Federal appeals court vacates Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s death sentence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could again be sentenced to death

https://www.foxnews.com/us/federal-appeals-court-vacates-boston-marathon-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaevs-death-sentence

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Teen cross-country cyclist Scotty Parker changing the world as Water Mission ambassador

https://sportsspectrum.com/sport/other/cycling/2020/07/31/cyclist-scotty-parker-changing-world-water-mission/

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THE POINT :We Need Boys and Men Like Bridger Walker

Bridger Walker is a six-year-old boy from Wyoming who threw himself between his younger sister and an attacking dog. By protecting his sister and maybe saving her life, Bridger’s face was mauled. It took 90 stitches to sew up.

The accolades for Bridger’s courage continue to pour in. The WBC sent him a championship belt. Captain America Actor Chris Evans sent him an “authentic” Captain America shield. 

And it doesn’t seem like all the adulation is going to his head. When Bridger learned about the GoFundMe account set up for him, Bridger asked folks to contribute to Veterans’ charities instead.

As my BreakPoint This Week co-host Shane Morris wrote at BreakPoint.org, “This little warrior knows better than many males my age what masculinity means.” Selflessness, protecting the vulnerable, taking risks.

Come to BreakPoint.org to read Shane’s outstanding reflection on Bridger and why—especially in this age that denies or worse attacks masculinity–we need boys to be boys. And to become men.

 

Resources:

Heartwarming Tributes for 6-Yr-Old Hero Pour in While He Helps Veterans Charities

Mark Chalifoux | The Dad | 2020

There Are No Egalitarians When the Dog Attacks

Shane Morris | Breakpoint | July 21, 2020

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Thou shall not covet

https://www.oneplace.com/ministries/compass-hey-howard/listen/thou-shall-not-covet-832834.html

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three-nations-tried-socialism-and-rejected-it

https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/three-nations-tried-socialism-and-rejected-it

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The Point: Holocaust in China

Families torn from homes, loaded onto trains, sent to concentration camps. It sounds like the Nazi Holocaust, but it’s what’s happening right now in western China. 

China’s sustained persecution of its Uighur Muslim minority can only be described as genocide. 

Forced sterilizations and abortions have resulted in a staggering 84% drop in Uighur population growth the last few years. More than a million members of this religious minority have been detained by China in concentration camps. The U.S. State Department reports many are starved, tortured, raped, or killed.

So far, the United States is the loudest voice condemning this genocide. President Trump just signed a bipartisan condemnation of China’s actions, and another bipartisan bill could put economic teeth to that condemnation. For China’s Uighurs, it can’t come soon enough. 

Now we find out if nations meant what they said after World War II. Those who keep silent in the face of this holocaust deserve the condemnation future generations will heap on them.

Resources:

 

Xinjiang Shows We Haven’t Learnt a Thing from Auschwitz

Arson Ostrovsky | Newsweek | July 23, 2020

China Profits from Persecuting Muslim Uighurs

John Stonestreet | Breakpoint | July 10, 2020

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Democrats once again play politics with the death of a great man

There are those in power who’re doing their darndest to discourage people from voting’: Obama excoriates Trump and compares him to George Wallace during eulogy to John Lewis and calls for new Voting Rights Act ‘to truly honor’ civil rights icon

• Barack Obama eulogized the late John Lewis on Thursday at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta  
• He excoriated President Trump and his administration by calling out efforts to stifle voting and slamming the use of tear gas on peaceful protesters by federal agents
• Obama called on Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act, saying: ‘Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law he was willing to die for’   
  (  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8576505/Civil-rights-icon-John-Lewis-mourned-Atlanta-funeral.html )

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BREAKPOINT Anti-Semitism, the Oldest Hatred

Last week in Germany, vandals desecrated dozens of graves in the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Some of the stones vandalized date back to the 11th century.

Years ago, one of my colleagues visited Babi Yar, a ravine just outside the city center of Kiev in Ukraine. There, in late September 1941, Nazi soldiers marched 34-thousand Jewish men, women, and children, before shooting them and burying in the dirt. On the day my colleague visited, someone had spray-painted a swastika on the memorial at the entrance to the ravine.

