Dean of Duke Divinity School meets with Pope Francis
Welcome to the 15th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup: The Pope, LGBTQ+ affirming churches at Pride, Jewish high holidays, and more.
Happy Tuesday! Thanks for reading the 15th 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 covering community colleges, postsecondary access, and faith at EducationNC, and a M.Div. student at Duke Divinity School. As I write this, I’m attending Duke Divinity’s annual pastors convocation as part of my faith work at EdNC. We were charged to learn to listen deeply, “leaning in as we learn to walk together” following and during some heavy years. I’m reminded while listening just how deeply faith can and does shape the perspective, experiences, and decisions of people and communities, particularly during hard times. This week’s roundup will highlight a few examples of such impact.
As always, I’d love any thoughts or feedback regarding parts of the roundup you particularly like, and/or anything you’d like to see in the future. Plus, I’d love it if you’d share this newsletter with a friend.
Thanks for following along. Happy reading!
This week:
In a Nutshell, I highlight some NC religion stories to keep an eye on, including expansion at the Islamic Association of Raleigh, Yom Kippur, and law enforcement engagement with faith communities.
And in What I’m Reading, I include my favorite religion reads this week.
In a Nutshell:
Dean of Duke Divinity School meets with Pope Francis about Methodist-Catholic relations
Pope Francis accepts a report from the Rev. Edgardo Colón-Emeric, dean of Duke University Divinity School in Durham, NC, and the new Methodist co-chair of the Joint International Commission for Dialogue between the World Methodist Council and the Catholic Church, during an audience with members of the commission at the Vatican Oct. 5, 2022. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
Last week, Duke Divinity School Dean Edgardo Colón-Emeric traveled from Durham to Rome as part of the Joint International Commission for Dialogue between the World Methodist Council and the Catholic Church, where he met with Pope Francis. The group of sixteen Roman Catholic and Methodist scholars from around the world met for the twelfth round of Methodist Catholic dialogue. Each round of dialogue lasts five years.
Colón-Emeric helped present a new document from the commission on Oct. 5, which explored differences between the traditions such as the role of the minister in reconciliation rituals to promoting conversion in the way their members treat the environment. The report identified areas of strength within the Methodist and Catholic churches, along with those that require repentance and reconciliation.
“Catholics and Methodists must acknowledge and confess that our failure fully to embody and exemplify what it means to live as a community of reconciliation within our respective communions,” the report said, “coupled with widespread complacency in the face of our continuing disunity, seriously impedes and undermines our ability to fulfill our vocation to serve and participate in God’s reconciling ministry in the world.”
In N.C., 9% of adults identify as Catholic and 6% identify as Methodist, according to Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape study. Colón-Emeric also met with the Pope in 2017, on the 50th anniversary of Catholic-Methodist Dialogue, when he had the chance present him with a book chronicling the discussions he and his conversation partners have held over the years – a book Colón-Emeric translated into Spanish himself.
Durham Pride: LGBTQ+ affirming faith groups say ‘God loves you and so do we,’ EdNC
Thousands of people gathered on Duke University’s campus on Saturday, Sept. 24, for the first in-person Pride: Durham, NC parade since 2019. I attended the event for EdNC, talking to the more than a dozen faith groups that also joined the vendors. Faith groups present at Pride shared many forms of the same message: God affirms LGBTQ+ people, and so do we. Public acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex marriage has dramatically increased in the last two decades, Pew Research Center data shows, but many of the largest U.S. religious institutions have remained firmly against allowing same-sex marriage.
LGBTQ-friendly church OK with getting Southern Baptist boot, Associated Press
Greensboro’s College Park Baptist Church found itself in the news recently when the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee voted to remove it from its rolls because of its “open affirmation, approval and endorsement of homosexual behavior.” That action came 23 years after the congregation itself voted to leave the SBC, but according to the Executive Committee, it had remained on its rolls until now.
Islamic Association of Raleigh announces fall 2023 opening of second campus
IAR's second campus, approximately 25 acres, is set to be completed during fall 2023. It is located at 3104 Page Road and will be a supplement to the mosque’s 808 Atwater location. The 11,000 square-ft building has been framed, the roof has been installed and work is in progress to complete the remaining details by the middle of next year, IAR said in an email update last week. The property was acquired by IAR for near future use as well as for long-term expansion.
Jewish For Good Bakers Kick Into Gear for High Holidays, INDY Week
By the end of the Jewish high holidays season, a three-person team at Durham’s Jewish for Good baked more than 2,000 loaves of challah, plus hundreds of other customary pastries. Jewish for Good’s challah operation is one of the largest in the Triangle, but it primarily functions as a recreation and wellness center, offering fitness and aquatic facilities, volunteer opportunities, and social programs for kids and seniors. Jewish for Good shares a campus with Judea Reform Congregation and Lerner Jewish Day School.
On Yom Kippur, a Ukrainian couple finds a new Jewish home in North Carolina, Religion News Service
Since their arrival in NC, the Ukrainian couple has found work, a car, furniture and housewares — largely through the help of American Jews in the Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill areas. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which began Oct. 4, many in the Jewish community expressed a renewed resolve to help the couple, rooted in the Jewish value of caring for the stranger, including refugees.
