Now

What do you think of mail-in voting?

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Thursday requiring that a mail-in ballot be sent to every registered voter in the state for the presidential election in November.

Newsom in May ordered that county elections officials send every voter a mail-in ballot for the November election, citing the health threats of voting in person during the coronavirus pandemic, but that order was met with legal challenges from the California Republican Party and others. Critics argued that the Democratic governor’s order would send ballots to voters listed as “inactive” and that Newsom had exceeded his authority in not consulting the legislature.

Thursday’s bill, Assembly Bill 860, which was approved earlier in the day by the state Assembly in a 63-to-3 vote, establishes Newsom’s order as law. Only six members, all Republicans, opposed the bill. Republicans who voted for the bill noted that it would not require sending ballots to inactive voters.

“No one should have to risk their health and possibly their life to exercise their constitutional right to vote,” said Assemblyman Marc Berman, a Menlo Park Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors. “In the midst of a deadly health pandemic, giving all California voters the opportunity to vote from the safety of their own home is the responsible thing to do.”

State law requires that in-person voting remain available.

The bill also extends the window for mail ballots arriving after Election Day to be counted from three days after the election to 17 days, a change that Republican National Committee member Harmeet Dhillon criticized as “bizarre.”

“There is a lot of opportunity for mischief,” Dhillon said of the extended 17-day period. “There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty.”

Democrats have pushed for voting by mail to protect voters from having to leave their homes to vote, possibly exposing themselves to the coronavirus. More than a dozen states either delayed their primary elections or expanded voting by mail as the pandemic continued.

Mail ballots have resulted in several recent instances of fraud, including the coercion of elderly voters in Texas and a ballot-harvesting scheme in North Carolina during the 2018 midterms that caused GOP congressional candidate Mark Harris’s victory to be voided. In California, cases have cropped up in which dozens of ballots were sent to the same person, or a ballot was sent to an undocumented immigrant who had never registered to vote.

President Trump has opposed the widespread use of mail-in ballots, saying it is a breeding ground for voter fraud and “puts the election at risk.”

Please follow Aimee Byrd at her new nest:

It does make me go back to those first questions I had when going more public in writing a blog and my first book. Do I still want to do this? And who in the world am I to be writing and speaking anyway? The opportunities I've been given in speaking, podcasting, and writing in different venues as I explore what it means to be a disciple of Christ in his church have expanded my insight into the blessings of Christ and the challenges his people face. This matters to me. So, for now I continue to write. But in the back of my mind I’m wondering if opening that modern day speakeasy I’ve been talking about may be easier. In the meantime, I am going back to my independent blogging days over at aimeebyrd.com.

Interview question with Aimee at CT:

Your skeptics will cry foul and say, “Isn’t this just a complementarian problem, or at least a problem that’s exacerbated by complementarian thinking?”

I’m critiquing a complementarian movement, so there is some weight to that argument. But this is a problem for all of us. We don’t fully grasp the beauty of our creation as men and women. Do we view one another as brothers and sisters who are called to promote one another’s holiness? Do we see the spirit of reciprocity that comes across in Scripture? Do we see that beautiful picture that Paul gives us in Romans 16, with all its exhortations to greet friends and co-laborers in the gospel? He’s giving a beautiful picture of the theology he teaches, where both men and women serve under the ministry.

We are all responsible for communicating God’s Word to each other as disciples. In Romans 16, we see Paul passing the baton to Phoebe; he authorizes her to deliver his letter to the Romans. He relies on her to communicate the meaning of that letter, which he knew would generate many questions. We have the baton in our hands, as well, to share God’s Word with one another. That’s a great and beautiful responsibility.

Pastors – how’s it going during the pandemic – and here’s Jay Kim:

Jay Kim, oversees teaching and leadership at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California:

Like most churches in America, and so many around the world, our leadership team has been in constant conversation these past couple of weeks, as information and mandated protocols have changed with increasing speed. Much of our discussion has focused on shifting the way we gather (or, currently, do not gather)—both the church at large and our team of staff and volunteers. While being physically separated is a tremendous loss, adhering to government directives and, more crucially, serving the common good out of love for neighbor makes this the wise and responsible choice.

So online we go, for now. While it is the right decision, it comes at a series of great costs. The most important is the loss of embodied presence, but there is another pragmatic cost that we, like so many church leaders today, are navigating: the expected decline in financial giving. Our leadership team is attempting to address the possibility head on, transparently and unapologetically. We’re leaning into it as a chance to exemplify the sort of courage and faith we long to see in the everyday lives of our people and ourselves.

Along these lines, we’ve delivered distinct invitations to two types of people in our church. First, we’re inviting those whose financial situations are not being adversely affected to continue giving faithfully and generously in the coming weeks and months. We’re asking those with financial means to prayerfully consider giving above and beyond in this next season. Doing so will be vital to moving the mission of our church forward, now and in the future. We know it will be an act of courage and faith in a time like this.

Second, we’re asking those who are experiencing (or will soon experience) severe financial hardship—hourly wage workers who are losing income, those living paycheck to paycheck, single parents dealing with the challenges of childcare, and others—to share specific needs with us via a simple online form so we can rally around them. We are committing to financially support those in need during a time of fiscal uncertainty as a church. This, too, is a significant risk requiring courage and faith.

More than ingenuity, creativity, or technological prowess, I hope and pray the story people tell of the church during this strange time will be the story of courage and faith.

