The Obama administration may soften some sanctions against the Sudan government, the Los Angeles Timesreports.
When journalist Tim Alberta attended his father’s funeral, he expected people to speak words of comfort. What he didn’t expect was a confrontation. And yet, just a short walk away from the casket, someone approached a grieving Alberta to critique his writing on Trumpism.
On a new episode of The Russell Moore Show, Moore welcomes Alberta, a writer for The Atlantic and the author of The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism to discuss how American culture has reached the point where people feel compelled to argue politics at all times. Alberta and Moore talk about the ways that politics have invaded the church in recent years. He and Moore talk about what fear has done to the state of evangelicalism, the rise of secularism, and the differences in conversations between white and multiethnic congregations. They consider ways that demographics affect political and religious perspectives, how pastors have engaged QAnon, and the variances in generational perspectives on American politics.
Tune in for a conversation that sheds light on America’s history and ponders what its future could be.
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism by Tim Alberta
Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America? by Cal Thomas
“The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth” by Randall Balmer
“Russell Moore Wants Us To Be Strange (But Not Crazy)” on the Good Faith podcast
The “Against Trump” issue of National Review
High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley
Do you have a question for Russell Moore? Send it to questions@russellmoore.com.
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President Obama’s envoy to Sudan, J. Scott Gration, said that the Khartoum government has shown a willingness to allow aid to be delivered to the region.
The government expelled several humanitarian groups earlier this year after an international court accused Sudan’s president of war crimes in Darfur.
“We see that there is a spirit of cooperation and an attitude of wanting to help,” Gration said. … “There’s ways that we can roll back these sanctions in a way that allows us to lift the restrictions we need, such that the government continues to be sanctioned and military equipment continues to be sanctioned,” he said.
The new approach has sparked fierce debate among Obama’s advisors and is causing consternation among some of his strongest supporters, who had expected the president to toughen U.S. policy toward a government that he had sharply criticized as untrustworthy during last year’s presidential campaign.
The article states that the International Criminal Court estimates that about 135,000 people have been killed or died from disease and starvation, and more than 2.5 million people remain displaced in Darfur.
Last week, Gration told Congress that he did not think there was any evidence to continually mark Sudan as a sponsor of terrorism. The Washington Timesoutlines the debate Gration has with U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice.
Mr. Gration has taken a softer line than Ms. Rice toward the regime headed by Sudanese President Omar Bashir, going so far last month as to say that the genocide against the people of Darfur was over and that the world was now dealing with the remnants of the killings.
Ms. Rice has continued to call the situation in Darfur genocide, a label first applied to the situation there by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in 2004 at the height of a campaign against farmers in Darfur by Sudan-government backed fighters known as Janjaweed.
Image: President Obama’s March 31 remarks after meeting with Sudan special envoy Scott Gration, courtesy of the White House.
