Social Issues

Some 40 faith leaders from across Washington, D.C., join Aug. 22 in leading a prayer vigil in the city’s ethnically diverse Columbia Heights neighborhood. The group aimed to present a vision of unity and hope in the face of Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital. At center in the green and white stole is the Rev. Donna Claycomb Sokol, pastor of Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, who spoke at the event. Photo by Sharon Groves, the Festival Center.

Churches push back on armed troops in US cities

United Methodists are prayerfully helping to mobilize nonviolent resistance and taking action to protect people targeted by President Trump’s show of military force in D.C. and other U.S. cities.

Human Rights

The Rev. Calvin Hill, a Navajo holy man and pastor at First United Methodist Church in Newcastle, Wyo., puts cedar ashes on Doug Tzan, assistant dean at Wesley Theological Seminary, in a calling your name ceremony Sept. 11 during the 10th Historical Convocation at Bozeman United Methodist Church in Bozeman, Mont. The convocation featured a detailed report on The United Methodist Church’s involvement with U.S. boarding schools for Native American children. Photo by the Rev. Jeremy Smith.

Spotlighting UMC’s role in Indigenous boarding schools

A report on The United Methodist Church’s involvement with U.S. boarding schools for Native American children was presented at the 10th Historical Convocation. Remembrance and reconciliation is the goal of the initial research, but more work is planned.

Social Concerns

The Rev. Larry Pickens Photo courtesy of the author.

Advancing a theology of reparations

The Black experience is grounded in the pain of racism, and reparative justice offers a means to address that trauma and transform relationships.

Faith Stories

The Rev. Tim Holton, a United Methodist pastor, visits family graves at the Simpson Cemetery in Eagleville, Tenn. In 1997, his cousin, Daryl Holton, killed his four children with a military-style rifle and was eventually executed in Tennessee’s electric chair. He is buried beneath the light-colored headstone at left, next to the graves of his children. Tim Holton now serves on the board of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and ministers to death row inmates as a volunteer chaplain at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tenn. Photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.

Pastor’s life shaped by family murders

The Rev. Tim Holton has spent more time than most thinking about the death penalty. He’s against it despite — or perhaps because of — the horrific murder of four Holton children in 1997 by his cousin.

Sign up for our newsletter!

Subscribe Now