What Would Reopening Churches Look Like?
What Would Reopening Churches Look Like?
Prior to Easter Sunday, only 3% of Americans reported plans to attend religious services in person. Several weeks later, the Center for American Progress looks at what reopening houses of worship to the public would look like. “Reopening houses of worship will need to be a gradual process between now and the lifting of all restrictions once herd immunity is achieved through mass vaccination. Faith communities must continue to follow evidence-based public health guidance, continuing to care for their members in alternative ways, and not be distracted by distortions of religious freedom claims that provide a license to spread the virus,” write Maggie Siddiqi and Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons.
Glimmer of Sports Appears on American Television
For the first time since the 1880s, there were no MLB games played in April. As representatives for MLB scrambled to put together a plan to save the 2020 season, thousands of miles away, the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) was beginning its season. ESPN, aware of the void Americans now have as leagues have been postponed or canceled, will broadcast several KBO games a week beginning 12:55am and 5:55 am ET. In 2016, PRRI found that 24% of Americans said that sports were their favorite thing to watch on TV.
Religious ‘Never Trumpers’ Face Different Challenges
According to Francis Wilkinson in Bloomberg, members of the ‘Never Trump’ movement who are also religious leaders face a specific set of challenges. Recent PRRI data shows that Trump’s favorability rating among white evangelical Protestants has fallen from 77% in March to 66% in April. PRRI CEO and founder Robert P. Jones tells Wilkinson that those still following Trump were motivated “more on fears about demographic change and white Christian displacement than the traditional culture war issues of same-sex marriage and abortion.” According to Wilkinson, there are several leaders, such as Rick Warren, who stay true to their beliefs without following Trump as the man most able to represent those beliefs. “Warren offers a model of how to be deeply conservative without succumbing to the peculiar degradations of Trumpism,” Wilkinson writes.
Charles M. Blow Pens Moving Opinion Piece ‘The Killing of Ahmaud Arbery’
In 2018, PRRI found that 61% of Americans believe that white people have certain advantages in society based on the color of their skin. The same survey found that 73% of Americans said that black people face a lot of discrimination, a notable increase from 58% one year prior, 91% of black Americans say the same. In February, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was jogging not far from his home when he was shot and killed by two white men who chased him in a pickup truck because they had convinced themselves he was a burglar who had recently terrorized the neighborhood. His death was caught on video and recently surfaced on the internet. “The most infuriating part of most of the cases in which unarmed black men are killed, either by the police or vigilantes, is the lack of arrest, prosecution or conviction. It is not any suggestion that the killers were right, morally, but rather that in most cases it could be reasonably argued that the killings were legal,” writes Charles M. Blow in The New York Times. Three months after Arbery’s death, the father and son who chased and murdered him have not been charged with a crime.
Dr. Melissa Deckman Talks Generation Z In The New York Times
PRRI Board of Directors Chair Melissa Deckman was recently quoted in The New York Times in a piece about how young generations of Republicans are drawn to the party’s stance on reproductive health. Maggie Astor looks at the issues that unite and divide young Republicans and Democrats. Deckman studies Generation Z, and says that they are driven “more by what they are against than what they support.“ In focus groups with young people, Deckman notes a strong “antagonism among Gen Z Republicans for Democratic politicians, ‘identity’ politics and what they view as extremism on the left.”
In 2018, PRRI found that 61% of Americans believe that white people have certain advantages in society based on the color of their skin. The same survey found that 73% of Americans said that black people face a lot of discrimination, a notable increase from 58% one year prior, 91% of black Americans say the same. In February, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was jogging not far from his home when he was shot and killed by two white men who chased him in a pickup truck because they had convinced themselves he was a burglar who had recently terrorized the neighborhood. His death was caught on video and recently surfaced on the internet. “The most infuriating part of most of the cases in which unarmed black men are killed, either by the police or vigilantes, is the lack of arrest, prosecution or conviction. It is not any suggestion that the killers were right, morally, but rather that in most cases it could be reasonably argued that the killings were legal,” writes Charles M. Blow in The New York Times. Three months after Arbery’s death, the father and son who chased and murdered him have not been charged with a crime.