Franklin Graham is a man of contradictions. He’s devoted his life to preventing persecution and helping those who face terrifying violence, yet he sees gay Boy Scouts as a major threat to children. His mission field knows no borders, but he’s proposed a total ban on Muslims entering the United States. He claims to hate politics, yet maintains a prolific, politicized Facebook page. And when he looks at Donald Trump, he sees God at work in the White House, not a president who would fire an FBI director while under investigation, brag about groping women, and give away state secrets over small talk.

The Deep South is the nation’s most religious region and the least open to legalized cannabis for medical or recreational use. To those who say marijuana is a sin, though, devout Christians are using the Bible to argue that it's God’s “perfect medicine” ................

Genesis 1:29, which Decker formed in 2010, is named after a Bible verse that’s oft-repeated by Christians in favor of medical marijuana: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” To Decker, a nondenominational Christian who follows the Bible’s verses in a literal way, it means that cannabis is “meant to be eaten, whether in oil, whether in an edible,” she said..........

But to bring cannabis to the region of the US where states are deeply red and religious and where pot is both a social taboo and a ticket to jail, Decker and others are harnessing their devotion to their faiths to evangelize for it.

When Sarah Bessey started blogging in 2005, she saw it as a way to keep in touch with friends and family.....

In many places, blogging seems to have become all about personal branding. At the same time, Bessey’s blog has brought her speaking engagements and inspired two books — “Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women” and “Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith” — with a third in the works. Bessey now has nearly 43,000 followers on Twitter and about 38,000 on Facebook.................

For many Christian women, including racial minorities, and others whose voices traditionally have not been heard by or represented in institutional churches, the internet has created new platforms to teach, preach and connect.

Human rights advocate and former President Jimmy Carter revealed Monday evening that in last year's Democratic primary he opted to buck the establishment and vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
During a conversation between the two at Carter's Atlanta-based peace and human rights organization, The Carter Center, the subject of corporate money in politics and low voter turnout spurred a campaign-style riff from Sanders.
"In many ways," he said, "Donald Trump did not win the election, the Democratic Party lost the election. We've got to revitalize the Democratic Party, make it a grassroots party."

(RNS) I was sitting in a restaurant when I learned that the police officers who killed Alton Sterling would not be charged with a federal crime. The banner that came across my iPhone read, “Justice Department official criticizes officers tactics, but says officer did not act unreasonably.”
At that moment, I knew that my news app was saying something very true about our country: We don’t believe it is unreasonable to treat black people the way Alton Sterling was treated.

That was true in 1619 and it is true today.

In America we do not see racism as unreasonable.