If you are looking for a meaningful last-minute gift, please consider making a gift in your loved one's honor to a worthy nonprofit!  This guide from our friends at the California Association of Nonprofits, makes some great suggestions for gifts that reflect your values and also some important cautions about online giving.

Of course, we would be thrilled if you would choose to honor someone with a contribution to the California Council of Churches here, or California Church IMPACT here; but we urge you to support the nonprofit that most reflects your values.

Thank you!

Black Lives Matter Madonna (Copyright: Bromickeymcgrath)

Art by Mickey McGrath, O.S.F.S,: We need images of the Black Madonna now more than ever






​A powerful reimagining of The Magnificat by our dear friend, the Rev. Jim Burklo, Senior Associate Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California.  You can read more in his blog, musings, here.








God in the Belly 
 
Full of God, full to birthing,
Mary howls: head back, hair tossed,
Hands skyward with joy
That wrongs are about to be righted,
Salvation's about to be sighted.
No more groveling for crumbs of charity:
She pronounces justice with crystal clarity.
She's done waiting for the concentrated wealth of the 1%
To trickle down magically to the other 99.
The Santa System is stuck in the chimney;
And she won't be burned by it again!
A new kind of Christmas is coming -
To undo the dogma of domination,
Snap out of blame-the-victim hypnosis,
Chase money-changers out of the temple,
Redistribute the common wealth,
Restore power to the people,
And send the Religious Right empty away.
With one magnificent rhetorical swing,
Mary bats the political center into left field.
Pundits fumble, talk-show hosts mutter,
Super-PAC donors quiver, campaign strategists stutter:
Mary out-Magnificats them all.
So let's get in her line and carry her sign
And holler and act as if we, too,
Have God in our bellies!

From our friends at Faithful America:

The Trump administration is pursuing felony criminal charges against a volunteer with a church group that provides water, food, socks, blankets, and emergency first-aid treatments to migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Scott Warren volunteers with No More Deaths—a ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson—and he’s on trial for “harboring” two undocumented immigrants.

Warren’s legal team is arguing his actions should be protected under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But while Jeff Sessions has no problem with religious freedom being invoked to excuse discrimination against LGBT people, DOJ lawyers are arguing that aiding migrants "is not required by his beliefs.”

The case is receiving national media attention, showing how a crackdown on church ministries to the most vulnerable is a genuine threat to religious freedom.
​
Sign the petition:
The Department of Justice must immediately drop all charges against Scott Warren and respect the right of No More Deaths volunteers to freely practice their faith by caring for migrants on the border.

​It is clear that this federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act is being used to condone the discriminatory behavior by right-wing religious groups, but was never intended to protect work for justice-seeking people faith.  Please sign this petition to support Scott Warren living out his faith commitments and to enable him and others to continue working to protect and aid asylum seekers.

Let our friends at CAIR help you at a Naturalization Fair!!

Can you help us spread the word to those in need (including your families, friends and neighbors) and bring in more volunteers? We want to serve as many people in need of naturalization/citizenship help as possible! 

We need interpreters, law clerks, pro-bono attorneys and more at the event.
If you can lend a hand, please email mzahriya@cair.com! 
If You Go
WHAT: CAIR-SV Naturalization Fair offering free legal help with U.S. citizenship.
WHEN: July 26; registration from 8:30-8:55 a.m., event from 9-4 p.m.
WHERE: CAIR Sacramento Valley headquarters, 1122 Del Paso Blvd.
MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER*: Call 916-441-6269; email mzahriya@cair.com; visit the event on our website.
* Advance registration is required. 

