300+ faith leaders urge NC Gov. Cooper to commute all 137 death sentences

Welcome to the 20th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup: Extremist groups in NC, visibility for Muslim students, the economic impact of rural churches, and more.

Apr 26, 2023

Happy Wednesday! Thanks for reading the 20th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup, a newsletter that highlights major religion news and trends in the Triangle and greater NC.

I’m a reporter at EducationNC, where I recently started a new role covering K-12 education and policy, and faith. I am also a second-year M.Div. student at Duke Divinity School. I hope your spring has seen moments of loveliness, amid the busyness, chaos, and anxiousness I know has been frequenting our worlds and news cycles. As always, there’s a lot of religion news from the last month to catch up – a NC church that forgave $3 million in medical debt, Muslim students working toward visibility on UNC Chapel Hill’s campus, the economic impact of rural churches, and more.

I’d love any thoughts or feedback on this roundup. Plus, I’d love it if you’d share this newsletter with a friend or on social media. AND, if you’re a religion writer or faith leader who is interested in contributing in any way to future editions, please reach out. Thanks for following along!

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This week:

In Story to Follow, I highlight a letter sent by NC faith leaders to Gov. Roy Cooper, asking him to commute the death sentences of all 137 people on the state’s death row.
In Deep Dive, I highlight the News & Observer’s March article on extremist groups in NC, with some religion connections.
In a Nutshell, I share religion stories across the state, including an update on a lawsuit by 36 United Methodist Churches in the state to leave the denomination.
And in What I’m Reading, I feature a report by Religion News Service on the response from indigenous activists to the Vatican’s repudiation of Doctrine of Discovery, as well as an Assembly feature on a Rwandan woman’s journey to make a North Carolina ministry for orphans less exploitative.

Story to Follow: Faith leaders oppose death penalty

On Friday, April 14, North Carolina faith leaders delivered a letter to Gov. Roy Cooper asking him to commute the death sentences of all 137 people on North Carolina’s death row to prison terms. You can read that letter here.

The letter is signed by more than 300 leaders with congregations from across the state, from every major faith tradition including Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Signers say NC’s death penalty is rife with racism and wealth bias and poses a threat to innocent people, according to a release from the N.C. Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NCCADP).

The letter is part of the NCCADP’s statewide ‘No More Death Row’ campaign, which launched in December with a march and rally led by people who lost family members to homicide. The signatories of the letter to Gov. Cooper say they have renewed their commitment to stopping future executions in North Carolina, “and expect a groundswell of support from their congregations.”

Death row exoneree Alfred Rivera in front of the Governor’s Mansion in December 2022 / NCCADP

Last month, I spoke with NCCADP Director Noel Nickle about the letter, the role of faith, and the organization’s interfaith work. Our conversation below is edited lightly for length and clarity.

To start, I would love to hear about how this letter came about, and about the process of putting it together.

The letter for faith leaders in North Carolina to ask Gov. Cooper to commute all death sentences is part of a larger commutation campaign that we launched in December. And that portion of the campaign was launched by directly impacted people, primarily people who have lost loved ones to homicide. They wrote a letter to Gov. Cooper and launched a much larger campaign that will extend until Gov. Cooper leaves office in 2024, or until we commute the death sentences, whichever comes first.

We know there's been a lot of engagement with people of faith against the death penalty in North Carolina in years past. The NC Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has stepped into that role now as part of our commutation campaign, but also as part of our broader organizing effort to abolish the death penalty in North Carolina. So the the letter is just one piece. It's one tactic for a multi-pronged strategy to reach Gov. Cooper. We will be launching a letter for all people of faith in a couple of months, and then we will do a much larger petition drive with all North Carolinians, and we'll launch that later in the summer.

Last August, we gathered to mark 16 years since there had been an execution in North Carolina and we will do that again on Aug. 19 in Raleigh, marking 17 years. So it's just one piece, but a very significant piece I think. Faith leaders have contact with so many folks in their congregations, whatever faith tradition, and we're trying to reach a broad base of faith traditions. But we really see it as a way for faith leaders to use their powerful voice, and also Gov. Cooper is a person of faith. We believe this will speak to him in a way that’s unique to his background as well.

