The Weekly is a highlight of the work the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is doing to strengthen you and our churches for God’s glory.

Explainer: What you should know about the George Floyd protests and riots

What just happened?

An ongoing series of protests began on May 26, 2020, in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. The inciting event was the homicide of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, by multiple officers with the Minneapolis Police Department, most notably Derek Chauvin, the officer who pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Since then, the events in response to police brutality, protests and at times riots, have spread throughout the United States and to several countries around the globe.

What is the difference between a protest and a riot?

Protests are public events in which citizens express their disagreement, disapproval, or opposition. Riots are violent disturbances of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together and acting with a common intent. Rioting includes a range of criminal behavior, including arson, looting, and vandalism.

Protests are an important political activity and are protected by the First Amendment. The right to assemble for protest has been a crucial legal and cultural protection for groups seeking to express their views, like pleading for racial justice, or protecting the rights of the unborn and promoting religious liberty.

This Week at the ERLC

• Chelsea Patterson Sobolik hosted a webinar about women, work, and rest.
   
• Beautifully Distinct, edited by Trillia Newbell, releases this week. Chelsea Patterson Sobolik and Lindsay Nicolet also contributed to the book.
   
• Russell Moore gave an update on the ERLC at SBC Advance. He also appeared Sunday on CNN for a special segment to honor and remember the victims of COVID-19.
   
• Jason Thacker was on The World and Everything in It talking about President Trump’s battle with Twitter over free speech.

Helpful Resources On COVID-19

• Keep up with the ERLC’s latest resources on coronavirus at ERLC.com/COVID19
   
• Keep up with the latest CDC news and resources at coronavirus.gov
   
• From The White House | Coronavirus Guidelines for All Americans

What You Need to Read

• Brad Walker with A prayer of help and lament during racial injustice and riots

Over this past year, God has directed me to study his Word by tracing the theme of sorrow and lament. Lament literally means “an expression of grief or sorrow” and is a prayer in the form of a complaint against God. It is an acknowledgement of one’s bleak situation, desperation for deliverance, and an appeal to the very character of God. A lament gives believers the rhetorical tools to grieve biblically, which leads to worship and the comfort of our Heavenly Father.

• Daniel Patterson with How ministry is continuing during COVID-19: Good news from SBC churches

At the ERLC, we have the privilege to be in conversation with churches every day. Often, we receive front-row seats to the stories of God’s grace in the lives of local congregations. We get to hear and rejoice with churches who are not only surviving but seeing God move in new and exciting ways. It may be that you’re in a place where you feel weary or empty, uncertain if bad news is lurking around the next corner. It may be that it could be good for your soul to see how God is moving in the midst of this time.

• Lindsay Nicolet with How can I teach my kids about race and racial unity? A roundtable discussion

Timothy Paul Jones: One word that I try to work into every conversation with my children about race and ethnicity is beauty. The Apostle John’s description of a glorious multitude from “every nation, tribe, people, and language” is embedded in a text that is filled with beauty and worship (Rev. 7:9). That’s where I want these conversations grounded. I don’t want my children merely to accept people from other races; I want them to seek and see the divinely embedded beauty in every ethnicity and hue of melanin.

News From Capitol Hill

To call the events of this week in Washington, D.C., difficult would be to understate the severity of the injustice thousands of our fellow Americans are shining a light on through protest. The people protesting in American cities both big and small are an inspiration, and their message is an exhortation that must be listened to personally and considered systematically.

The ERLC is deeply grieved by racism and the brutality of police and others displayed in the horrific murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many other African Americans throughout the history of the United States. 

There is much work to be done, but there is even more that needs to be heard if our nation is to heal. So we will continue to listen and engage these events and this critical conversation.

One such event that deserves our engagement as advocates for human dignity and religious liberty was President Trump’s demonstration with a Bible outside St. John's Episcopal Church just north of Lafayette Square and the White House. For the visit to occur, peaceful protestors and clergy were cleared from the park and church property by law enforcement using gas irritants, rubber projectiles, and other shows of force. Here’s ERLC president Russell Moore on these events:

“I am brokenhearted and alarmed by all of this. For me, the Bible is the Word of the living God, and should be treated with reverence and awe.”

“More important than politics and optics is that all of us should be listening to what the Bible says—about the preciousness of human life, about the sins of racism and injustice, about the need for safety and calm and justice in the civil arena, all of it. The murder of African-American citizens, who bear the image of God, is morally wrong. Violence against others and destruction of others’ property is morally wrong. Pelting people with rubber bullets and spraying them with tear gas for peacefully protesting is morally wrong. What we need right now is moral leadership—from all of us, in the churches, in the police departments, in the courts, and in the White House. The Bible tells us so. So do our own consciences.”

“I pray that the president, and every other elected official, would take this moment to seek to unify the nation, to remind us of the principles that bind us together as a people, and to lead us to seek justice and love rather than more injustice and more hatred. The American Republic is in grave crisis, and we have a long road ahead of us. Civil religion cannot get us out of this, and social-media politics surely can’t. We will need consciences made alive by the Spirit of God, and determined to do what is right. That is a tall order in a cynical and divided time, but I believe God has done, many times, what seemed impossible at the moment.”

While so much has changed since last Friday when this conversation was recorded, on our last episode of Capitol Conversations, Moore joined Jeff Pickering, Chelsea Patterson Sobolik, and Travis Wussow and shared helpful and practical wisdom for those who long to see racial justice in America.

Featured Podcasts

From The Public Square

President Trump Issues Executive Order On International Religious Freedom
Howard Friedman, Religion Clause

Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of State (Secretary) shall, in consultation with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), develop a plan to prioritize international religious freedom in the planning and implementation of United States foreign policy and in the foreign assistance programs of the Department of State and USAID.

US: Transgender sports inclusion violates others’ rights
Pat Eaton-Robb, Associated Press

Connecticut’s policy allowing transgender girls to compete as girls in high school sports violates the civil rights of athletes who have always identified as female, the U.S. Education Department has determined in a decision that could force the state to change course to keep federal funding and influence others to do the same.

Religious Liberty in a Hostile Age
Mark David Hall, Law & Liberty

Since the mid-20th century, advocates have had a tendency to defend religious liberty in terms of indifference and subjectivism.

Key Challenges to the Freedom of Religious Institutions in India
K.A. Robertson, Providence

India, the world’s largest democracy, is struggling to balance the rights and desires of its majority and minority populations. Such a challenge is common among all diverse democracies.