MLK Day and some final reflections on NC's 2021 religion stories
Welcome to the 6th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup: Religion and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, plus a look back at last year's religion stories and more.
Happy Sunday! Thanks for reading the 6th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup, a newsletter meant to highlight major religion news and trends in the Triangle and greater N.C. My name is Hannah. I’m an education and local government reporter at The Chatham News + Record in Chatham, N.C. and a M.Div. student at Duke Divinity School. (If you’re interested, you can read more about the newsletter and why I was inspired to start it here.)
This newsletter is the first of the new year! I’m looking forward to what 2022 holds for this project and am excited to continue collaborating with more readers, people of faith and fellow journalists. As always, please reach out with any thoughts or feedback for anything you’d like to see me write about or include in upcoming editions.
Thanks for following along. I hope your January is warm and full of good things!
This week:
In Stories to Follow, I include some of the major N.C. religion stories from 2021.
In Deep Dive, I explore tributes to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ahead of MLK Day, highlighting those which emphasize the role of King’s Christian ministry in his fight against racial inequality and poverty.
And In a Nutshell, I include a list of N.C. religion stories to keep an eye on.
Stories to Follow: Significant religion stories in 2021
A lot happened in 2021, and religion played a role in a many of the year’s major news stories — from the inauguration of President Joe Biden (the second Catholic to serve as U.S. president) and Supreme Court rulings to shifting in-person worship attendance and national attempts to legislate how history and race is taught in schools.
That said, there are a few stories that stuck out. Here’s a short list:
Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection
The events of Jan. 6 dominated the 2021 news cycle. The U.S. Capitol was attacked by a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump, and the surrounding area of the rally was littered with signs eliciting false claims about the election and symbols associated with white supremacy: a large noose and Confederate flags. Also present were overt Christian symbols.
Here’s a really helpful thread highlighting such Christian symbols — “Jesus Saves” signs, Jesus wearing a MAGA hat, crosses and more — from Duke Kwon, D.C. pastor and author.
The type of Christian nationalism displayed Jan. 6 and in the above thread played a role in subsequent calls for anti-vaccine mandates, voting restrictions and opposition to critical race theory. In North Carolina, religious rhetoric coming from politicians this election cycle demonstrates the continued organizing power of the religious right. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has repeatedly made comments disparaging LGBTQ people and calling for a Christian nation, has said he’s “95% sure" he will run for Governor in 2024. In 2022, the religious right’s political organizing will be important to follow, as many people who support such viewpoints will be voting (or running) in the midterm elections.
And, of course, North Carolinians were present at the Jan. 6 attack, too — some of them arrested for their role in the day’s violence. The FBI continues to make arrests — more than 725 have been charged up to now, including at least 14 North Carolina residents, the Charlotte Observer reported (subscription needed to view the linked article).
Climate change
Spiritual leaders from three of Christianity’s largest denominations pled on behalf of the environment to the United Nations in September, marking a first-ever joint statement. Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church; Bartholomew I, ecumenical patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church; and Justin Welby, the evangelical Anglican archbishop of Canterbury issued the statement ahead of the 2021 Climate change conference.
During a dialogue on climate action with North Carolina faith leaders in September, U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross urged faith leaders to advocate for climate issues. In North Carolina, some religious leaders like Asheville’s Rev. Scott Hardin-Nieri are using scripture to mobilize climate action, through organizations like Creation Care Alliance, an organization based in western North Carolina which aims to connect the religious with the environment through education, service and advocacy. NC Interfaith Power & Light, a program of the North Carolina Council of Churches, “works on addressing the ecological and justice issues of climate change as a faith-based initiative.” And in October, Charlotte leaders from various faiths demanded the local government and banks commit to sustainability during a protest, and the Interfaith Creation Care of the Triangle called for action to address climate emergency.
In N.C.-specific environment news, Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill last month that would have prevented local governments from banning natural gas in new construction and limited public information about drinking water. In October, he signed a compromise energy bill, ahead of which saw advocacy from faith groups.
Abortion theologies
The Dec. 1 oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization heard by the U.S. Supreme Court emphasized dueling theologies on abortion, which I covered in a previous roundup. As noted there, religion is often used as a reason to oppose abortion, but not all religious people are against abortions or for policies that restrict abortion. A 2014 Pew Research study found that 83% of Jewish Americans say they believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, for example, and another 2021 Pew survey, also reported smaller majorities of Black Protestants (64%), white nonevangelical Protestants (63%) and Catholics (55%) said the same. Of white evangelicals polled, 77% said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
In N.C., Rabbi Eric Solomon, a congregational rabbi in Raleigh, wrote in The News & Observer last May that NC bills would intrude on personal choices about about health and abortion. In October, hundreds marched for women's reproductive rights in downtown Raleigh, including Muslim Women For among other advocates for abortion access, WRAL reported.
N.C. faith-based resettlement groups help Afghan refugees
In mid-August, Taliban insurgents seized control of Afghanistan and captured the capital city of Kabul. In the months after, faith-based resettlement groups and ministries across the country worked to secure passage for Afghan refugees — despite cuts to the refugee program under the Trump administration. In North Carolina, ministries and churches alike worked to raise money and awareness for refugee housing needs in the state — among them Church World Service Raleigh-Durham and World Relief Durham. More than 1,100 Afghan refugees were originally projected to come to N.C.; in September, the N&O reported that three of the Triangle’s agencies would resettle more than half of those refugees.
