Wednesday, March 31, 2021

REST IN POWER

Barack Obama’s beloved step-grandmother, a Muslim and philanthropist, dies in Kenya at 99

The family matriarch and celebrated philanthropist was open to all faiths, religious leaders here have said.

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Sarah Onyango Obama, the step-grandmother of former U.S. President Barack Obama, died Monday (March 29) at the age of 99, only 23 days away from her 100th birthday. The family matriarch and celebrated philanthropist was a Muslim but open to all faiths, religious leaders here have said.

“I had visited her several times in Kogelo. She was always open to us and encouraged the faiths to work for peace and unity. Although she was a Muslim, she was very welcoming,” said the Rev. Joachim Omollo, a Roman Catholic priest in the archdiocese of Kisumu where she lived all her life. Despite not having formal schooling herself or being able to read, the cleric said Mrs. Obama had a vision to educate and feed the less fortunate children in society. 

Fondly known as Mama Sarah, she suffered a stroke in September and died while undergoing treatment at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in the lakeside city of Kisumu. She was the last living grandparent of former President Obama.

“My family and I are mourning the loss of our beloved grandmother,” the former president tweeted along with a younger picture of himself with Mrs. Obama. “We will miss her dearly, but we’ll celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life.”

 

Sheikh Musa Ismail Haji, the chairman of Kisumu Muslim Association, said Mrs. Obama, the third wife of President Obama’s paternal grandfather, will be buried tomorrow morning (March 30) according to Muslim rites.

“She did not die of COVID-19 related issues. We want to clarify that she has been ailing for some time,” Haji told journalists. This had followed speculations after some people were seen disinfecting a ward and a room where the body had been kept in the hospital.

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, mourned Mrs. Obama as an icon of family values and a philanthropist.

“We have lost a strong virtuous woman. A matriarch who held together the Obama family,” said Kenyatta. “She was a loving and celebrated philanthropist who graciously shared the little she had with the less fortunate.”

From her home in Nyang’oma Kogelo in Siaya County, Mrs. Obama carried out charity work, helping feed and educate hundreds of orphans. She also took care of widows through the California-headquartered Mama Sarah Obama Foundation. Through a non-governmental organization known as the Safeguard Orphans and Widows Organization (SAWO), she supported groups mainly of women and children orphaned by HIV and AIDS.

Her Sarah Obama Community Library recently went digital and partnered with Worldreader to deliver 7,000 e-books to the rural area.

Mrs. Obama became famous in 2006 after President Obama, then a U.S. senator for the state of Illinois and celebrity in Kenya, visited her in her rural home. During his second visit to Kenya as a sitting U.S. president, Obama met her in Nairobi. He later visited again during the summer of 2018. Obama’s election sent hundreds of tourists to her home village.

During 2008 election campaigns, Mrs. Obama defended President Obama against allegations that he was a Muslim and was born in Kenya, according to the BBC.

Mrs. Obama was born in 1922 in a village near Lake Victoria.


Georgia faith leaders to leave water bottles around Capitol in protest of new voter laws

Faith leaders also joined in a lawsuit charging that provisions of Georgia's new law are unconstitutional and violate the Voting Rights Act.

Hundreds of people wait in line for early voting in Marietta, Georgia, on Oct. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Ron Harris, File)

(RNS) — Faith leaders in Georgia are fighting back against a new law that bans offering food and water to people waiting in line to vote, with many voicing opposition or planning protests against a statute they say targets people of color.

Religious leaders were quick to criticize the sweeping new elections bill, known as SB 202, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday (March 25). A group of Black faith leaders gathered at the Statehouse that same day to voice opposition and call for a boycott of certain corporations, such as Coca-Cola, they argued did not do enough to resist the bill.

The group briefly met with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and, according to The New York Times, African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Reginald T. Jackson told Duncan during the meeting the bill’s various provisions were racist and constituted “an attempt to turn back time to Jim Crow.”

Now other faith leaders say they plan to protest the law’s passage by marching from an Atlanta church and leaving water bottles for legislators at the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday (March 31). The leaders, who believe the new legislation will adversely affect the voting rights of Black, Latino and elderly voters, also plan to leave water at Kemp’s door.


RELATED: Faith leaders push back against proposed ‘Souls to the Polls’ voting restrictions


“We’re going to share water with our legislators and elected officials, the very act that is criminalized by SB202,” Graham Younger, Georgia director for Faith in Public Life, told Religion News Service. “We’ve spent several election cycles working for everyone to have the freedom to vote. We are showing them the fairness and hospitality they are not showing to Georgia.”

African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, center right, announces a boycott of Coca-Cola Co. products outside the Georgia Capitol on Thursday, March 25, 2021 in Atlanta. Jackson says Coca-Cola and other large Georgia companies haven't done enough to oppose restrictive voting bills that Georgia lawmakers were debating as Jackson spoke (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, center right, announces a boycott of Coca-Cola Co. products outside the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta on March 25, 2021. Jackson says Coca-Cola and other large Georgia companies haven’t done enough to oppose restrictive voting bills that Georgia lawmakers were debating as Jackson spoke. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

Faith leaders also have joined in a suit filed Wednesday in an Atlanta federal court charging that various provisions of the new law are unconstitutional and violate a section of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits denying or abridging the rights of voters on the basis of their race or color.

