The Trump administration issued an executive order Wednesday that seeks to improve the foster care system with several strategies, including increased oversight and an improved partnership between state agencies and faith-based organizations.

More than 400,000 children are in foster care nationwide, with 124,000-plus waiting for adoption.

“Every child deserves a family. Our States and communities have both a legal obligation, and the privilege, to care for our Nation’s most vulnerable children,” the executive order, signed by President Trump, reads. “… Too many young people who are in our foster care system wait years before finding the permanency of family.”

Among other things, the executive order:

• Encourages “robust partnerships between state agencies and public, private, faith-based, and community organizations.” It requires the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “issue guidance to Federal, State, and local agencies on partnering with nongovernmental organizations.” It further requires the secretary to “make clear that faith-based organizations are eligible for partnerships under” federal law.
• Increases federal oversight of the foster care system and requires the HHS secretary to publish a report within one year of the “recent available counts of children in foster care” and “counts of children waiting for adoption.”…

COVID-19 has already influenced the future trajectories of businesses and organizations—the church is no exception. And specifically, predominately African American churches have been impacted in different ways. Our recent data show that over nine in 10 Black Church churchgoers (92 percent)—that is, attendees of primary Black Protestant denominations who have been to church at least once within the past six months—agree that their church responded well to the pandemic. However, small Black Churches are very worried about their ability to thrive long-term.

This data is just the beginning of research we will continue to uncover in the upcoming months as we partner with  Rev. Dr. Brianna K. Parker (of Black Millennial Cafe),  Urban Ministries, Inc., Movement Day, American Bible Society and Compassionto learn more about the State of the Black Church.

Overall, Black Churchgoers Agree That Their Churches Have Responded Well to the Pandemic

Church leadership across the board has had to remain nimble in this time of uncertainty, responding to shifting regulations and perceptions while also considering the physical, economic and emotional impact the crisis has had on their attendees. For the most part, churches in Black Protestant denominations receive positive remarks for their approaches, with over nine in 10 Black Church congregants (92 percent) agreeing that their church…

The U.S. Senate confirmed the 200th federal court nominee of President Trump on Wednesday, continuing a fast pace that exceeds any Republican chief executive in modern history.

The Senate confirmed Cory T. Wilson to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on a vote of 52-48, bringing the number of successfully nominated Trump judges to 200: 53 appeals court judges, 143 district court judges, two Supreme Court justices and two U.S. Court of International Trade judges.

The 53 appeals court judges is the most of any president in a single term since President Carter. The 200 confirmed judges is more than any Republican president in a single term in modern history, outpacing Presidents George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Reagan and Nixon.

“The appointed judges … are among the finest legal minds who will interpret the law as it is written, not make it up based on their own politics and policy preferences,” Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network tweeted. Severino is an author who clerked under Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Trump, she said, has “has DELIVERED on his promise to appoint constitutionalist judges, saving us from hundreds of policy-driven, liberal judges that a President Hillary Clinton surely would have appointed.”

“The 200-judge milestone is a tremendous accomplishment and will have an impact on our federal courts for decades to…

A youth pastor stepped in to protect a wounded teenager during a shootout at a party in Syracuse over the weekend.

According to the Christian Post, Nitch Jones, pastor of youth and young adult affairs at Zion Hill World Harvest Baptist Church was attending the annual “Rye Day” Party, which is held by local businessman and philanthropist Ryedell Davis for his birthday. Jones, who is 32 years old and has one child, was running the voter registration booth at the party when shots rang out, CNY Central reports.

Officers arrived on the scene after they received a complaint about a stolen vehicle.

According to CNN, as they exited their vehicles, hundreds of people were running away from the party yelling that people were shooting.

Jones described the scene in a Facebook video Sunday morning. He said he had not been to sleep since enduring the gunfight between rival gangs in which 9 people were injured by as many as 6 gunmen.

Jones said, “I have never been inside of a live warzone in my life.” He continued, saying, “I have been around or in the vicinity of someone shooting. But I have never been in the middle. Literally, we were in the middle … of a warzone, a battle, where guns were spraying all around us, where guns were spraying right in front of us and people were getting hit and they were feet in front of us.”

Then Jones described seeing the 17-year-old, who was the youngest of the…

Calling it a “moral issue,” the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board on Tuesday urged the state legislature to change the state flag, which has incorporated the Confederate battle flag since 1894.

“Our position on this is not motivated by politics,” Shawn Parker, executive director-treasurer of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board (MBCB), said at a press conference. “It is not motivated by economics. It is not even motivated by athletics. Our position on this is motivated by our understanding of the teaching of Jesus Christ.”

Parker read a statement that was unanimously approved by the 15-member MBCB Executive Committee and signed by Parker and every living past president of the convention. The current convention president also signed it, as did the head of the MBCB Christian Action Commission.

The Mississippi Baptist Convention Board is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. About 2,100 churches are part of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.

The Mississippi state flag incorporates three red, white and blue horizontal stripes and the Confederate battle flag, which is known more commonly as the rebel flag. Although the battle flag was not the official flag of the Confederacy during the Civil War, it remains the most well-known flag from that era.

The MBCB statement references two Bible verses: Matthew 7:12 (“do to others what you…

(RNS) — A new study examining Americans’ response to COVID-19 shows that with the exception of white evangelicals, a majority of Americans are not comfortable returning to in-person religious services.

The results of the survey suggest that despite political pressure to reopen houses of worship — from President Donald Trump as well as leading conservative Christians and religious liberty advocates — Americans aren’t quite ready to take a seat in a sanctuary.

The survey from the American Enterprise Institute showed that 64% of Americans said they were “somewhat uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” attending in-person worship.

Even among those who reported their congregations offered in-person worship in the past week, 56% of respondents said they chose not to go.

“We’re seeing among lay people a significant amount of discomfort in going back to formal in-person religious practices,” said Daniel Cox, a research fellow at AEI who led the study. “People are equivocating and uncertain about whether they feel comfortable attending.”

The study, conducted in late May and early June among 3,504 Americans, comes amid ongoing, politically charged campaigns to reopen. Last month, the president demanded that states allow places of worship to reopen “right away” and said he would override state governors who refused.

On Tuesday (June 23), Trump was scheduled to…