacement of most of the Palestinians who lived in northern Gaza, the mass destruction of homes as a method of war and the use of starvation and dehydration of much of the population. Both sides have committed many acts of cruelty and immorality, but the Israeli government and the IDF have undoubtedly committed many war crimes during this war, as have the Hamas terrorists.

The moral course for committed and concerned Christians and Jews at this time is to speak up to end this war now, redeem the hostages, exchange prisoners and restore stability and sanity to the citizens of Gaza and Israel.

Furthermore, to imply, in the face of all this, that the pope’s statements foster antisemitism, as the statement by IJCIC did, is astounding. Francis has denounced antisemitism countless times. One should be able to be critical of the policies of the government of Israel in this war and its terrible treatment of the Palestinians in general without being labeled as an antisemite.

Rather than accusing the pope and other world leaders of being unfair in their statements, as the IJCIC statement did and as ministers in the Israeli government are doing all the time, Jewish and Israeli leaders need to look inward and recognize the cruelty and immorality of some of Israel’s actions in this war. Denial and obfuscation will not suffice any more. We instead need to do our own soul-searching about how we treat others under our administrative responsibility, especially in times of war.

(Rabbi Ron Kronish is an interreligious peacebuilder, writer, blogger, author and teacher. He has lived in Jerusalem for the past 45 years. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)

'Black Panther Woman' explores the spiritual life of party member Ericka Huggins

(RNS) — Huggins’ spirituality and political engagement were intertwined throughout her career with the Black Panther Party and beyond.

Black Panther Party member Ericka Huggins. (Courtesy photo)
Fiona André
January 10, 2025

(RNS) — In “Black Panther Woman,” Mary Frances Phillips has written the first biography of Black Panther Party member Ericka Huggins, who is now 77 and living in California. The book, published by NYU Press, explores how Huggins’ spirituality influenced her activism, focusing on her time in prison, where she discovered yoga, meditation and other spiritual wellness practices.

In 1969, Huggins and other group members were arrested and sent to Niantic women’s prison in Connecticut in connection with the murder of Alex Rackley, who had been accused of being an FBI informant. Huggins’ voice could be heard on the audiotape of Rackley’s torture by other Black Panther Party members. A judge dismissed the case against her in 1971 after a trial resulted in a hung jury.

The idea to write this book came from Phillips’ desire to understand what happened to Huggins during these two years in prison. “I was fascinated with what happened behind those bars. What did she do? What did that Black Panther Party activism look like behind bars?” Phillips said in an interview with RNS.

In her own words, Huggins reached a state of “spiritual maturity” in prison, which informed all areas of her life.

“Her spiritual lens shapes all her experience,” Phillips said. “Ericka is not religious, per se, but she’s very much deeply spiritual.”


“Black Panther Woman: The Political and Spiritual Life of Ericka Huggins” by Mary Frances Phillips. (Courtesy image)

Divided into six chapters, “Black Panther Woman” revisits the milestones of Huggins’ life. It describes her childhood in Washington, D.C., and her upbringing in the Baptist church, where she first questions God, sin and her own spirit. It then explores foundational moments in her activism, such as her participation in the March on Washington in August 1963. It also describes her relationship with her partner and the father of her daughter, John Huggins, who led the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party.
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The book draws on archives, private letters, drawings made in prison, poems written by Huggins, prison documents, court records and interviews with Huggins. Phillips, an Africana studies professor at the City University of New York’s Lehman College and a Black woman, noted how her background in Black feminist studies and her identity helped her create a trusting environment.

“There were moments where we got each other by saying very little because there’s a cultural understanding we both have,” she said.

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One chapter, “Surviving Solitary,” describes Huggins’ wellness practices while in prison. Huggins taught herself yoga by reading a book offered by her lawyer, Charles Garry, who also practiced yoga. Huggins practiced hatha yoga, which focused on developing core strength, meditation and deep breathing.

Phillips spent 10 years researching this biography and dived into Huggins’ prison logs to track her yoga and meditation practice. The author also did yoga and meditation to understand its effects on the young Huggins during her time in prison.


Author Mary Frances Phillips. (Courtesy photo)

Huggins’ goal was to remain grounded and maintain her mental and physical health. It helped her appear strong when she met with her daughter Mai, who was only a few weeks old when Huggins was arrested. “She wanted to be fully present,” Phillips said. “She wanted to be well. She wanted to be fully engaged in that time that she had with her daughter.”

Phillips links Huggins’ interest in yoga and meditation to that of other civil rights and Black liberation activists, such as Rosa Parks and Angela Davis. The book connects Huggins’ practice to a larger cultural moment in the 1960s and 1970s, when wellness practices gained traction, which inspired many Black civil rights icons. The book also associates Huggins’ practice with a broader tradition of Black women’s wellness practices, quoting work from historian Stephanie Y. Evans, who wrote “Black Women’s Yoga History.”

RELATED: A Black preacher ‘no longer at war with her body’ on connecting flesh with the divine

Huggins’ other spiritual practices included writing poetry and letters and creating art. Her commitment to caring for other inmates, many of whom were pregnant while incarcerated, also counted as a spiritual practice, lifting their spirits and giving them dignity. For example, the women spent time redesigning each other’s prison uniforms.

The book also evokes Huggins’ bisexual identity and how the moment she started embracing her queerness was also pivotal in her search for spiritual meaning.

After her release, when she directed the Black Panther Party’s community school in Oakland, Huggins regularly invited yoga experts and introduced students to meditation. She also worked as a yoga teacher for 15 years as part of the Siddha Yoga Prison Project. Her spirituality and political engagement remained intertwined throughout her career with the Black Panther Party.

Huggins later joined the Shanti Project, where she worked to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS epidemic among the queer community. She was also a lecturer in women and gender studies at San Francisco State University and California State University.

Phillips hopes “Black Panther Woman” will serve as a toolkit for contemporary Black liberation movements that want to incorporate spiritual practices into their activism. The author noted that spiritual wellness practices are central to many modern anti-racist organizations, such as Black Lives Matter.

In her foreword, activist Charlene A. Carruthers, author of “Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements,” challenges readers to also strive for wellness. “Cultivating a Black liberation movement that values and centers the spirit,” she wrote, “is needed right now.”