“Countless Black Georgians waited for hours in needlessly long lines, where they were comforted and sustained by free water and refreshments offered by an array of civic and religious organizations, including parishioners of Plaintiff Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church,” notes the suit filed Wednesday by civil rights groups on behalf of the AME Church, Georgia Muslim Voter Project, and other organizations.

The suit also cites the First Amendment rights of the church — namely, its right to political speech and expression — as it conducted “line warming” practices of providing food and water, describing it “as part of conveying their message of the importance of staying in line, the value of each individual’s vote, and their inherent value as a person.”

Earlier in the month, Faith in Public Life collected more than 500 signatures on a petition delivered to Kemp that condemned proposed changes in voting policies they said would particularly harm people of color. Fair Fight Action, another group that supported the petition, had received reports of people fainting as they stood in long lines outside polling places during the 2020 election.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who also serves as pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, railed against the provision during a Senate floor speech earlier this month.

“They want to make it a crime to bring grandma some water as she is waiting in a line they are making longer,” he said. “Make no mistake: This is democracy in reverse.”

Meanwhile, other faith leaders have declared on social media their willingness to openly defy the ban on offering food and water to voters. One pastor, Abby Norman, has set up a form for white women to volunteer to get arrested handing out water to Georgia voters.

And then there are legal questions as to whether the law violates the rights of faith leaders who see offering food and water to voters as a religious act. In the 2020 election, several groups organized “poll chaplains” in states across the country — including hundreds who were trained in Georgia — to assist voters stuck in long lines. Participants included Catholic nunsrabbis and other faith leaders who handed out food and water while seeking to offer a peaceful presence at the ballot box.

There is precedent for courts siding with religiously rooted activists who see offering sustenance as a spiritual act. In February 2020, a federal judge reversed the convictions in United States v. Hoffman of four faith-based volunteers who were fined and put on probation for leaving out water for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The judge argued that the activists, whose group No More Deaths/No Más Muertes is an official ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, were exercising their “sincerely held religious beliefs” and prosecuting them violated the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Elizabeth Reiner Platt, director of Columbia Law School’s Law, Rights, and Religion Project, said faith leaders in Georgia could take a similar route.

“Certainly there could be a similar religious challenge that folks have a religious obligation to provide food and water to folks exercising their constitutional right to vote,” she said.

She was echoed by Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University who also filed an amicus brief in United States v. Hoffman highlighting the religious liberty claims.

Religious opponents of the Georgia law, she said, could “certainly try to raise religious liberty grounds for avoiding responsibility under the statute.”

But Franke and Platt both noted the law doesn’t just impact religious leaders, and the potential legal challenges extend far beyond religious concerns.

Instead, Platt suggested religious opponents of the law are more likely to utilize the strategy of Faith in Public Life and its allies: the power of protest.

“Beyond the question of other legal challenges to the law, are progressive faith activists even going to be interested in bringing a religious exemption claim — which really would only apply to people who have a faith motivation for giving out food and water — or might they be more inclined to engage in a campaign of civil disobedience?”

GOOD NEWS
Gallup: Fewer than half of Americans belong to a church or other house of worship

While Americans still believe in God, a growing number have dropped out of organized religion.


Photo by Andrew Seaman/Unsplash/Creative Commons

March 29, 2021
By Bob Smietana

(RNS) — Ask Americans if they believe in God and most will say yes. But a growing number have lost faith in organized religion.

For the first time since the late 1930s, fewer than half of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, according to a new report from Gallup.

Forty-seven percent of Americans now say they belong to a house of worship, down from 70% in the mid-1990s and 50% in 2019. The decline is part of a continued drop in membership over the past 20 years, according to Gallup data.

The polling giant has been measuring church membership since 1937 when nearly three-quarters of the population (73%) reported membership in a house of worship. For much of that time, membership remained at about 70% but began to decline after 1999. By the late 2000s, membership had dropped to about 62% and has continued to fall.

Pollsters at Gallup looked at survey data from more than 6,000 Americans and compared data from 2018 to 2020 with two other time frames: 2008 to 2020 and 1998 to 2000.

RELATED: ‘Nones’ as big as Catholics or evangelicals in United States

The decline in membership coincides with the rise of the so-called “Nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation. Gallup reports about one in five Americans (21%) is a None — making them as large a group as evangelicals or Catholics. Other polls put the number at closer to 30%.

Few Nones belong to a house of worship, Gallup found.

“As would be expected, Americans without a religious preference are highly unlikely to belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, although a small proportion — 4% in the 2018-2020 (survey) — say they do,” the report from Gallup states. “That figure is down from 10% between 1998 and 2000.”



