Bill Moyers - “Buying the War”

Bill Moyers is back - his new show, Bill Moyers’ Journal, will air on Friday nights at 9 p.m. Meanwhile, on Wednesday night, Moyers’ documentary, “Buying the War,” aired.

Here’s what Glenn Mitchell of Editor & Publisher had to say after previewing it:

‘Devastating’ Bill Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq Coming This Week
Bill Moyers returns to PBS on Wednesday with the most powerful indictment yet of the media’s performance in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Some media figures admit he is right, but the press as a whole, he charges, has not yet taken responsibility for a tragic failure.

If you did not see it, you can view the 90-minute show online on the PBS website, or read the transcript.

Also, Moyers has a blog to go along with the show. Tonight, Moyers talks with John Stewart of Comedy Central’s  The Daily Show.

VA Tech coverage…and hope

1 Peter 3:15 tells us to be prepared to give reasons for the hope that is within us.  When it comes to “the hope that is within,” the responses of people of faith to tragic events like the Virginia Tech shootings (and before that, many other natural and human-made crises) is at the top of my list.

Click here for a list of articles on the DisciplesWorld website relating to the Virginia Tech shootings last week and the response by Disciples in Virginia and elsewhere. May these strengthen your hope too.

Also, click here for a preview of a reflection on the shootings written by Eric Hutton, a Nashville Disciple and Virginia tech graduate (90). The article won’t actually appear on the front page of our site until Tuesday, but you faithful blog readers can read it now. Come back to comment though…..

Winkler found guilty

Mary Winkler, the preacher’s wife who shot her husband a few months ago at their home in Selmer, Tennessee, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter today. She faces three to six years in prison.

One of our contributing writers, Ted Parks, went to Selmer last week to interview members of the Winklers’ congregation, Fourth Street Church of Christ, for an article in the Christian Chronicle, a Churches of Christ publication. Ted grew up in the Churches of Christ and teaches Spanish at Lipscomb University in Nashville, a Church of Christ school named after David Lipscomb.

At the time he went, the jury was being selected for the trial. He attended the Wednesday evening Bible study at the Fourth Street church, and found that they were coping in various ways with the murder and the trial. Read Ted’s article in here.

VA Tech coverage

DisciplesWorld is working on several stories relating to the shootings this past Monday at VA Tech. However, if you have news tips, story ideas, or have a connection to the situation, we would love to hear from you.

Here is one question, for clergy serving congregations and for lay leaders involved in planning worship: Will you include any sort of response to the shootings in your worship service this Sunday? Specifically, in your sermon, or in other elements of the liturgy? If so, will you follow the lectionary texts (if you use the lectionary already) or will you choose certains texts and if so, which ones?

Another question: Will your church respond (or have you responded) in other ways? Discussion groups (Randy Kuss developed a great process for this), Bible studies, vigils, community services, advocacy against violence, outreach to the VA Tech community, etc.?

 We look forward to hearing from you.

Chess with Vonnegut

Andrew Leonard, who writes a column on globalization called “How the World Works” for salon.com, shares his memory of Thanksgiving Day when he was 12 years old and Kurt Vonnegut, a friend of his father, was visiting. Vonnegut invited him to play a game of chess, with a twist.

On a whim, he suggested that we rearrange the board. Why did the pawns have to go in front, those sacrificial lambs about to be chewed up by the slaughterhouse of the front lines, those powerless vassals of the high and mighty? Let’s force the feudal lords out of their foxholes and into the hurly-burly!

Let’s put the pawns in the back row, he proposed. Let’s put the knights and bishops and kings and queens in the front rank!  (click here to read the full article)

Vonnegut, you Hoosier rascal, if you only knew. While school boards quibble over whether to pull Of Mice and Men from 11th grade required reading lists, parents like me are passing on our dog-eared copies of Cat’s Cradle to our teenagers to help them laugh in times like these.

Hi Ho.

Imus, Imus and more Imus.

Lots of folks this week are talking about Don Imus’ ill-conceived comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, but it wasn’t until I came across Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Betty Baye’s take on it that I thought, “Finally!” Here’s an excerpt:

How deep is the bias? Just look at whom the media sought out when the Imus story broke. Did they ring up the president or the women of Spelman College? Did they call Johnnetta Cole, Julianne Malveaux, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Callie Crossley, Vanessa Williams, Nikki Giovanni, Rita Dove, Shirley Franklin, Mae Jameson, Condoleezza Rice, Kathleen Cleaver, Pearl Cleage, Susan Taylor, Renita Weems, Jill Nelson, Sheryl Swoopes or any of the legions of accomplished black women who could bring historical and political context to the harm of calling young women hos? No. Black women were insulted, but the media rushed to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Are black women wearing burkas? Are they so invisible that they don’t even get to speak first about their own pain?

Anyway, you ought to read Baye’s full article.

Imus insulted women, and specifically, black women. He’s been doing this kind of stuff in his mumbly, just below the radar way, for a long time. And I have to admit, I watched him on MSNBC a few times a month in the mornings, and I like the guy, for the most part. I think he did the right thing to go to meet with the Rutgers women’s team, out of sight of cameras, and hear what they had to say. Most of all, I’ve been impressed by those Rutgers women. They’ve received hate mail from Imus’ supporters. Still, they had the grace to meet with him. They accepted his apology.

All this has made me wonder about something else — if so-called “free speech” in the U.S. today is barely more than a media format (like classic rock, sports talk, weather, or fashion).  It wasn’t until after the advertisers bailed that CBS pulled the plug.

Pastor Bob Cornwall has an interesting perspective on that. He wrote a column for the Lompoc (CA) Record about the consequences of words before the Imus thing blew up.

But what of the churches? Of course, the black churches have gotten involved, but what about the mainline? Props to John Thomas, the general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, for speaking out. And the Episcopal bishops of New Jersey.

And to the Disciples Justice Action Network (DJAN).

The latest in the Nancy Copin murder case

By now, many of you have heard about the April 2 murder of Nancy Copin, pastor of Snow Creek Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Rocky Mount, Va.  The story began as a local news item in the Roanoke area but has since caught the attention of the national media. DisciplesWorld has been working on its own story. We hope to have it posted today (4/13). For now, we have posted the latest AP report.

 Meanwhile, keep the congregation in your prayers. Copin was murdered the day after Palm Sunday. Parishioners found her dead in the parsonage on Thursday, April 5. The congregation learned of all this over Good Friday and Easter weekend.  Regional Minister Lee Parker has stepped in to take on Copin’s duties and help the church work through the shock and grief, as well as the unanswered questions surrounding Copin’s murder.

Earlier this week, police arrested a suspect, Charles Vincent Cobler, in Mentor, Ohio on an unrelated charge and somehow linked him to Copin’s murder.. News reports say that Cobler came to Snow Creek church for a choral service with a relative some time in the days before the murder. Cobler has now confessed to the crime and has been arraigned on murder charges. Trial date is June 14.

DisciplesWorld launches new website design

DisciplesWorld magazine has launched our new website design. View it at www.disciplesworld.com. Let us know what you think.

The web has lots of free content and some premium content available only to subscribers of the magazine. One of those features will be the entire content of the magazine online.

This is our third iteration of the website since the magazine’s birth in 2002. We are looking for ways to continue to serve Disciples and others who are interested in religion and faith, news, and lively discussion. 

If you appreciate our work, and are not a subscriber, please consider supporting us by becoming one or by donating online. 

And, email our publisher and managing editor to with the magazine a happy 5th birthday and let them know you appreciate their work!