What have you been hearing from the people that you've been sharing this with?

The response has been very, very positive. Most major faith traditions around the world oppose the death penalty, including Protestant denominations here in the United States. But people are not always aware of that. And so I think in general faith leaders are pleased to have this opportunity to use their voice in this way.

Have you had any communication with the Governor about the petition so far, or the Governor's office?

We have not had direct communication with the Governor, but we have had communication with his staff. We actually met with a delegation of his staff in January with a delegation of individuals who have lost loved ones to homicide. We felt very well received. This effort with the faith leader letter sign-on is the next extension to that, so we hope to be in contact with them again.

The letter mentions there being a variety of faith backgrounds among leaders. Could you talk about what interfaith efforts on this issue have looked like?

We have a strong connection with the North Carolina Council of Churches, one of our coalition partners, and so they have helped with crafting this letter and distribution of it among particularly Protestant Christian traditions. We also have a coalition partner Catholics for Abolition in North Carolina, and they are a newly formed organization growing out of the Raleigh Catholic Diocese. They have done amazing outreach and we also have contact with with Catholic leaders in the Charlotte Diocese as well. So we're really grateful for the efforts that our Catholic leaders have put towards this effort. And, of course, they're one of the groups that is often discriminated against in terms of jury selection, based on their religious faith and their belief against the death penalty.

We've also got some strong partnership with the Jewish community and I am right now in conversation with folks from Carolina Jews for Justice. We'll be doing a race history screening in Asheville with a Jewish community probably in June. One of our board members and our strongest abolitionists, who lost his son to homicide, is Buddhist, and so we have contact with that community as well. About a year ago, we did a webinar online focused on Islam and the death penalty. That tradition is not as rooted in death penalty opposition as some of the others that I've mentioned, but we have had a really positive response from organizing that webinar. And one of our team members, Alfred Rivera, is a homicide survivor and a Muslim, so he’s doing outreach in that community as well.

Can you talk a little bit more about how this petition fits into the work that you all have been doing and the work you’re looking ahead to?

We are a grassroots organization, so we really believe the work that we're doing now will continue to strengthen our movement, beyond whatever Gov. Cooper does. A repeal bill has been introduced and we continue to hope that our legislators will see us through to the abolition finish line, because they are the ones who can actually repeal the death penalty in North Carolina. However, we don't see a clear path to that right away, nor do we see a clear path with the current makeup of our North Carolina Supreme Court. This effort is really in keeping with us decreasing death sentences. We're the fifth largest death row in the country, so if we can have those sentences commuted by Gov. Cooper, then that will really get us much closer to abolition.

Virginia, when they abolished the death penalty – and by the way, they had really strong leadership from faith leaders in that state as well – they had a much smaller death row. The fact that we haven't had executions in many years is, of course, very encouraging and good, but it also means that your average North Carolinian who may oppose the death penalty or might be open to learning more about the reasons the death penalty should be abolished, aren't even aware that we have the death penalty. So this campaign is really heightening that awareness, engaging people whatever their motivation might be – whether it's innocence, or it's an issue of faith or a moral issue. This campaign helps us to reach those individuals that we hope will stay involved and engaged beyond the commutation campaign.

You can learn more about the NCCADP on their website.

Deep Dive: Extremist groups in NC

I encourage you to read the full March article from the News & Observer, “How extremists in NC and across US try to use national unease to grow and spread hate.” For now, here’s an excerpt.