“Church Membership Among U.S. Adults Now Below 50%” Graphic courtesy Gallup

Gallup also found a decline in membership at churches, synagogues and mosques among religious Americans, who make up about 76% of the population. In the time frame from 1998 to 2000, about three-quarters (73%) of religious Americans were members of a house of worship. That number has fallen to 60%.


Younger Americans are increasingly disconnected from organized religion, according to the report from Gallup. But the number of older Americans who are members of a house of worship has also declined in recent years.

In the time from 2008 to 2010, 73% of “traditionalists” — Gallup’s term for Americans born before 1945, were church members. That number has dropped to 66% in 2018 to 2020. Membership among Baby Boomers dropped from 63% to 58% during that same time frame, as did membership among Generation X (57% to 50%) and millennials (51% to 36%).


The gap between those who believe in a specific religion and those who participate in the life of a specific congregation is likely to prove a challenge for houses of worship. And the decline in church membership is likely to continue, according to Gallup.

“Churches are only as strong as their membership and are dependent on their members for financial support and service to keep operating,” said the report. “Because it is unlikely that people who do not have a religious preference will become church members, the challenge for church leaders is to encourage those who do affiliate with a specific faith to become formal, and active, church members.”

Measuring church membership and religious affiliation remains a challenge for researchers. From 1850 to 1950, the U.S. Census Bureau collected data on religious congregations in the United States and from 1906 to 1936 published a “Census of Religious Bodies.”

“The Census of Religious Bodies was conducted every 10 years until 1946,” Pew Research noted in a 2010 article on religion and the Census. “The 1936 Census of Religio
us Bodies was the last one published, however, because the U.S. Congress failed to appropriate money either to tabulate or to publish the information collected in the 1946 census. By 1956, Congress had discontinued the funding for this census altogether.
Trump advisor Peter Navarro went on a wild rant on Fox News, calling Fauci the 'father' of the coronavirus

Sinéad Baker
16 hours ago
Peter Navarro at a coronavirus briefing during the Trump presidency.
 Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Ex-trade advisor Peter Navarro spread baseless claims about the coronavirus on Fox News on Tuesday.

He called Dr. Anthony Fauci the virus' "father" in response to one of Fauci's vaccine remarks.

He also said former President Donald Trump should get more credit for the vaccine.


The former White House trade advisor Peter Navarro delivered a wild rant on Fox News in which he called Dr. Anthony Fauci the "father" of the coronavirus.

Navarro, who served in President Donald Trump's White House, was asked by the Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy on Tuesday night for his thoughts on Fauci's saying recently that the decision to start trying to make a coronavirus vaccine in January 2020 "may have been the best decision that I've ever made."

Navarro responded: "Fauci is a sociopath and a liar. He had nothing to do with the vaccine. The father of the vaccine is Donald J. Trump."

"What is Fauci the father of?" he continued. "Fauci is the father of the actual virus."


He then repeated an unproven theory that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China, and went on to link Fauci to the lab, claims that Campos-Duffy did not challenge on the air.

Trump has repeatedly complained that he isn't getting credit for administration's role in vaccine creation and distribution.

President Joe Biden's White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has repeatedly refused to give Trump credit for the vaccine development and rollout that took place during his presidency, instead calling it a "Herculean incredible effort by science and by medical experts."

Trump said earlier this month that he had ignored advice from Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about how to handle the pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic

Charts show the US on the brink of a 4th coronavirus surge as variants spread and states relax restrictions.
LA Buddhist temple seeking balance between security and welcome after attack

'It’s a balance of maintaining security, but at the same time being welcoming,' said the Rev. Noriaki Ito.


Recent vandalism at Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. 
Photos via Facebook/Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple


March 29, 2021
By Alejandra Molina


LOS ANGELES (RNS) — A month after the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple was vandalized and set aflame, a shattered window and toppled lanterns have been fixed. But the temple’s wooden lantern stands and lamps still need to be rebuilt and replaced, and its leaders are contemplating additional security.

As leaders of the temple seek to make their place of worship safer, the Rev. Noriaki Ito said they are being careful not to turn the temple into a fortress.

“It’s a balance of maintaining security, but at the same time being welcoming,” said Ito, head minister of Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo, as its downtown neighborhood is known.

RELATED: More than $60,000 raised for vandalized Los Angeles Buddhist temple

“If we are the only ones here and speak only in Buddhist terms, the temple will be like an exclusive club of people who speak a language only we can understand,” Ito said. “We need to acknowledge and coexist with everyone we live together with.”

On Feb. 25, an invader climbed the temple’s fence and set fire to chōchin lantern stands, knocking over two metal lanterns at the stairs leading to the temple’s front door. The person threw a rock at the temple’s entrance, shattering a glass panel in the building’s foyer. No one was injured.

The vandalism occurred amid a rise of incidents against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in Los Angeles County and across the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than $90,000 was raised through a GoFundMe page set up for the temple.

Two weeks later, eight people, including six women who were of Asian descent, were killed in a mass shooting in Atlanta.

“We continue to be shocked by all the things that are happening,” Ito said. “We’re just hoping that things will get better.”

