Bishop Richard Allen, From Slave to Founder of the AME Church
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Date: 3 April 2008
One of America's Black Founding Fathers
Born a slave in 1760, Bishop Richard Allen went on to inspire nearly every black leader of the nineteenth century. As one of America's strongest early advocates for racial equality, he is often considered an intellectual precursor to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In 1816 Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first African-American-led church denomination in the country. With 2.5 million members, the AME Church is now the largest black denomination in the country.
Dr. Richard S. Newman, Associate Professor of History at Rochester Institute of Technology, author of Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church and the Black Founding Fathers
Women, Faith and Abuse
Begins at 22:59
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, so this week we take a look at the uneasy intersection between religion and sexual violence. How does faith exploit women...and how can it be a force to heal them? We begin with Dr. Joy Schroeder, author of Dinah's Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation. She says as far back as the third century, Christian scholars--most of whom were men--have interpreted Bible stories about rape to blame the victims.
Nicole Sotelo, author of Women Healing From Abuse: Meditations for Finding Peace, explains how scripture, which has so often been used to harm women, might begin to help them.
And Layli Miller-Muro, a Baha'i woman and founder of the Tahirih Justice Center, shares the lessons she's learned from a religion which regards women and men as equals.
Resources:
The National Domestic Violence Hotline
The National Sexual Violence Resource Center
The Faith and Justice Institute
What Counts As Sexual Violence?
Catholicism, the Movie Version
Begins at 42:29
From the demon-child in the Exorcist to the kindly nuns in The Sound of Music, Hollywood has long used Catholicism as a kind of visual shorthand for faith. Catholicism, well, the movie version at least, has ready-made props: rosary beads, crucifixes and heavy, black and white wardrobes. Add to that its candlelit rituals and sacred mysteries, and you have all the makings of a big-screen spectacle.
