Author: By Adelle M. Banks Religion News Service
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Did the movie ‘Soul’ correctly define ‘soul’? Pixar adviser, theologian weighs in
The Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook, longtime Baptist minister and former religious freedom ambassador, took on another role with the recent animated movie “Soul.” She was not an actor or a director, but an adviser. In late 2019, she traveled to Pixar’s studios to watch a rough cut of the film. She was joined by other…
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New Smithsonian museum features stories of African-American faith
WASHINGTON – Long before the grand opening neared for the Smithsonian’s museum devoted to African-American history, Amirah Muhammad had a tough decision to make. Should she donate the platinum and diamond necklace that Elijah Muhammad, her grandfather and onetime leader of the Nation of Islam, gave to her grandmother after designing it with the word…
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Pastors rarely asked to wed same-sex couples
After the long debate before gay marriage was made legal in 2015, a survey shows that since then Protestant pastors rarely have been asked to officiate them. More than 100,000 same-sex weddings have occurred since the Supreme Court ruling. But only 11 percent of senior church pastors, both mainline and evangelical, report having been asked…
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Billy Graham warns of fire and brimstone in ‘final’ book
In his latest book, evangelist Billy Graham declares that non-Christians are doomed to live in a fiery hell, a message his son said he has wanted to share for several years. “There were some family members who thought that he shouldn’t do it because it was a negative subject,” Franklin Graham said. “And Daddy said,…