Ito said the temple will honor the victims of the Atlanta shooting, one of whom is believed to have been Buddhist, in a ceremony on May 4, the 49th day after the shooting. In many Buddhist traditions, rebirth takes place within 49 days after death.

Ito said it was overwhelming and encouraging to see so much support for the temple after the vandalism made nationwide headlines. The temple received calls and messages from across the country and from Japan. Ito noted that many donations came from people who are not of Asian descent.

“They all consider our temple to be one of the mainstays of the Little Tokyo community, and so when they hear something like that happened, they automatically want to support us,” Ito said.

“That was amazing,” Ito added. “We’re trying to figure out how we’re going to thank all of these people and show our appreciation.”

RELATED: Let the church declare: Asian Lives Matter

Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple has a rich history that traces its roots back to 1904. Ito said a house was converted into a temple back when Little Tokyo was still a tiny downtown community with many Japanese immigrants.

As membership grew, the congregation moved to nearby Boyle Heights, now a working-class Latino neighborhood on the east side of L.A. that was once a thriving Jewish enclave. The temple remained there for about 50 years.

“We moved out to Boyle Heights … which was the area where Japanese Americans could live before the war, and so we were there from 1925 until 1975,” said Ito.

Leaders of the temple grappled over moving to a more central location in Little Tokyo or relocating to the suburbs like Alhambra and Monterey Park as their members moved out of the city.

But during the 1970s redevelopment of downtown L.A., Ito said they were offered the lot where the temple is currently located at a reasonable price. Born in Japan and raised in Boyle Heights, Ito became a full-time minister at the temple after finishing his studies in Japan.

Over the years, Ito has seen a decline in membership, as have other houses of faith across the nation. Through the pandemic, the temple has streamed services and has been able to reach older people who can no longer drive, as well as families who have moved to Northern California or even Japan, Ito said.

Now, as Ito considers the safety of the temple’s members, including its preschool of about 25 students, he said they’re looking into added security guard hours.

Ito said the temple is also looking at partnering with other houses of faith, including a Christian church across the street, to have a car patrol drive around Little Tokyo to check on the spaces of worship in the vicinity.

As Ito has participated in a number of events condemning anti-Asian hate crimes, he said it’s important to condemn those who commit hate crimes, but, he added, “we can’t just say it’s us against them.

“I just hope that people learn that we’re all human beings,” Ito said.

Long work hours raise odds for second heart attack, study says

"The magnitude of the effect of working long hours after a heart attack is comparable to the burden of current smoking,"

By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay News
 


After surviving a heart attack, working too hard or too long may increase the risk for a repeat. Photo by Pexels/Pixabay


Sometimes it's best to say no to overtime: A new Canadian study finds that working too hard after a heart attack could boost your odds for a repeat.

Their new study found that people who work more than 55 hours a week after a heart attack are twice as likely to have another, compared with those who work 35 to 40 hours a week."The magnitude of the effect of working long hours after a heart attack is comparable to the burden of current smoking," said senior researcher Dr. Alain Milot, a professor of medicine at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada.

"Interventions to reduce long working hours should be part of public health and enterprise efforts to adapt the working environment of coronary patients," he added.

RELATED Primary doctor shortage in U.S. costing lives, study says

An estimated 20% of workers worldwide put in more than 48 hours a week, according to the International Labour Office.

For the study, Milot's team collected data on nearly 1,000 men and women who in the mid-1990s were under 60 years of age, had a history of heart attack and were working.

The participants were interviewed and filled out questionnaires over six years to study cases of heart disease, lifestyle risk factors and hospital readmission rates.

RELATED Ultra-processed foods bad for heart, but are half of average U.S. diet

The questionnaires also asked about on-the-job exposure to smoking; chemicals; pollution; noise; excessive heat, cold or physical exertion; and the number of hours worked each week.

The researchers also measured participants' levels of stress, job strain, and social support during and outside work.

Over six years, 22% of the study participants had a second heart attack. Working long hours doubled their risk of a second one, the investigators found.

RELATED Viagra may lower risk for heart attack, death in men

Men and younger workers were more likely to work long hours, as were those who smoked, drank alcohol and were physically inactive. Workers whose jobs were stressful were also more likely to work longer hours, the questionnaires revealed.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow is interim chief of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He reviewed the study findings and said that "men and women who report having long hours working have been shown in prior research to be at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke and premature cardiovascular death."

Fonarow, however, said too few patients studied had second heart attacks to draw any decisive conclusions.

"As there were only 95 individuals in this long work-hour group, further larger studies are needed [to determine] whether or not alteration of work hours alone would directly influence recurrent event risk," he said.

Fonarow said the best way to prevent a repeat heart attack is with proven medical care.

"There are a number of effective medications, participation in cardiac rehabilitation and lifestyle modifications that can effectively reduce the risk of recurrent cardiovascular events," he said. "Intensive application of these evidence-based, guideline-recommended, cardiovascular event-reducing interventions are needed."

Dr. Jian Li of UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health co-authored an editorial that accompanied the findings.