Dear Friends,
 
Do not mistreat the alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt
                                           (Exodus 22:21)
 
A brief history of American immigration:

• In 1834 Boston Protestants burned an Ursuline Convent in a riot against growing Catholicism and, to some extent, the presence of French Canadian nuns.
• Discrimination against if not outright barring of Irish Catholics was the norm from the mid 1830s to the “Know Nothing” era of the 1850s. 
• In 1882, although Chinese labor had been a critical part in building the nation’s cross-continental railroads, America imposed the Chinese Exclusion Act barring immigrants from that nation.
• In 1907 the US created the “Gentleman’s Agreement” protocol in which Japan would no longer issue passports to their citizens desiring to live in America.
• In 1923 a court decision barred immigrants from India and stripped naturalized Indians of their US citizenship
• During the Great Depression virtually all immigration was barred, and over half a million Mexican migrants were sent back to Mexico.
• Jewish immigration was also stopped, causing untold hardship to those fleeing fascism. The St Louis bound for New York with Jewish refugees was turned away consigning Jews to probable death.
• In 1942 propelled by fear and anger, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 directing all Japanese and Japanese-Americans to internment camps for the duration of the war.

 
And what can one add to the horror of forced migration since the 17th Century as Black African slavery.  No rights, no freedom, no citizenship for over 300 years, massive exploitation. 
 
All of this and more was done to people who we, as people of faith, consider to be the backbone of our complex society.  We make promises.  We don’t keep them.
 
Today’s Supreme Court Ruling upholding a Muslim ban – and make no mistake, that’s what it is – is a reversal of history and an appeal to the worst parts  of American history and to our worse natures. This ruling capitulates to fear not to reason, not to love, and not to the very principles we claim to honor as Christians.
 
Attorney General Jeff Sessions just called those of us opposed to this ban, “The lunatic fringe”.  No, we are speaking to our core Constitutional and faith values.
 
Despite our national commitment to Religious Freedom, religion is being used to bar thousands who are fleeing oppression and who now cannot come to America to seek refuge.  Mark you, if those seeking asylum and are Christians from the designated nations now barred entry, this ban will not be upheld.  This isn’t about national security. This is about religious discrimination of the worst order.
 
With the chaos of our Southern border and reversal of the existing laws about the treatment of refugees, the separation of families and internments of children, now we have barriers to Muslims from countries that have done no harm to us at all.
 
We are descending to rival our darkest actions, our most base nature.  History will not judge us well.
 
This decision cannot stand.  We must raise our voices everywhere against the retreat to fear and demonizing of our neighbors.  We are called to do this.  It must be our charge.

Thank you. 

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness is a great book for folk wanting to know how to help “progressive” churches walk the walk when they are stuck just talking the talk.

From a powerful new voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female in middle-class white America. 

Austin Channing Brown's first encounter with a racialized America came at age 7, when she discovered her parents named her Austin to deceive future employers into thinking she was a white man. Growing up in majority-white schools, organizations, and churches, Austin writes, "I had to learn what it means to love blackness," a journey that led to a lifetime spent navigating America's racial divide as a writer, speaker and expert who helps organizations practice genuine inclusion.

In a time when nearly all institutions (schools, churches, universities, businesses) claim to value "diversity" in their mission statements, I'm Still Here is a powerful account of how and why our actions so often fall short of our words. Austin writes in breathtaking detail about her journey to self-worth and the pitfalls that kill our attempts at racial justice, in stories that bear witness to the complexity of America's social fabric--from Black Cleveland neighborhoods to private schools in the middle-class suburbs, from prison walls to the boardrooms at majority-white organizations. 

For readers who have engaged with America's legacy on race through the writing of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michael Eric Dyson, I'm Still Here is an illuminating look at how white, middle-class, Evangelicalism has participated in an era of rising racial hostility, inviting the reader to confront apathy, recognize God's ongoing work in the world, and discover how blackness--if we let it--can save us all.

“Brown talked to Religion News Service about how the church is missing out when it doesn’t listen to black voices, how awkward even progressive spaces can be and how white people can be less exhausting.”  https://religionnews.com/2018/05/09/white-people-are-exhausting/

If you order this book from Amazon, please go to Amazon Smile and choose California Council of Churches as your designated charity!
https://smile.amazon.com/Im-Still-Here-Dignity-Whiteness/dp/1524760854/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527276465&sr=8-1&keywords=I'm+Still+Here%3A+Black+Dignity+in+a+World+Made+for+Whiteness