The first Jewish statewide elected official in NC announces bid for governor
Welcome to the 18th edition of North Carolina Religion Roundup: the race for governor, vandalism of a Charlotte temple, and more.
Happy Monday! Thanks for reading the 18th 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. It’s been a while since my last edition – I was busy visiting my boyfriend’s family in Ecuador for three weeks, and then adjusting back to work and school again. That said, there’s a lot of religion news from the last month to catch up on. Happy reading! And I hope your 2023 is starting well.
As always, 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. Thanks for following along.
This week:
In a Nutshell, I highlight some NC religion stories from the last month. There’s a lot of them – Josh Stein’s run for governor, more updates in the United Methodist Church, the MLK Jr. prayer breakfast, and more.
And in What I’m Reading, I feature a radio episode about purity culture from WUNC’s Embodied.
In a Nutshell:
Josh Stein Makes His Case, the Assembly
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced last Wednesday that he is entering the 2024 governor's race. The Assembly featured a write-up on Stein’s bid, noting that Stein “has been the presumptive Democratic successor for term-limited Roy Cooper for months, if not years.”
Stein is focused on his likely opponent, the Assembly report says, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the state’s first African American lieutenant governor who has all but announced a run for governor as the Republican nomination.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein stands with the recipients of the Dogwood award at Asheville-Buncombe Technical College on Tuesday, January 17. (Mike Belleme for The Assembly)
Where does religion fit into this?
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 last month with Assembly writer Tim Funk about Robinson’s theology.) And as the Assembly pointed out in its newsletter last week, Stein is the first Jewish statewide elected official in NC, and would be the first Jewish governor. And Robinson has made anti-semitic remarks in the past, among his many controversial statements.
Stein’s campaign video highlights the contrasting politics between the two, including a religious reference:
“Do the voters want someone who fights culture wars, or someone who fights for them?” Stein said. “Someone who thinks … the climate crisis isn’t real, versus someone who wants to prepare for the future. Someone who wants to tell women when they’ll be pregnant, versus somebody who believes and will defend people’s personal freedoms and reproductive healthcare. Someone who believes homosexuality is filth, versus somebody who believes that we’re all children of God?”
After such an early campaign announcement, it will be interesting to see how the rest of the campaign unfolds, and what role religion plays in it. More on that to come in future editions.
Hundreds convene in Durham for prayer breakfast honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the News & Observer
Hundreds gathered in Durham last Monday morning for the 43rd Triangle Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Prayer Breakfast, the N&O reported, “a longstanding Triangle tradition, (that) has often attracted the state’s most prominent politicians, faith leaders and activists.” This year’s event focused on nonviolence. “This is our hope and prayer for the Triangle and beyond: Not one life will be lost on our watch,” said the Rev. William Lucas of Durham’s First Chronicles Community Church. “We got the assignment from Dr. King.” Shakil Ahmed Ameer, from the Islamic Association of Cary, and Rabbi Matthew V. Soffer, from Durham’s Judea Reform Congregation, also led prayers for justice and peace.
CAIR Expresses Solidarity with Sikh Community After Vandals Target Charlotte, N.C., Temple, CAIR
Last week, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, expressed solidarity with the Sikh community in North Carolina and nationwide following vandalism targeting a Charlotte temple. CAIR also called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for the attacks. From the statement:
Vandals shattered windows, and cameras and lights of Gurdwara Sahib Khalsa Darbar several times over the last few months. No arrests have been made and police have not said if incidents are being investigated as possible hate crimes. “Whenever a house of worship is targeted, law enforcement authorities have a duty to investigate a possible bias motive for the attacks,” said CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell. “We stand in solidarity with the Sikh community as it is forced to deal with these troubling incidents.”
Hanukkah 2022: Important dates, how it’s celebrated and local events to attend, the N&O
Hanukkah, known as the Festival of Lights, is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays. This year, it overlapped with the Christmas season. Though Hanukkah is over, I thought this newsletter should include information about the holiday, including how its celebrated, its history, local events that took place. Jewish for Good estimates there are about 11,000 Jewish individuals, or over 4,000 Jewish households, across Orange, Orange, Wake and Chatham counties.