Extremist groups are proliferating. Hate crimes, according to updated numbers released by the federal government last (month), hit a record high in 2021, increasing more than 33% over the previous year while remaining vastly under-reported. Beliefs once considered to be the tattered fringe of the far right or left are being welcomed and amplified by celebrities and politicians in speeches and social media posts.
“People want scapegoats,” said Phil Brodsky, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Raleigh. “Whatever issues we’re facing as a country, it’s the Jews’ fault.”
Or it’s because of Black people. Or white people. Or Mexicans. Or Islamists. Or Catholics. Or LGBTQ people. Or Democrats. Or Republicans. Or those with mental or physical disabilities. Or any attributes that make them “other” than whoever is looking for someone to blame. …
The question, experts say, is whether a relatively small number of extremists, some of whom are active in North Carolina, will continue to push their views into the mainstream until words and actions once regarded as radical, anti-democratic and anti-American start to seem normal. Or people believe, as former President Donald Trump asserted in 2017 after a far-right protester drove into a crowd of counter-protesters at a rally in Charlottesville, Va., killing one and injuring 19 others, that there are “very fine people on both sides.”
“That’s the crux of the problem,” said Jon Lewis, an investigator with the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at the University of Nebraska Omaha, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and a specialist in white-supremacist and anti-government groups. …
On maps it updates annually, the Southern Poverty Law Center names 28 hate groups and 17 anti-government groups active in North Carolina. The SPLC differentiates between them by the history of their evolution and their ideals for the nation’s future. Megan Squire, who studies hate groups for the SPLC, says those typically target others based on immutable characteristics, dehumanizing or demonizing people because they’re Black, for example, or gay or an immigrant or a Muslim. The America they wish for is made up primarily of white people.
The SPLC notes overlap between the types of groups: an anti-government group may also be anti-Muslim, for instance, and a group that hates immigrants may also believe the government has no right to restrict gun ownership. Both types, Squire said, “are very opportunistic at times, changing what they want or appear to want to fit the times. A lot of them are savvy enough to want to meld a little bit, enough to think about PR and recruitment.”

Of course, the actions of such extremist groups do not occur in a vacuum.

Four Democratic NC House representatives introduced a bill earlier this month that aims to address the rise in hate crimes across the state, House Bill 596. That bill would increase punishments for those who commit hate crimes, require additional training for law enforcement and prosecutors, and mandate establishing a hate crimes statistics database.

So far, no Republicans have joined as sponsors of the bill. Rep. Nasif Majeed, D-Mecklenburg, one of the bill’s primary sponsors, told the DTH he is working on getting traction from the Republican supermajority in the House.

At the same time, Republicans in North Carolina and across the country have filed many anti-LGBTQ+ bills, including legislation concerning transgender student athletes and how sexuality and gender are talked about in school. In February, the NC Senate passed the controversial Parents’ Bill of Rights by a 29-18 vote on party lines. Senate Republicans argue the bill is needed to safeguard parents’ integral role in their children’s lives, EducationNC reported, while opponents say it is dangerous to LGBTQ+ kids and will damage educators’ relationships with students.

At the same time, states across the country have also filed bills restricting how race and history can be taught in schools. In March, House Republicans introduced a bill that would legislate how teachers in local schools can teach about race or sex. House Bill 187 is a reprisal of a bill that was passed but vetoed by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper last session. And in April, EdNC reported that “a number of ‘culture war’ issues are prompting worry over the future of public education, with concern coming from as high up as the nation’s education secretary. The word ‘equity’ has come under attack over these past three years.”

Religious rhetoric is often, though not always, used by sponsors of these bills, with an underlying focus on conservative Christian beliefs and morals.

Such legislation does not reflect the fact the national polls consistently show the majority of Americans say they care about racial equity, and that they support LGBTQ+ acceptance. As I’ve written previously, public acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex marriage has dramatically increased in the last two decades, Pew Research data shows – including among people of faith. Data about transgender policies is a bit more complex, as most people favor protecting transgender people from discrimination, but fewer support policies related to medical care for gender transitions.

These issues are nuanced and deserving of conversation. But the vagueness of many of the bills, coupled with the large number of them, often makes such discussion nearly impossible. As some Republican lawmakers continue to push for bills restricting LGBTQ+ rights and teaching about race, we should remember that in general, these are not the issues that matter most to Americans – even among those who support such restrictions.

And as North Carolina readies to elect a new governor – specifically with North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein and Lt. Gov Mark Robinson as expected frontrunners – the chances of the political landscape changing soon is unlikely. As I’ve written in multiple roundups, Robinson has consistently drawn on conservative Christian theology during his political office. (ICYMI, here’s a Q&A from December with Assembly writer Tim Funk about Robinson’s theology.) Meanwhile, Stein is the first Jewish statewide elected official in NC, and would be the first Jewish governor. Robinson has made anti-semitic remarks in the past, among his many controversial statements.