Siler City Police participating in ‘Faith & Blue’ weekend, Chatham News + Record
Last weekend, the Siler City Police Department participated in Faith & Blue, an initiative designed to create engagement with the community through places of worship throughout town. Faith & Blue was launched in 2020 “to facilitate safer, stronger, more just and unified communities by directly enabling local partnerships among law enforcement professionals, residents, businesses and community groups through the connections of local faith-based organizations,” according to its website. Siler City’s Faith & Blue events were hosted at three churches in town — Corinth AME Zion Church on Friday, St. Julia’s Catholic Church on Saturday and First Presbyterian Church on Sunday.
Bryan Stevenson Discusses Faith, Justice, and Shared Humanity at Duke Chapel, Duke University Chapel
Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, discussed justice and faith at a Duke Chapel event on September 21. During that conversation, he reflected on how faith and a sense of shared humanity have provided insights and motivation for his work in criminal justice reform. “To do the kind of things we all need to do to create more justice and more mercy and more equity and more opportunity, you have to be willing to believe things you have not seen.” he said. More than 750 people attended the event in-person, and more than 600 people watched the livestream.
UNC Charlotte apologizes for handcuffing Sikh student after 911 knife call, Charlotte Observer
University of North Carolina Charlotte Chancellor Sharon Gaber apologized last month after a video showed a campus police officer handcuffing a follower of the Sikh faith for having a knife in the university’s student union. “Further investigation showed the item was a kirpan, an article of faith in Sikhism,” Gaber said in a message to the campus community posted on the university’s website, UNCC.edu. Initiated Sikhs must have such articles of faith with them at all times, according to the Sikh Coalition, an organization that defends the civil rights of members of the religion.
Duke’s Kate Bowler doesn’t have a feel-good story. You should hear it anyway, the News & Observer
The N&O profiled Kate Bowler, a New York Times best-selling author, star-studded podcast host, and professorship at Duke Divinity School (where I’ve been lucky enough to learn from her). Bowler, 42, is the founder of the Everything Happens Project at Duke University, where she’s an associate professor of American religious history. She spoke with the N&O about vulnerability, who inspires her and how Durham gave her the home she needed, in the linked Q&A conversation above.
~What I’m reading ~
‘The hidden interfaith networks key to the migrant justice movement,’ by Charlotte Long for RNS
Charlotte Long, a master of divinity student at the University of Chicago, spent the summer working with the Sanctuary Working Group (SWG), an interfaith network made up of both organizations and individuals committed to immigration justice because of their personal religious values. Long led a research project to map out migrant shelters in the U.S. and taught on the theology of global service in the Episcopal Church, conducting fieldwork on what long-term migrant shelters (1 month+) exist in the United States. From the column:
Spoiler alert: There are not enough to meet the current need.
Across the country, I encountered other similar networks of individuals, shelters and houses of worship trying to connect migrants to housing and basic resources. It is not unlike what churches and volunteers recently did at Martha’s Vineyard for 50 asylum seekers. Networks like SWG do it every week and utilize a more bricolage membership. …
Religious institutions have long been involved in the safe asylum movement. Many religious leaders make public statements about human dignity, both through their theology and their actions — although the two do not always align. Many leaders have recently spoken out against inhumane treatment of families fleeing violence or poverty. And yet some religious communities remain silent. Often I found it was these smaller interfaith networks that forthrightly told me their faith was the motivating factor in their work, even as multiple faiths were represented and even as they try to fly under the political radar. …
It is true that those on the religious right have always had the loudest voice promoting fear and misinformation that migrants negatively affect the economy and crime. Voices on the religious left are less likely to be in the spotlight. They have less headline-catching things to say, often repeating Matthew 25:35 from the New Testament, which calls us to welcome the “stranger” (often translated as “foreigner” in the ancient Greek).
A February poll from the Public Religion Research Institute highlighted the spectrum of religious views regarding immigration reform.
“Support for a Pathway to Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants, 2013-2021, by Religious Affiliation” Graphic courtesy of PRRI
Overall support for a pathway to citizenship has remained virtually unchanged between 2013 and 2021 (63% to 62%), but some faith groups underwent notable shifts. Support among white Catholics dropped from 62% to 54%, and those who claim a non-Christian religion dropped from 68% to 55%.
Among white evangelicals, 56% backed a pathway to citizenship in 2013, but now only 47% say they support it today – making white evangelicals the only religious group without a majority who support a pathway to citizenship. Black Protestants are now the most supportive religious group regarding a pathway to citizenship, rising from 70% in 2013 to 75% in 2021. Support among religiously unaffiliated Americans also increased to 69% from 64%.
And from the archives:
How a 25-year-old grew an Instagram following of 370,000, by Cristina Bolling for the Charlotte Observer
The above headline doesn’t immediately make its connection to religion apparent, but the 2019 story profiles Caitlin Covington, then 25 and Charlotte’s most-followed Instagrammer. At the time, she had 374,000 followers on Instagram, where she is @cmcoving – now up to 1.3M. And she has a popular blog, Southern Curls & Pearls.
After the article, Covington also became the muse behind “Christian girl autumn,” which started on Twitter in 2019 as a riff of Megan Thee Stallion’s iconic “Hot Girl Summer” tagline. The style is associated with stereotypical basic (white) women who enjoy pumpkin spice lattes, highly filtered Instagram photos with fall scenery, and blanket scarfs. I’ve chuckled at a few memes myself. But it wasn’t until this 2019 story resurfaced in my Twitter feed that I discovered Covington’s NC connection.
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