Two antisemitic messages were found in central North Carolina ahead of Hanukkah, the N&O also reported. “It is especially indignant that anyone would engage in antisemitism on the first night of Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday that uses the light of the candle to bring brightness in to our community,” said Dov Wilker, regional director of the American Jewish Committee. “The holiday of Hanukkah reminds us of the resilience of the Jewish people as well as the belief that miracles can still happen. I hope that the local law enforcement will do all that they can, to bring these perpetrators to justice.”
AND, NC Rabbi: Shine a light against hate, display a menorah for all to see, the Charlotte Observer. “The public display of the Hanukkah menorah is a kind of prayer for the America we yearn to see,” writes Rabbi Eric Solomon, spiritual leader of Beth Meyer Synagogue in Raleigh, and the founding co-chair of the North Carolina Jewish Clergy Association. “One in which every faith and background feels safe to put their identities in the window.”
Rev. William Barber to lead new center at Yale Divinity School, NC Policy Watch
Rev. William Barber, former head of the N.C. NAACP, will lead a new center at the Yale Divinity School, he announced on Twitter last month, saying it will “prepare a new generation of moral leaders to be active participants in creating a just society.” Barber plans to step down from his leadership of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, which he has led for 30 years. “I’ve been a pastor & moral activist for 35 yrs,” Barber wrote in a thread of posts. “I want to share what I’ve learned & lead research on the deep connection between theology & just policies.”
35 Black churches to receive total of $4 million for preservation work, Religion News Service
Nearly three dozen historic Black religious sites will receive a $4 million infusion of funding to help them with renovations and preservation of their buildings across the country. The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund announced on Jan. 16 that 35 churches – including Wilmington’s St. Stephen African Methodist Episcopal Church – are the recipients of the first round of its $20 million Preserving Black Churches grants, funded through the Lilly Endowment.
Developing Culturally Concordant Palliative Care for Hindu Patients and Families, Onc Live
Rushil V. Patel, MD, is a third year Hematology/Oncology Fellow at Levine Cancer Institute, Atrium Health, in Charlotte, is working to improve end-of-life care for Hindu patients and their families. As as a Hindu physician born and raised in the U.S., Patel writes that he has “had the privilege of caring for patients from diverse cultures and have witnessed firsthand how their values and beliefs influence how they ascribe meaning to their illness, how they prefer to receive information, and how they make decisions.” Without such understanding, he argues, care for patients can suffer. He hopes to use his award-winning research to improve palliative care for Hindus in the U.S., which is projected to have the largest Hindu population outside of South Asia by 2050.
At March for Life, Robinson says he wants NC to be a destination for life, not abortion, the N&O
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was the keynote speaker at North Carolina Right to Life’s 25th annual Rally and March for Life on Jan. 14, where about 1,000 people attended, the N&O reported. Many attendees were from Catholic churches, the N&O reported, with some marchers holding signs with religious phrases or references. Robinson, the likely Republican frontrunner for the 2024 governor’s race, said that North Carolina “can be a leader in the charge to stand up for life and to ensure people don’t go to the abortion clinics — not because there’s a law — but simply because they don’t want to. Because North Carolina is a place that makes life worth living, and life worth giving.”
World's first global Youth Interfaith Fellowship on climate change launches at Duke University Divinity School in partnership with Climate NGO, Faith For Our Planet
Faith For Our Planet (FFOP), a global interfaith coalition, launched the world's first ever global Youth Interfaith Program on climate change at Duke University Divinity School last week. Thirty youth leaders from 20 countries were selected out of nearly 5,000 applications, and include elected representatives, faith leaders, eco-activists, climate entrepreneurs, sustainability experts, researchers, and policy advocates. "We hope this Fellowship will work together to carry out faith-based climate action initiatives in all corners of the world, indicating the fellowship's unifying power, crucial at a time of an unprecedented planetary crisis,” said Dr. Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Chairman of FFOP.