The editorial suggested heart attack patients complete a standard questionnaire about their work hours and job stress to help doctors address their specific treatment needs. Li also noted that cardiac rehab programs that already provide healthy lifestyle training also show patients ways to relax and be more resilient.

The findings were published online this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.More information

For more about heart attacks, head to the American Heart Association.

Copyright 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Report: Black patients often treated at hospitals with worse safety records

By Alan Mozes, HealthDay News
3/30/2021

Black people are more likely to receive care at hospitals with worse safety records, and less likely to be admitted to those with better records, according to new research. File Photo by Kzenon/Shutterstock

Compared with White patients, Black adults are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to hospital safety in the United States, a new report warns.

Black patients are significantly less likely to gain access to "high-quality" hospitals, an Urban Institute analysis found.

As a result, they're much more likely to undergo surgical procedures in facilities with relatively poor safety records.

"We've known that Black and White adult patients experience differences in hospital patient safety measures for several decades," said study author Anuj Gangopadhyaya. He is a senior research associate at the institute's Health Policy Center.

RELATED Study: Black patients get worse care after cardiac arrest

"This study's focus was to ask whether these differences are, in part, driven by differences in the quality of hospitals that Black and White patients are able to access," he said.

The answer: yes.

For the study, researchers for the institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., analyzed 2017 patient data gathered by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality from 26 states. The report, released Monday, looked at 11 safety measures.
RELATED Breast cancer treatment comes later, lasts longer for Black women



Four concerned general medical safety issues, such as pressure ulcer rates and in-hospital falls with hip fractures. The other seven involved surgical safety, including hemorrhage, post-op infections and respiratory failure rates.

"On nine of 11 patient safety measures, White patients were significantly more likely to be admitted into high-quality hospitals," said Gangopadhyaya. High-quality hospitals were defined as those with the best safety track records.

Some of the highest-quality hospitals essentially present zero safety risk to patients, which indicates "there are clearly protocols in place that can virtually eliminate some of these patient safety risks," he noted.

RELATED History of medical abuse makes Black Americans wary of COVID-19 vaccine

"Put simply," Gangopadhyaya said, "the payoff in being admitted into a high-quality hospital relative to a low-quality one is extremely large."

The report revealed that Black patients are nearly 8 percentage points more likely than White patients to get admitted to hospitals that rank as "low-quality" by all seven measures used to assess surgery-related patient safety.

Seen in reverse, Black patients were also found to be 5 percentage points less likely to gain access to facilities ranking "high-quality" on every measure of surgical safety.

Differences in insurance coverage didn't explain the racial divide, the report found.

Even when solely looking at White and Black patients who sought care with the same type of coverage -- Medicare -- the findings of a racial gap held up. In terms of overall patient safety, Blacks fared worse.

The analysis did not explore why Black people are at such a safety disadvantage.

But Delmonte Jefferson, executive director of the Center for Black Health & Equity in Durham, N.C., said the findings reflect a longstanding racial care divide.

"The underlying reason for the gaps that are identified stem from elements of systemic racism and institutional oppression that restricts access to quality health care," he said.

"We've battled these elements since The Freedmen's Bureau Act -- the nation's first federal health care program -- was established in the War Department by an act of Congress in 1865 to provide relief, educational activities, food, clothing and medicine to newly freed slaves," Jefferson said.

"Even then, lawmakers removed language from the act that would provide quality access to medical care for all," he noted.

So what can be done?

Gangopadhyaya said current efforts aimed at penalizing low-quality hospitals or cutting off Medicare reimbursements in the face of poor safety records are "ineffective" at rectifying racial safety gaps.

"An alternative approach may be to provide resources to low-quality institutions to enable them to adopt and implement protocols that have been successful at high-quality hospitals," he said.

But Jefferson rounded back to what he described as the root of the problem.

"If the root is systemic racism and institutional oppression, then we must root out the cancerous and infected systems," he said. "In some cases, a complete overhaul of systems is required. In other cases, enforcement of existing health care policies and practices could alleviate the problem."

As Jefferson sees it, "hospital systems are not penalized for not providing access to quality care for all. Not only should substantial consequences be enacted, they should be strenuously enforced."

More information
There's more about racial health disparities at the Center for Black Health & Equity.


Copyright 2021 HealthDay. 

She swung from purity culture to hookup culture. Now she’s written a memoir on it.

Brenda Marie Davies has written a memoir she calls a cautionary tale about the damaging message of purity culture in which she takes an unflinchingly honest look at female sexuality.

“On Her Knees” by Brenda Marie Davies. Courtesy image

“On Her Knees: Memoir of a Prayerful Jezebel” by Brenda Marie Davies. Courtesy image

(RNS) — There’s now a growing genre of books on Christian purity culture and the damage it can inflict. But probably none is as unflinchingly honest about female sexuality as Brenda Marie Davies is in her new book, “On Her Knees: Memoir of a Prayerful Jezebel.”

Davies, whose YouTube channel and “God Is Grey” podcast draw a large audience of teenage and young adult Christians and LGBTQ youth, tells a familiar story in her memoir, in three acts.