As all of this unfolds, I’m reminded of the experts’ cautions from the N&O’s article, about how extremists can push their views into the mainstream. Different people, and different faith groups, do and will certainly define different ideas as extreme. We must keep paying attention.

“The question, experts say, is whether a relatively small number of extremists, some of whom are active in North Carolina, will continue to push their views into the mainstream until words and actions once regarded as radical, anti-democratic and anti-American start to seem normal.”

Plus, read:

In a Nutshell:

Church forgives $3 million in medical debt for Davidson County residents, the Dispatch

More than 3,000 Davidson County residents no longer have to worry about being hassled by debt collectors after a local church recently purchased, and forgave, almost $3 million in their medical bills, the Dispatch reported. This is the second year the members of Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem have taken on the Debt Jubilee Project, which focuses on paying off the past-due medical bills of residents in the Triad. Last year the group purchased $1.65 million worth of debt for 1,356 people in Forsyth and Davidson counties.

Ramadan finds greater recognition in America’s public schools, RNS

Ramadan – the Islamic month of fasting – began on March 22, ending April 20. For RNS, Amaarah DeCuir, who researches Muslim student experiences, offered insights into how public schools are moving toward greater recognition of the sacred Islamic month. There are 3.85 million Muslims in the United States, she wrote. Of that number, 1.35 million are children. From the article: “Although this may only represent a small portion of public school students nationwide – and many Muslim children attend private Islamic schools – Muslim students are a part of a 60% majority of students in public schools who say that religion is important in their lives.”

Muslim students strive for visibility on campus, the Daily Tar Heel

UNC senior Rida Bayraktar is the most recent vice president of the UNC Muslim Students Association, which provides a space for students to pray, socialize and learn more about the culture. But attaining that space, the DTH reported, is something that students continually strive for. There are over 200 students in the MSA.

Perspective | Rural churches are economic powerhouses for their communities, EducationNC

Emilie Haertsch, the communications manager at Partners for Sacred Places, writes about the organization’s new report, “The Economic Halo Effect of Rural United Methodist Churches in North Carolina,” published in partnership with The Duke Endowment and the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute. The study found that congregations, although not often thought of in these terms, can be economic powerhouses in their areas. The participating churches, on average, were responsible for more than $735,000 per year in economic impact in their local communities.

Judge dismisses lawsuit by 36 United Methodist churches, RNS

Last month, a North Carolina Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed last year by 36 United Methodist churches demanding to sever their ties to the denomination, the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. The suit was a departure from the denomination-approved plan for churches wishing to leave the UMC over their theological standing on the ordination and marriage of LGBTQ+ Christians. The denomination’s official disaffiliation plan gives them until Dec. 31, 2023, to cut their ties.

Why a Christian anti-abortion group in Texas is in line for $10M in NC taxpayer money, the N&O

Human Coalition received $600,000 over two years to “assist women experiencing crisis pregnancies to continue their pregnancies to full term” when it first appeared in the North Carolina state budget in 2017. Since then, the N&O reported, state funding for the Christian anti-abortion group has increased by $5.8 million — about 965%. Now Republican legislators want to increase funding for Texas-based organization to $10 million over two years. Meanwhile, doctors, abortion-rights advocates, and state agencies have raised concerns about the organization’s practices and a government watchdog group has accused Human Coalition of using tax dollars for religious purposes.

This North Carolina church used to be multiracial. Then came Jan. 6., RNS

A note: I previously attended Bible Church and worked with the church’s youth group (where I am still a volunteer) from 2018 to 2021. Chapel Hill Bible Church seemed perfectly positioned to attract a diverse membership, RNS reported. For many years it did — boasting that 20% of people attending were nonwhite. As many as 200 people have left Chapel Hill Bible Church in recent months, which RNS reported is “more than 20% of this once flourishing nondenominational congregation in the university town. … but the loss of nonwhite members has been especially pronounced.”