‘In God’s hands’: Despite threats, Merry Oaks community persists, the Chatham News + Record
Under original roadway plans from N.C. Dept. of Transportation (NCDOT), Merry Oaks Baptist Church is set to be taken to make way for a highway into the new VinFast facility, along with 27 homes and five businesses. NCDOT heard public comments from more than 250 Chatham residents during meetings in August, and has since made some adjustments to the plan, but not enough to avoid the relocation of Merry Oaks, which has existed since 1888.
Christian broadcasting network towers vandalized, the Biblical Recorder
The founder/CEO of a North Carolina-based Christian broadcasting company reported in a Jan. 10 Facebook post that several of the company’s towers in Winston Salem had been destroyed by an unknown party, in less than three weeks. “Today has been one of the toughest days of my broadcasting life,” wrote Stu Epperson, Jr., of Truth Network. “…Criminal investigation is underway.” In his Facebook post, Epperson, Jr. asked for readers to pray “for the person responsible to come to faith in Christ, for law enforcement and for our team as the rush to get us back on the air.”
Methodist church apologizes for controversial Durham church, the N&O
In a previous roundup, I included coverage on Pioneers Church, a church plant in downtown Durham that was criticized by local residents due to language in Pioneers’ church name and mission statements, and the church’s non-affirming stance for LGBTQ+ members. The church, originally affiliated with the United Methodist Church, disaffiliated with the denomination last summer. Last month, the N&O reported, the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church sent a letter to neighbors in the Geer Street area, formally apologizing for planting a non-affirming church in the middle of a city that held North Carolina’s very first pride event and a rich history of protest. Read more from that letter here. (You can also read the N&O’s coverage on efforts by the N.C. Conference of the United Methodist Church to serve the members of disaffiliated churches who didn’t want to leave.)
André Leon Talley’s personal collection is up for auction. How an NC church will benefit, the N&O
A collection of rare art, accessories and designer clothing belonging to the late André Leon Talley will be auctioned off later this month with part of the proceeds going to his childhood church in Durham. The New York City auction house said proceeds will be split between Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, a historically Black church in Durham that Talley attended as a child, and the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, one of the oldest African-American churches in the U.S. Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation and a friend of Talley’s, told The New York Times: “Basically what André did was monetize his fashion assets to secure the financial sustainability of two very important Black institutions of faith.”
~What I’m reading ~
Purified Live: Stories of Living Through Purity Culture, WUNC’s “Embodied”
This month, I’m actually ~listening~ to “Purified Live: Stories of Living Through Purity Culture,” an event hosted last fall by Embodied, WUNC's weekly, live talk show on health, sex, and relationships. At that October event, hundreds of listeners gathered at the Hayti Heritage Center for Embodied’s first in-person event which discussed life beyond evangelical purity culture. Purified Live, produced in partnership with The Monti, featured five storytellers, “each with a distinct perspective on the lasting impact of the abstinence pledge and the experience of reclaiming their bodies and sexuality.” Last month, Embodied published the five stories from that evening, now adapted for radio. Here’s more on the speakers, from WUNC:
Indhira Udofia, a student in the joint program of social work at UNC Greensboro and North Carolina A&T, opens the show with her experience of embracing her queerness after participating in True Love Waits. Reverend Solomon Missouri, senior pastor at Invitation AME Zion Church, shares how purity culture presents a double standard when it comes to the Christian mandate to care for the sick. Writer and speaker Angie Hong expands on an essay she wrote for The Atlantic about the connection between purity culture and the March 2021 spa shootings in Atlanta.
In the second half of the show, poet and educator Ashley Lumpkin tells a story about “the talk” she didn’t have with her parents, and Ryan Clark of “Touch Podcast” shares what it’s been like to work through the harms of purity culture in the context of his marriage.
Embodied does a great job of exploring intimate topics from a variety of viewpoints, and this episode is no exception. Regardless of your theologies or opinions on purity or purity culture, I think there’s something for all of us to hear in this episode. If you end up giving it a listen, I’d love to hear what resonated, challenged, disturbed, or stuck with you.
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