Like many young Christian women of her era, Davies, who began attending evangelical churches at age 12, took a pledge in front of her parents to remain a virgin until her wedding day. At 19, she moved to Los Angeles to become an actress. There, she became increasingly anxious to meet “The One” so she could have sex, but settled, she writes, for something less.

After her marriage fell apart, she swung in the opposite direction — a part of her life she calls her “trampage,” a portmanteau of “tramp” and “rampage.” That season of hooking up and sexual exploration included good but also a bad experiences. She emerged from it a progressive Christian who loves Jesus and advocates for consent, self-integration, healing and redemption.

Davies’ no-holds-barred descriptions of sexual yearning along with her heartfelt desire for God make for a compelling read. It’s also timely. Purity culture has come in for criticism since it’s come to light that the 21-year-old suspect in the March 16 Atlanta-area shootings had been treated in Christian sex addiction programs. According to police, his motivation for killing eight people, including six women who worked in area massage parlors, was to rid himself of temptation.

Religion News Service spoke with Davies, now 37 and the mother of a 1-year-old son, Valentine. This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Who did you imagine your audience would be?

Initially I had this visual of people hiding the book under their bed, whether it be a teenager or a young adult or an LGBTQ person who is in the closet. (But) my intention was to be exposed and vulnerable about what I believe to be the toxic theology of purity culture as a guide. I wanted people to know there’s hope and I wanted people to learn how to align themselves, mind, body and soul, as a fully integrated spiritual and sexual human being.

Have you reached out to anyone from youth who taught, for instance, that having sex before marriage was like asking your intended spouse to chew used bubble gum?

I do plan to send it to one of my old youth pastors who actually apologized and acknowledged the way she treated us women and made us feel our bodies were weapons against men’s spiritual purity. I believe you can hold love and forgiveness for people but still hold them accountable for their problematic behavior, theology and actions.

You point out that purity culture arises from patriarchal culture.

Brenda Marie Davies. Photo by Tegan and Andy Noel

Brenda Marie Davies. Photo by Tegan and Andy Noel

There’s this notion that liberal hippie feminists out to destroy Christianity are using this term “patriarchy” to make people afraid of masculinity or break down the traditional family unit. But to be clear, patriarchy is a traceable, historically accurate and provable fact. It manifests in all kinds of ways today. The Baptist church demeaning Beth Moore and saying they shouldn’t listen to her because she’s a female. That is patriarchy. Silencing the voices of women or saying we have less to offer than men or we’re less spiritually gifted to be leaders or speak out. All evidence shows gender does not determine if we have leadership qualities or whether someone is equipped to lead people spiritually.

How does the Atlanta shooting flow out of purity culture?

Women have been told our bodies can cause men to stumble. They’ve been told, (in the letter to the Romans), “Do not be a stumbling block.” That has been twisted to say, “Oh, don’t wear spaghetti straps; otherwise, you never know what men will do.” We’ve been told to restrain ourselves, present ourselves in specific ways in order to not allow sin in men’s life. We’ve been taught that men are in control of everything — the church service, the decision-making, the money — but the one thing they cannot control is their sexuality.

The Altanta suspect put the blame of his sin on these sex workers. This is what we are indoctrinated to believe. Women cause their brothers to stumble. Sexually available women are diminished. (The alleged shooter) believed taking the lives of innocent people was less an affront to his God than committing the sin of sexuality.

You describe a period in your life as a “trampage.” Is it typical for people to rebel against purity culture this way?

I leaned really hard into purity culture and then into hookup culture. I see them as two polar extremes. Both lead to feeling disconnected and disembodied from yourself. In purity culture, virginity was the utmost quality I could possess as a woman. In hookup culture, the most valuable thing you can possess is your body and your willingness to have sex.

I’m not against people having consensual sexual experiences. It’s not about how many people you’re sleeping with. It’s about, are you experiencing embodiment in these situations? Are you thriving in the fullness of your sexuality? Even if I were to have consensual sexual experiences with a couple of guys over the next year, I wouldn’t consider it a “trampage” so long as I was making autonomous choices that I knew were honoring myself, my spirit, the other person.

So when you began to honor your feelings it ended?

I’m careful with the terminology of feeling. A lot of evangelicals will demonize myself and others who say we’re led by our feelings, “It feels good, do it.” That’s not what sex positivity is about. It’s not about the feelings. It’s about being honest about yourself, acknowledging what is genuinely true to who you are, what is your sexuality meant to be in your life.

This militant repression was imposed on me and it made my sexuality an obsession. When I opened myself up to what I consider the Holy Spirit and said, “God, what do you think about my sexuality?,” I realized I had not invited God into that area of my life because I was told God thinks black and white ideas about my sexuality and if any shades of gray come in I’m doing the wrong thing. When you have those blinders on, it can lead to true sexual sin, where you’re not searching for enthusiastic consent in your partner, where you’re not making choices out of your own desire, you’re just following the script.

Is that what you’re going to teach your son?