Right now, as our nation has a hard but necessary conversation about racism, reckoning especially with the often unjust and hateful treatment of African Americans, the Church must reaffirm that ethnic partiality of any kind is antithetical to the Gospel, which begins by recognizing all humans as made in the image of God. And, if we are to be consistent in upholding human dignity, we must say (unfortunately, again) that anti-Semitism is, still, a very real and growing evil. 

Though it often doesn’t receive the attention or the unanimous condemnation that other forms of racism do, the Anti-Defamation Leaguereported 21-hundred incidents of assault, vandalism, violence, or harassment against Jewish people in America in 2019. That’s the highest number reported since they started keeping track in 1979.

Less than two years ago, an American neo-Nazi committed the bloodiest attack on Jewish people in our country’s history when he stormed Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue and opened fire, killing eleven people and wounding six. Less than a year later, another gunman charged a synagogue just north of San Diego on the last day of Passover, killing one woman and wounding three others.

And, since the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis, we’ve seen anti-Semitism hit a strange new cultural stride. Global pandemics, it seems, inspire conspiracy theories, and wherever there are conspiracy theories, there’s anti-Semitism. I can’t begin to explain it, but it’s true.

Earlier this month, Louis Farrakhan, the disgraced leader of a dangerous political group calling itself the Nation of Islam, called Jewish people Satan and accused Bill Gates of plotting world domination through a Coronavirus vaccine.

Though many would dismiss Farrakhan as crazy, he enjoys support by more than a few in the mainstream. Shortly after Farrakhan’s crazy speech, NFL star DeSean Jackson posted a video of it, offering his support of Farrakhan’s delusional claims. National leaders of the Women’s March Movement and other celebrities with sizeable platforms have also openly supported Farrakhan, and they’re not alone.

Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, for example, openly advocate for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, Movement, an international effort to boycott products made by Israeli companies in an open effort to hurt Israel’s economy. The BDS movement is founded on the principle that Israel, as a nation, has no right to exist.

Like any form of racism, I find anti-Semitism baffling. What I mean is that racism is arbitrary and irrational, but a hatred that’s persisted for this long and to this degree has supernatural roots. Biblically, it makes sense the Enemy would despise the Jewish people. God chose the nation of Israel through which Jesus would come and bring redemption to all nations. After targeting the Jews for centuries before Christ, the Enemy has even been successful, at times, in turning the hearts of Christians against the Jews.

As long as the Jewish people endure, so will hatred of them. If our surrounding culture is going to turn a blind eye to it, or even openly support it, somehow without fear of cultural cancellation, the Church must lead in condemning it. After all, in this moment of racial reckoning, to pretend anti-Semitism isn’t a pressing and current problem is to lose our moral authority to fight other forms of racism.

In a recent poignant piece condemning anti-Semitic comments made by a few African-American athletes and celebrities, former professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabaar put it succinctly: “If we’re going to be outraged by injustice, let’s be outraged by injustice against anyone.” Amen.

 

Resources:

Dozens of graves in Europe’s oldest Jewish cemetery vandalized, desecrated

Aaron Reich | The Jerusalem Post | July 13, 2020

Kiev and Babi Yar

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | 2020

Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2019

ADL | 2020

11 Killed in Synagogue Massacre; Suspect Charged with 29 Counts

Campbell Robertson | New York Times | October 27, 2018

Poway synagogue shooting suspect charged with murder, attempted murder, mosque arson

Teri Figueroa | The San Diego Union-Tribune | April 29, 2019

American Rapper ‘Diddy’ Promotes Farrakhan’s Anti-Semitic Independence Day Message

Combat Anti-Semitism | July 6, 2020

DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic posts continue long history of tension over Farrakhan

Michael A. Fletcher | The Undefeated | July 15, 2020

The Women’s March Has a Farrakhan Problem

John-Paul Pagano | The Atlantic | March 8, 2018

BDS: The Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel

ADL | 2020

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Condemns Anti-Semitism: Be Outraged by Anyone’s Injustice

Blake Schuster | Bleacher Report | July 14, 2020

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Former NBA star Allan Houston joins police chief in working out with youth to build unity

“To be quite frank, as a Black man in this community, I’ve never seen police as an ally until now,” Michel told WNPR.
 https://sportsspectrum.com/sport/basketball/2020/07/30/nba-allan-houston-police-chief-working-out-youth-build-unity/

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A Biblical Case for the Church’s Duty to Remain Open

https://www.gty.org/library/blog/B200723

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