Student Exhibition Examines Muslim Identity through ‘Remixed’ Photo Portraits, Duke University Chapel

Graduate student Shiraz Ahmed, this year’s C. Eric Lincoln Fellow in theology and arts, explores how and why local Muslim men wear beards in his exhibition, “The Beards of Muslim Men.” The exhibition will be on display in the Duke Chapel from April 12 to May 5, from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., except during private ceremonies. “From my experience of being Muslim and living in a very diverse Muslim area in Michigan, I wanted to show that there really is no way of ‘looking like a Muslim man,’” Ahmed said.

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett speaks at Duke, students, community members walk out in protest, the Chronicle

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett spoke at Duke Wednesday last month, where nearly a hundred students and Duke community members walked out in protest. Critics said Bennett, who rejects the idea of an independent Palestinian state, the Chronicle reported, “perpetuated previous Israeli leaders’ intentions to expand Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and withhold a reversal of the 54-year occupation.” The talk was hosted by the Center for Jewish Studies in conjunction with Duke’s Program in American Grand Strategy and Jewish Life at Duke.

Mom says NC university dragged its feet after antisemitic incident at son’s dorm room, the N&O

The mother of a High Point University student said the school did not take seriously an antisemitic incident involving her son until she reported it to news outlets. Jill Moskowitz told the N&O someone drew a Swastika on the door of her son’s dorm room sometime between midnight on March 18 and noon the next day. Until she reached out to news media more than two weeks later, no one from the school indicated they would try to find out who did it, she said.

Duke Divinity Celebrates 50 Year Anniversary of Office of Black Church Studies, Duke Divinity School

Duke Divinity School celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the Office of Black Church Studies earlier this month, culminating in an evening celebration on April 17 which featured Grammy Award-winning gospel singer Yolanda Adams and the Martin Luther King Lecture Series on April 18 with the Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale. The Office of Black Church Studies (OBCS) was founded in 1972, the first such office at Duke University and one of the earliest Black Church offices among all U.S. theological schools.

~What I’m reading~

Indigenous activists share mixed feelings on Vatican repudiation of Doctrine of Discovery, RNS

On March 30, the Vatican responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” RNS previously reported. That doctrine refers to the theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property laws today. A Vatican statement said the papal bulls, or decrees, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.

Indigenous activists who have long been asking for such a repudiation have mixed feelings. From the RNS article:

The National Congress of American Indians, the oldest and largest organization representing Indigenous peoples in the United States, said Thursday (March 30) it commended Pope Francis and the Catholic Church for the statement released that day by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Dicastery for Integral Human Development.
The NCAI expressed hope that statement would be the beginning of a full accounting for the legacies of colonialism, not only from the church, but also from governments that have used it to justify the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples.
“We thank the Creator that Indigenous peoples are strong, resilient, full of wisdom, faith, hope, and love, and we stand ready to have difficult conversations about the future and to work together to build off of today’s step forward to bring about meaningful positive change to our people and nations, and for the healing, reconciliation and restoration of all peoples across the globe,” it said.
Others were more reserved.
Renouncing the Doctrine of Discovery was the right decision, according to Deborah Parker, CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition. But the Vatican statement downplayed the church’s role in legitimizing the doctrine and lacked accountability for the harm it has caused, she said.
“We demand more from the Catholic Church,” said Parker, who is Tulalip.
Parker, in a statement reacting to the Vatican’s announcement, went on to list a number of demands, including access to documents regarding Catholic-run Indian boarding schools in the U.S.; the return of land on which those schools were built; and support for a bill that would create a Truth and Healing Commission in the U.S.

Read the full piece here.

And, also check out, Rise of the ‘Street Kids,’ the Assembly’s April feature on Epiphanie Mujawimana, “a tough-love Rwandan woman” who “created a new model of empowerment” in response to a North Carolina minister giving of food and clothing to orphaned children in southern Africa.

That's it for this week's edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup. Thanks for reading. Until next time. And in the meantime, I gladly welcome any tips, feedback or news you think I haven’t included but should in future editions. — Hannah

North Carolina Religion Roundup