Prayer, by Blake Adams:

Howdoes one pray, exactly? I recall Sunday school lessons on what to pray (e.g., the ACTS model: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) but nothing on how. The method passed down to me is best expressed by paraphrasing Ernest Hemingway’s method for writing novels: There is nothing to prayer. All you do is sit down in a closet and bleed. Prayer was just “talking to God.” You had concerns, worries, sins, whatever, and you brought them forward. Nothing to it. How this was done was of no consequence. This did not prevent us from following certain conventions—eyes closed, hands clasped, head bowed—but nobody seemed to know why we prayed this way instead of some other way.

From the books leering in columns in my closet-room, I plucked out St. Benedict’s Rule and began to read. An impulsive starter of books, I managed to finish this one. I immediately read it a second time, a third, a fourth—each time with greater appetite. The subject of ancient Christian prayer receives so little attention in both academy and seminary that I was forced to go directly to the primary sources to learn about it. (The notable exception is Gabriel Bunge’s Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition, a work to which this essay can add nothing.) I devoured the writings of Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa. I was in an ideal state to receive instruction. The church fathers taught me how to pray all over again, but I do not pray now as I did before—nor would I want to.

The life of prayer, as it has been described by the unknown writer of The Way of the Pilgrim, is like “a wheel of a machine that has been given a push and then the machine works by itself; then the wheel needs only to be oiled and nudged for the machine to keep working.” The injunction is to begin, and then we will learn to pray by praying. The Spirit will teach us. But the question remains: In our frail condition, how to begin?

Florida is spiking:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida reported another 3,822 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, breaking the one-day record of 3,207 set just 24 hours earlier.

Florida is now up to 89,748 total confirmed cases and 3,104 deaths associated with COVID-19, according to the latest data released by the health department.

There were 43 new coronavirus-related deaths reported Friday morning across the state, including five in Miami-Dade County, two in Broward and 14 in Palm Beach County.

The 3,822 new cases in one day is a 19% jump from what had been the record a day earlier, and it’s more than double what had been the record for single-day cases just a week ago (1,902).

In the past day, Miami-Dade County’s confirmed cases increased by 522 to 24,376. The county now has 864 deaths, the highest total in the state.

Broward’s cases increased by 337 to 10,448. The county’s death toll is now at 367.

Palm Beach County’s cases increased by 262 to 10,116, with the death toll at 464.

Monroe County now has 150 cases (an increase of four overnight) and four confirmed deaths.

Florida has confirmed at least 12,774 coronavirus-related hospitalizations since the start of the outbreak.

Juneteenth:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A traditional day of celebration turned into one of protest Friday, as Americans marked Juneteenth, a holiday that long commemorated the emancipation of enslaved African Americans but that burst into the national conversation this year after widespread demonstrations against police brutality and racism.

In addition to the traditional cookouts and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation — the Civil War-era order that declared all slaves free in Confederate territory — Americans were marching, holding sit-ins or car caravan protests.

In Nashville, Tennessee, about two dozen Black men, most wearing suits, quietly stood arm in arm Friday morning in front of the city’s criminal courts. Behind them was a statue of Justice Adolpho Birch, the first African American to serve as chief justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court.

“If you were uncomfortable standing out here in a suit, imagine how you would feel with a knee to your neck,” said Phillip McGee, one of the demonstrators, referring to George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for several minutes. The killing has sparked weeks of sustained, nationwide protest.

Former President Abraham Lincoln first issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Sept. 22, 1862, and it became effective the following Jan. 1. But it wasn’t enforced in many places until after the Civil War ended in April 1865. Word didn’t reach the last enslaved Black people until June 19 of that year, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to Galveston, Texas.

Most states and the District of Columbia now recognize Juneteenth, which is a blend of the words June and 19th, as a state holiday or day of recognition, like Flag Day. But in the wake of protests of Floyd’s killing this year and against a backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately harmed Black communities, more Americans — especially white Americans — are becoming familiar with the holiday and commemorating it.

Summer heat and COVID-19:

Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, and with summer on the doorstep, scientists are still investigating whether weather and climate affect the novel coronavirus.

Experts seem to be converging on a mix of good and bad news. Hotter, more humid weather probably does dampen the transmission of the virus, at least a bit. But it’s probably nowhere near enough to significantly affect the progress of the pandemic.

That’s dismal news for U.S. states that have retreated from social distancing protocols—some without robust testing and tracing programs, and many with infection rates still climbing. Broadly, Americans have resumed many facets of their pre-pandemic lives.

Adding to the concerns are mass demonstrations against racism and police brutality. While the protests are widely supported by Americans—including many public health experts—epidemiologists are nonetheless concerned they may boost the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

The public should not assume it’s safe just because it’s warm outside, said Mohammad Jalali, a researcher at Harvard Medical School who’s been investigating the links between weather and the coronavirus.

“All the [public health] interventions and practices should remain in place,” he told E&E News. “And in fact, in anywhere we see major reductions [in the coronavirus], it’s mainly because of all these policies.”

A number of recent studies have suggested summer weather does have some effect on transmission, although the evidence in some cases is shaky. A report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in March, and updated in April, reviewed much of the research to date.

Several laboratory experiments have suggested higher temperatures and humidity are associated with reduced survival of the virus. That said, the report noted, conditions simulated in the lab don’t always mimic conditions the virus will encounter in real life.

The report also pointed to several studies mapping the spread of the virus across the world and compared its progress with local climate variables. Some of these studies also suggested the virus may transmit best within a certain temperature and humidity range.

But these studies also had their shortcomings, the report pointed out—namely, limited data and a relatively short study period since the start of the pandemic.

The report concluded that weather may play a small and likely limited role in the progress of the pandemic in the coming months. Besides temperature and humidity, it noted, “there are many other factors besides environmental temperature, humidity, and survival of the virus outside of the host, that influence and determine transmission rates among humans in the ’real world.’"