The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) today announced 595 new cases of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 and 5 additional deaths.

This brings the total number of people confirmed to have COVID-19 in South Carolina to 19,990 and those who have died to 607.

Three of the deaths occurred in elderly individuals from Chesterfield (1), Colleton (1), and Richland (1) counties, and two of the deaths occurred middle-aged individuals from Dillon (1) and Richland (1) counties.

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UPDATE: DHEC confirmed 595 new #coronavirus cases on Tuesday, bringing South Carolina’s statewide total to 19,990:https://t.co/f0vPLrjAM6 #scnews

— ABC News 4 (@ABCNews4) June 16, 2020

Why didn’t more people pay attention to Little Richard’s gospel music?

Probably because gospel music is the music of good news and in these days there just isn’t any. Good news in today’s world is like a fugitive, treated like a hoodlum and put on the run. Castigated. All we see is good-for-nothing news. And we have to thank the media industry for that. It stirs people up. Gossip and dirty laundry. Dark news that depresses and horrifies you.

On the other hand, gospel news is exemplary. It can give you courage. You can pace your life accordingly, or try to, anyway. And you can do it with honor and principles. There are theories of truth in gospel but to most people it’s unimportant. Their lives are lived out too fast. Too many bad influences. Sex and politics and murder is the way to go if you want to get people’s attention. It excites us, that’s our problem.

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“There’s definitely a lot more anxiety and nervousness around now than there used to be,” said Bob Dylan in a rare, wide-ranging interview about mortality, history and his new album, “Rough and Rowdy Ways,” which comes out June 19 https://t.co/Eltz6iE2bP

— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 12, 2020

A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.

The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.

The drug is part of the world’s biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

It cut the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators. For those on oxygen, it cut deaths by a fifth.

Had the drug had been used to treat patients in the UK from the start of the pandemic, up to 5,000 lives could have been saved, researchers say.

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Let’s hope for the good.
Coronavirus: Dexamethasone proves first life-saving drug https://t.co/lgLSV9N43z

— Khawar Ghumman (@Ghummans) June 16, 2020

Please note there is also an audio only version available to listen to or download there.

A survey commissioned to lead the Lowcountry forward five years after the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME shows a community eager to curb systemic racism, but divided on the current climate and next steps necessary to do so.

Respondents agree race should have no role in how people are treated by police, in school and in the community, but disagree on whether law enforcement officers racially profile people of color, how schools achieve goals and encourage success and whether symbols and monuments seen as racist should remain in place.

Leaders of The Charleston Forum hope the results will help drive their conversations with local leaders over the next year as they develop policy proposals aimed at equality and justice in the region. The survey was conducted before the weeks of protest following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last month, but it details ongoing concerns in the community that in some ways parallel the issues raised by marchers.

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#Charleston race relations survey reveals glaring inequality, a path forward https://t.co/Shs22u13j6 #chsnews

— Mikaela Porter (@mikaelaporterPC) June 15, 2020

In an article for Christianity Today’s ChurchLawAndTax.com, attorney and senior editor Richard Hammar said churches retain important protections with employment decisions pertaining to clergy, despite Monday’s ruling. However, Monday’s decision fosters greater uncertainty for churches with employees in nonministerial roles, he said.“

Churches that take an adverse action against an employee or applicant for employment based on religious considerations should describe their action appropriately,” Hammar said. “Refer to the religious or doctrinal principle at issue, and avoid generic labels like ‘sex’ or other gender- or sexuality-based labels.”

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, wrote that the ruling will have “seismic implications for religious liberty, setting off potentially years of lawsuits and court struggles, about what this means, for example, for religious organizations with religious convictions about the meaning of sex and sexuality.”

“This Supreme Court decision should hardly be surprising, given how much has changed culturally on the meanings of sex and sexuality,” he said. “That the ‘sexual revolution’ is supported here by both ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’ on the court should also be of little surprise to those who have watched developments in each of these ideological corners of American life.”

Read it all and there is a lot more there as well.

I have to admit I didn’t know who Haynes was until I read an article about him recently. How did you encounter him?

When I was pastoring in Vermont, I did some research into the history of the area, and I stumbled across him. Haynes wasn’t from Vermont, but he spent 30 years pastoring a church in West Rutland. I was about five miles down the road from where he preached. So I was just looking into the church history of Vermont, and he’s a towering figure in that state. But when I started reading up on him, I thought he should be better known in American church history. He’s the first African American ordained by a religious body in America and the first black pastor of a mostly white congregation. That’s rare today. It was unheard of then.

You wrote, “I had a friend who once said ‘fall in love with a dead guy.’ Haynes is my guy.” Why do you feel this special affinity for Haynes?

One reason is his faithful pastorate. He was a devotee of the theology of Jonathan Edwards, so he was in that American Puritan tradition. He was heavily influenced by the revivals; he cites Edwards and George Whitefield in his final sermon to the congregation in West Rutland. So he has that theology, and he was just a faithful shepherd. The first substantive biography of him, by Timothy Mather Cooley, is full of wonderful anecdotes, vignettes of things Haynes did and said. He was so funny; he had the wit of a Spurgeon. I loved that he was a political-minded guy but kept that out of his pulpit preaching. His theology was very rich.

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O God, who dost raise up scholars for thy church in every generation; we praise thee for the wisdom and insight granted to thy bishop and theologian Joseph Butler, and pray that thy church may never be destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Philosopher of forgiveness, Joseph Butler, born #onthisday 1692 pic.twitter.com/vDXtIl1JtV

— John Tasioulas (@JTasioulas) May 18, 2018

O God, we know and believe in the love thou bearest towards us. May we, by dwelling in that love, dwell in thee, and thou in us. We would learn to love and to serve him whom we have not seen, by loving and serving our brethren whom we have seen; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”

–Romans 1:16-17

Prisons across the country have placed prisoners on lockdown — they’re kept in their cells mostly around-the-clock — as a way to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Now prison reformers are worried that the response has increased the use of a practice they’ve long fought: solitary confinement.

“We’re starting to see an alarming trend in light of COVID-19,” says Jessica Sandoval of Unlock the Box, a coalition of groups fighting solitary confinement, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

That trend is outlined in the coalition’s new report, Solitary Confinement Is Never the Answer.

Before the coronavirus, according to the report, there were 60,000 people in solitary confinement. Now, in response to the pandemic, 300,000 state and federal prisoners have been confined to their cells. They’ve been placed in solitary confinement or in lockdown.

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