I’m a gigantic believer in comprehensive sex education, which ideally should begin at 5 years old. Over 90 times the Bible says not to fear, or some variation of that. So why on earth have we built our religion on a foundation of fear and hell? And why are we building our children’s sexuality on a foundation of fear?

Children taught abstinence-only sexual education show no delay in sexual activity and only show spikes in sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy and abortions. We need to teach our kids that  pleasure is not a sin. The desire to have pleasure is not our original sin. 

When we do that and teach them that God loves our pleasure, then your child or teenager will be better able to tell you, somebody touched me in a way that wasn’t pleasure. That’s empowerment about their sexuality.

Do you go to church?

I’m not plugged into a church. I’ve been doing small groups with friends for a really long time.


Satanic panic is back, thanks to ‘Satan Shoes’ and Lil Nas X


Satanic scares are nothing new to contemporary culture.

(RNS) — Visceral. Provocative. Challenging. Offensive. Sacrilegious.

All these words have been used — in praise and criticism — to describe the newly released video for rapper Lil Nas X’s single “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” since it first aired Friday (March 26). 

Beginning in the Garden of Eden, the video depicts Lil Nas X (real name: Montero Lamar Hill) as fallen angel being tempted by demons and judged in heaven. He then descends to hell on a seemingly endless stripper pole, where he greets Satan with a lap dance, before snapping the devil’s neck, taking his “crown” and growing angelic wings.

The video is both social commentary and an artistic statement on the rapper’s identity and sexuality. 


RELATED: Conspiracy theories and the ‘American Madness’ that gripped the Capitol


In conjunction with the song’s release, the Brooklyn, New York, art collective MSCHF modified 666 pairs of Nike Airs with pentacles and injected them with a red liquid reported to contain a drop of human blood, dubbing them “Satan Shoes.” In 2019, the same collective released “Jesus Shoes,” allegedly injected with holy water.

Nike has since disavowed any connection to the Satan Shoes and is suing MSCHF, alleging trademark infringement.

The cultural backlash was as immediate. Conservative author and talk show host Candace Owens, in a tweet Sunday, suggested that Lil Nas X was being used by corporations to “destroy our youth.”

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem tweeted: “We are in a fight for the soul of our nation. We need to fight hard. And we need to fight smart. We have to win.”

Others, including the singer’s fans and many in the LGBTQ+ community, felt the video was daring. The sneakers reportedly sold out in one minute. One pair went to Miley Ray Cyrus, who tweeted a picture of herself wearing them, saying, “Can you see Satan?”

The Church of Satan, an organization founded in 1966 by Anton LaVey, approved as well. “The video is a visceral and powerful work clearly celebrating freedom, individualality, and man’s carnal nature. You deserve all the paise you’ve been receiving,” read the church’s tweet.  

The Satanic Temple, a different organization based in Massachusetts, did not respond to the video, but its co-founder Lucien Greaves did tell Religion News Service that he frankly does not understand why the video has garnered so much attention. “I do not feel that it is my place to comment on the artist’s intent.” He said that he personally is neither offended by nor is he endorsing the work.

But he noted that Lil Nas X has “drawn from culturally prevalent material.”

Translation: Satanic imagery is nothing new to contemporary culture. Nor is satanic-based moral outrage. 

Still from Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” video, directed by Lil Nas X and Tanu Muino. Video screengrab

However, true satanic panics are not typically triggered by simple things like music and shoes as with the Lil Nas X controversy. The first modern-day satanic panic, which began in the 1980s and lasted well into the 1990s, was based on unsubstantiated but widespread fears that day care workers were engaged in ritual child abuse. Pentacles were allegedly found on children’s bodies and, under pressure, children admitted involvement.  

The most public day care case focused on a preschool run by the McMartin family in Manhattan Beach, California. The investigation and trial ran from 1983 to 1990, ending in acquittal. No evidence of ritual abuse was found.

But by then, the so-called satanic panic was in full swing. Stories of ritual abuse and cult activity crowded daytime television and viewer imaginations. Talk show host Geraldo Rivera is famed for his 1988 coverage of the subject. In 1991, ABC broadcast a television movie called “To Save a Child,” about a satanic cult that steals babies.

Fearful adults took aim at a variety of cultural products, attempting to “cancel,” so to speak, everything from Dungeons & Dragons to heavy metal music. Satan was seen lurking everywhere.

In 1992, FBI agent Kenneth V. Lanning released a detailed paper declaring that there was no evidence of ritual child abuse or a national satanic threat. In 1995, Rivera issued his own apology.

But while Lanning’s statement marked an official end to the panic, the moral outrage carried on, targeting Pokemon and the “Harry Potter” book series. As recently as 2019, a Catholic school banned the Potter books, alleging that the spells in the books “risk conjuring evil spirits.”

Moral panics come in a variety of forms, which are as American as conspiracy theories and anxieties about vaccines. The very first American instance resulted in the infamous Salem witch trials. Those proceedings, similar to the trials of the ’80s panic, also eventually cleared the accused of any wrongdoing, but only after 20 people had been killed. 

