CP's Top 10 News Stories of 2015 (Part 2)
The U.S. Supreme Court's gay marriage ruling, Planned Parenthood's selling of baby body parts and IS-inspired terror attacks in the West are among the biggest stories that round out The Christian Post's top 10 stories for 2015.
To read No. 6-10 of CP's top 10 list click here.
Kim Davis, Donald Trump, Creflo Dollar and Josh Duggar are just of few of the figures who grabbed our reader's attention in 2015. Check out the top 10 stories of 2015 for The Christian Post.
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5. Racism concerns grow with acts of violence.
"Race and Policing" was CP's #4 news story for 2014 after the deaths by police of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in Long Island, New York. Protests of these, and similar, incidents continued in 2015 under the banner "Black Lives Matter."
In June, 2015, 21-year-old racist Dylann Roof shot and killed nine people after a Bible study at an historic black church, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Charleston. During a bond hearing after Roof was captured, family members of those slain were seen speaking to Roof, calling on him to repent and offering their forgiveness. The incident led to the removal of the Confederate Flag from South Carolina statehouse grounds.
Baltimore saw riots in April over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in the back of a police van. Rioters burned homes and buildings, including a $16 million Southern Baptist center for low-income seniors. Six police officers were indicted in the case. At the end of 2015, one of those indictments resulted in a hung jury. A retrial is set for June, 2016.
November and December, 2015, also saw information come to light that police in Chicago had tried to cover-up an investigation into a incident in which an unarmed black teen, Laquan McDonald, was shot unnecessarily. The officer has been charged with first-degree murder and some are calling for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign.
Christian and church groups sought to address these, and other incidents, in a variety of ways in 2015.
As the Baltimore riots began, there was a "Reconciled Church Summit" already taking place at First Baptist Church in Orlando. The Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission had a conference on race in March. The conference was originally planned for 2016, but moved up after the news there would be no indictments in the Eric Garner incident. And the November Faith Angle Forum featured a talk on forgiveness and African American churches.
Additional reading:
Time for the Confederate Flag to Be Retired
Baptist Leaders Unite to 'See Racism End in Our Generation'
Is White Privilege Causing the Problems at Mizzou?
4. Intolerant college leftists claim more campuses.
"Liberal intolerance" was CP's top news story of 2014, and there were at least "33 Examples of Intolerant Liberalism in 2014." This trend continued in 2015, especially on college campuses.
Framed as "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces," these college student liberals, also called "illiberal liberals" or "intolerant liberals," demanded protection from exposure to ideas they disagreed with.
A "trigger warning" is used clinically for those suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. But some of these college students adopted the term and demanded that professors allow them to skip classes or avoid assignments that could cause them distress.
During a March debate about campus rape at Brown University, a "safe space" was provided for students who chose to avoid listening to the different viewpoints offered on the topic. The "safe space" room had pillows, blankets, calm music, coloring books, Play-Doh and a video of puppies.
More recently, during a debate about the appropriateness of certain Halloween costumes at Yale, a professor shared with students via email her view that college students are adults, should be treated as such and can decide for themselves what to wear for Halloween. Protests ensued and the professor resigned.
The president of the University of Missouri also resigned after protestors accused him of only weakly responding to episodes of racism on campus. During those protests, organizers tried to ban reporters from the area. One professor was seen on video calling for "some muscle" to remove a student reporter.
The victims of these intolerant liberals are just as often fellow liberals as they are conservatives. Some of the strongest pushback was also from liberals, and non-conservatives, who value tolerance and diversity.
Early 2015 saw publication of Kirsten Powers' The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech, which became a New York Times bestseller. The September issue of The Atlantic featured an essay by Greg Lukianoff and Professor Jonathan Haidt that was sharply critical of the new trend.
Other liberal columnists bemoaning the illiberal direction of college leftists in 2015 included Damon Linker, Conor Friedersdorf and Michelle Goldberg.
Additional reading:
Liberals Became Dark, Cultish, Intellectually Stifling, Dissident Liberals Complain
Christian College President Slams Speech Censorship: 'College Is Not Day Care'
