This is the Black Christian News Network Podcast for Monday, January 23, 2017.
1. According to EEW Magazine News, a million people worldwide participated in the Women’s March the day after the inauguration of US President Donald Trump in defense of women’s rights and gender equity. Even though pro-life groups were banned from joining in, this has not silenced the voices of those who will join the March for Life in downtown Atlanta Monday. Thousands of pro-life supporters are expected to take part in the annual event, sponsored by Georgia Right to Life. Georgia Right to Life Executive Director Zemmie Fleck, “Our society continues to show an almost total disregard for the value of human life. We’ve lost over 60 million children to abortion and there’s a growing lack of compassion for the elderly, the disabled, and the infirm.”
2. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Bishop Gary Oliver told a crowded New Birth Missionary Baptist Church on Sunday that Bishop Eddie Long’s legacy will live on and urged the congregation to “stay home” at New Birth. Bishop Gary Oliver, one of Long’s “spiritual sons” and pastor of Tabernacle of Praise church in Fort Worth, Texas, told a packed church on the first Sunday after Long’s death, “Just because our leader died doesn’t mean we died.” The charismatic Long died last Sunday after a battle against an aggressive form of cancer. He was 63.
3. According to EEW Magazine News, Wesley Seminary at Indiana Wesleyan University has hired Joy J. Moore, Ph.D., to join the faculty as an associate professor of homiletics and Christian ministry. Moore will begin her duties at Wesley Seminary on July 1, 2017. Moore, who is an ordained Elder in the West Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church, was the founding associate dean of the William E. Pannell Center for African American Church Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, where she also served as an assistant professor of preaching since 2012. Prior to that, Moore served as associate dean for Black Church Studies and Church Relations at Duke University, in Durham, N.C., where she also was a visiting professor of preaching.
4. According to the Chicago Tribune, shootings and homicides in Chicago are higher than this time last January, a month that marked the deadliest start to a year in the city in nearly two decades. As of early Monday, at least 228 people were shot in Chicago so far this year, a 5.5 percent increase from the same time last year. There have been at least 42 homicides, up 23.5 percent from the same period in 2016. Last January closed with 50 homicides, the most for that month in the city in at least 16 years, according to police statistics. The year ended with 783 homicides, the most since 1996, according to data collected by the Tribune.
5. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Stacey Dash’s sporadic career as a Fox News pundit is over after the network declined to renew her contract. The sometime actress and author, an early and vocal Trump supporter, made her Fox News debut in 2014 but hasn’t been seen on air since last September and a spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter that the decision to not renew was taken last fall. However, as of Sunday, Dash’s Twitter profile still listed her role as a Fox News contributor.
6 . According to the Wrap, Chrisette Michele isn’t letting the criticism she’s received over performing at Donald Trump’s post-inauguration concert silence or intimidate her. Michele, who took substantial heat after she agreed to perform at one of the inaugural balls on Friday for the new president, on Monday released a spoken-word track, “No Political Genius,” as a seeming response to the criticism. The track, which is the first release from a planned album of the same name, begins, “I am the black song Spike Lee won’t sing/I am the black voice inauguration bells ring.” That’s an apparent reference to Lee’s declaration that he wouldn’t be using Michele’s music in his upcoming Netflix adaptation of “She’s Gotta Have It,” after hearing that Michele would perform as part of Trump’s inauguration.
7. According to Reuters, the New England Patriots scored the first 19 points of the second half to turn a tight contest into a romp as they beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 36-17 on Sunday to set up a Super Bowl clash against the high-scoring Atlanta Falcons. The American Football Conference (AFC) Championship triumph propelled the Patriots to a record ninth trip to the Super Bowl, while Atlanta walloped the Green Bay Packers 44-21 in the NFC Championship game earlier on Sunday to earn a shot at their first league title in their Super showdown in Houston on Feb. 5.
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