COVID-19: religious exemptions and faith-based vaccination efforts
Last but not least, COVID-19 certainly made a dent in the news cycle last year, with religious vaccine exemptions circulating widely. Some people did seek religious exemptions, but it seems few workers actually got exemptions, religious or otherwise. In the first edition of this newsletter, I wrote about the effectiveness of faith-based vaccination efforts in N.C. While white evangelicals are one group in the U.S. most likely to be vaccine resistant, Latino Catholics are among the most vaccinated of religious groups.
In September, Gov. Roy Cooper wrote a letter to state faith leaders encouraging them to strengthen community vaccination efforts. In addition to my reporting that found Chatham’s Black and Latino churches largely led the county’s faith-based vaccination, that roundup also highlighted efforts by the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry in Dunn, the Islamic Association of Raleigh and Temple Emanuel in Greensboro.
Honorable mention: Amid continued fallout concerning sex abuse scandal, leadership resignations and racial reckoning at the Southern Baptist Convention, some churches, clergy and members are leaving the denomination all together. The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, which cooperates with the SBC, includes 77 local Baptist associations and about 4,300 churches. N.C.-based reporting on the matter is scant.
Deep Dive: Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Tomorrow is MLK Day, and you’ve likely already seen quotes from Dr. King across social media. Every year, activists and Black people — including Bernice King, King’s daughter and the CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center — warn that many such quotes misconstrue the context of King’s speeches. As a Christian minister and fierce advocate for racial and economic justice, King frequently critiqued liberalism, capitalism and moderate Christianity.
Here’s an excerpt from “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” penned by King in 1963 to eight clergymen to question the role of white moderates and southern faith leaders in the civil rights movement:
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods’; who paternistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection”
This weekend, the Rev. William J. Barber II, activist and pastor from Goldsboro N.C., accepted a Beloved Community Award for Civic Leadership from The King Center. The Beloved Community awards are distributed the weekend before MLK Day each year by the center, which was established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King. King Center officials said Barber’s ongoing social justice efforts are the reason he was chosen to receive the Civic Leadership Award, Goldsboro’s News Argus reported, saying his “work through the Moral Movement and the Poor People’s Campaign is continuing Dr. King’s unfinished work, and for that, The King Center is grateful.” Barber is the president and senior lecturer of the civil rights nonprofit Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. He was also president of the North Carolina conference of the N.C. NAACP from 2005 to 2017.
“Although my name is on this award and it is a lifetime achievement award, it really is a call to keep serving,” Barber said. “It belongs to all the members of Greenleaf Christian Church who have been so supportive, and it belongs to all the people of every race, creed and color I have ever worked with to challenge systemic racism, system poverty, ecological devastation, the denial of health care, the undermining of public education, attacks on the LGBTQ community, the continuation of the prison industrial complex, the war economy, the anti-workers’ rights and anti-labor groups, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism.
“It belongs to my parents who, through our belief in God, taught me to stand for justice; to my family who have accepted the call; to those who helped shape my thinking from my earliest teachers to my postdoctoral mentors; and to all the staff, advisers and faith leaders who have formed our support team through the years. We do this work together. Over the years, I have worked with the poor and low-income people who make up our movement and who are our true leaders.”
Ahead of MLK Day, here are a few good reads exploring King’s faith-based calls for justice:
Reflecting on the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., by Christianity Today
King’s last full year of life: Protest, praise, ire, incarceration, by Religion News Service
Martin Luther King Jr. and Chapel Hill’s Jim Crow past, from the N&O in 2018 (on a visit King paid to Chapel Hill in 1960, during which one of four speeches he gave was at University Baptist Church)
MLK rooted his anti-capitalism in his Christian ministry, by Sojourners
Beyond 'I Have a Dream': Meditations on Martin Luther King Jr.'s Hard Words for White Christians, by Robert P. Jones (founder of Public Religion Research Institute)
In the Triangle, there are several MLK Day commemorative events and service opportunities, compiled here by the N&O or listed at https://trianglemlk.com/. (Due to weather, the annual Triangle Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial March scheduled for Monday was canceled, event organizers said.)
In a Nutshell:
Texas synagogue horror sparks an all too familiar fear (By Rabbi Judy Schindler and Rabbi Asher Knight for the N&O)
From Religion News Service: As rabbi was held hostage, his interfaith clergy colleagues gathered to help end the standoff (features Losben-Ostrov, rabbi at Temple of Israel in Wilmington)
An Open Letter to the North Carolina Conference of Methodist Churches and the Durham Community (By Julia Webb Bowden, pastor at Elizabeth Street United Methodist Church in Durham in response to Pioneers Church, for INDY Week)
Church, nonprofit with zero track record of providing drug treatment awarded $10 million from state to combat opioid crisis, by WRAL. The pastor previously pleaded guilty to at least seven counts of embezzlement.
“It’s Your Breath in Our Lungs”: Sean Feucht’s Praise and Worship Music Protests and the Theological Problem of Pandemic Response in the U.S. (Open access journal article by Duke Divinity’s Adam Perez)
Kate Bowler, author and historian at Duke Divinity school, highlighted in Religion News Services’ “10 up-and-coming faith influencers” 2021 roundup
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