That panic found an echo in the Red Scare of the 1950s, when fears of ungodly communism infiltrating the U.S. led to the McCarthy hearings, the addition of the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and the institution of the motto “In God We Trust.”

It was then, in 1953, that Arthur Miller penned his famous Salem-themed play “The Crucible.” A hit on Broadway, the play was, not coincidentally, only first made into a film during the satanic panic of the 1990s. After the film’s release, a New York Times reporter asked Miller about the connection between his film and the nationwide “rash of child molestation trials.”

Miller said, “I have had immense confidence in the applicability of the play to almost any time, the reason being it’s dealing with a paranoid situation.”

Would Miller say we’re experiencing another satanic panic? Before the “Montero” video, there was the QAnon conspiracy, which has been warning of a satanic cabal since its inception.

Mat Auryn, a popular witchcraft blogger and author of the book “Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation,” told RNS that he doesn’t believe the first satanic panic ever ended.

But Auryn, who identifies as a “queer occultist” and witch, sent his own string of tweets Saturday divorcing the “Montero” video from any accusations of satanic practice. “This isn’t some sort of QAnon illuminati conspiracy theory homage to worshipping Satan,” he wrote. “In fact, it’s the opposite — healing damage done to queer people by the Church and State.”

Still from Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” video, directed by Lil Nas X and Tanu Muino. Video screengrab

In Auryn’s telling, Lil Nas X’s story is an allegory of one man’s journey into his own psyche to confront his own “demons,” a spiritual practice called “shadow work.” “When he says ‘Welcome to Montero,’ that’s his name. He’s welcoming you to his mind and heart and soul. It’s significant that everyone in the video is him,” Auryn noted.


Kenya Coviak, a modern witch in Detroit, agreed, calling this Lil Nas X’s “Lemonade” moment, referring to Beyoncé’s groundbreaking 2016 studio album. Like Auryn, Coviak adamantly held that the “Montero” video has nothing to do with satanism or any form of occult practice, for that matter.

“It was about affirming himself,” Coviak said. “It was about exposing the reality of being authentic to himself in the face of cultural condemnation.”

Coviak added that the video “is flipping off the ‘Illuminati panic’ culture of the Black Church and its view of the music industry and the existence of Black gay love being valid.”

“It is all these and so much more.”

God and the State : Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 1814-1876 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive



 IMPERIALISM; HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALI$M

Database reveals secrets of China's loans to developing nations, says study

2021/3/31

©Reuters

DAKAR (Reuters) - The terms of China's loan deals with developing countries are unusually secretive and require borrowers to prioritise repayment of Chinese state-owned banks ahead of other creditors, a study of a cache of such contracts showed on Wednesday.

The dataset - compiled over three years by AidData, a U.S. research lab at the College of William & Mary - comprises 100 Chinese loan contracts with 24 low- and middle-income countries, a number of which are struggling under mounting debt burdens amid the economic fallout from the COVID-10 pandemic.

Much focus has turned to the role of China, which is the world's biggest creditor, accounting for 65% of official bilateral debt worth hundreds of billions of dollars across Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia.

"China is the world’s largest official creditor, but we lack basic facts about the terms and conditions of its lending," the authors, including Anna Gelpern, a law professor at Georgetown University in the United States, wrote in their paper.

The researchers at AidData, the Washington-based Center for Global Development (CGD), Germany's Kiel Institute and the Peterson Institute for International Economics compared Chinese loan contracts with those of other major lenders to produce the first systematic evaluation of the legal terms of China’s foreign lending, according to CGD.

Their analysis uncovered several unusual features to the agreements that expanded standard contract tools to boost the chances of repayment, they said in the 77-page report.

These include confidentiality clauses that prevent borrowers from revealing the terms of the loans, informal collateral arrangements that benefit Chinese lenders over other creditors and promises to keep the debt out of collective restructurings - dubbed by the authors as "no Paris Club" clauses, the report said. The contracts also give substantial leeway for China to cancel loans or accelerate repayment, it added.

Scott Morris, a senior fellow at CGD and co-author of the report, said the findings raised questions about China's role as one of the G20 group of major economies that has agreed a "common framework" designed to help poorer nations cope with the financial pressure of COVID-19 by allowing them to overhaul debt burdens.

The framework calls for comparable treatment of all creditors, including private lenders, but he said most of the contracts examined prohibit countries from restructuring those loans on equal terms and in coordination with other creditors.

"That's a very striking prohibition, and it seems to run counter to the commitments the Chinese are making at the G20," Morris told Reuters, though he added that it was possible China would simply not enforce those clauses in its loan contracts.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

China has said in the past that its financial institutions, and not just the country’s official creditors, were working to help ease the debt woes of African nations.

It also said in November that it had extended debt relief to developing countries worth a combined $2.1 billion under the G20 programme, the highest among the group’s members in terms of the amount deferred.

The material examined by researchers for the study includes 23 contracts struck with Cameroon, 10 with Serbia and Argentina as well as eight with Ecuador.

In January, the World Bank warned that several countries were in urgent need of debt relief due to the severity of the global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Reporting by Alessandra Prentice and Karin Strohecker; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)