Frank Langfitt
Appearances
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Pastor Ben Boswell says he was determined for Myers Park Baptist Church to confront its whiteness, as he explained during an online anti-racism seminar he hosted several years ago.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Boswell says he ran into resistance from congregants who, for instance, told him to take down Black Lives Matter signs. Boswell persisted. I like to joke churches have sacred cows. Sacred cows make the best hamburgers. Myers Park is a white liberal church in a neighborhood where mansions can sell for more than $4 million.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
After the November election, Boswell gave a sermon in which he likened this moment to what he called, quote, the gathering dark of Hitler's rule. He referenced Christ's resurrection and urged congregants to maintain hope.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Provocative sermons were nothing new for Boswell, who'd been at the church for nine years. But a few weeks later, the church's board of deacons, its governing body, met on Zoom. They voted 17 to 3 to ask Boswell to step down. NPR obtained the audio. It provides a rare window into the thinking of an organization when the tone of its social or political messaging clashes with its business model.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Marcy McClanahan was head of the board. In the meeting, the first reason she cited for Boswell to leave was plunging attendance.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Fellow deacon Robert Doolin was more direct.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
In an email to NPR, Doolin said he personally loved what he calls Boswell's powerful prophetic preaching. The problem, he says, is that it had worn thin with others. Here's how Doolin put it in the meeting.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
As people left, their contributions left with them. Since 2020, the church's budget has shrunk by nearly a quarter. Doolin says it's been one financial fire drill after another.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Myers Park Baptist is a cavernous red brick church with a big white steeple and it wears its progressive politics really right on the front of the church. You've got a giant sign here that says 80 years of inclusivity, community, spirituality, and justice. And on the other side, open to all now and forevermore.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
In the meeting, Deacon Alan Davis warned that getting rid of Boswell would undermine that very message.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Davis was among three deacons who resigned in protest. In an interview, McClanahan called Boswell a fantastic and visionary preacher, and she insisted the church would continue to advance racial and social justice. But some of Boswell's supporters say the conflict at Myers Park is part of a much larger one.
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A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Nicholas Ryan has attended Myers Park since preschool. He's now 30.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
After services in December, the church leadership met with the congregation behind closed doors to discuss Boswell's departure.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Griffin wore a San Francisco 49ers jacket. He said Boswell created a wonderful open community here. Now he's bitter.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
I mentioned that some white congregants felt beaten down by Boswell's continued emphasis on social and racial justice.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
While Griffin was talking about leaving Myers Park, Elizabeth Peterson was returning for the first time in years.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Peterson says that for a long time, Myers Park seemed more focused on people of color and LGBTQ folks.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
When you say us, who's us?
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
But do you think you'll come back to the church now?
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Pastor Ben Boswell has heard these sorts of things before.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
He says the conflict at Myers Park is part of a much bigger national trend to roll back things like diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
But church leaders say their concerns extended to Boswell's management. Others say he focused too much on social justice and not enough on tending the flock, one of the church's strategic goals. Bob Thomason is a former chairman of the Board of Deacons. He said he was speaking as a longtime member with a perspective on how the church had fared under Boswell.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
The pastoral part of the job.
Consider This from NPR
A pastor's sermons on social justice causes conflict among congregation
Boswell says he was committed to pastoral care and devoted a staffer to it full time. Boswell knows that some people think he made a mistake by focusing so much on racial and social justice. But he says he'd do it again and will continue to preach that message whatever he does next.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Yeah, it was Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. They say this cyber truck pulled up to the valet parking area of the Trump International Hotel. This was somewhere around 8.40 yesterday. Sat there for maybe 15, 20 seconds. Smoke starts to come out of the truck. Then these fireworks, you can see this in the video, they're shooting out of the truck, and then the truck is sort of engulfed in flames.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
The driver was killed, and as mentioned, seven people nearby, they suffered minor injuries.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Well, they know who rented the truck, but I'm not sure. They've not identified that person yet, at least not publicly. The truck was rented in Colorado, and what they want to make sure of, I think, is that the renter and the driver are the same person. And in terms of a motive, they haven't said anything at all.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
But yesterday at this news conference, Sheriff Kevin McMayhill, he said there's obviously a line of inquiry here, and this is how he put it last night.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Yeah, they showed a video yesterday of the burned out bed of the truck. And you could see gasoline canisters. There were camp fuel canisters and large fireworks mortars, which explains those fireworks that burst out of the car. But police are not sure exactly how it was ignited. There's also an interesting observation.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
They said the bed of the truck was very sturdy, and so it partially contained the blast. And that's why the windows of the lobby of the Trump Hotel weren't actually damaged.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
No, they're just only superficial similarities at the moment. You know, these are apparent attacks, both by trucks, same day, these tourist cities, as you mentioned. Both vehicles were rented on the same app called Turo, and the sheriff in Las Vegas called it another coincidence worth investigating.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
And once I think they have the identity of the Cybertruck driver, they'll see if there's any connection with the person in New Orleans. Right. The sheriff also said there was no ISIS flag seen in the Cybertruck, which we saw in New Orleans. And Jeremy Schwartz, he's the acting special agent in charge of the FBI in Las Vegas, he added this.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Yes, Steve, he praised the apparent sturdiness of the truck. Writing on Axe, he said this, the evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack. Now, a reminder, of course, authorities have not designated this as a terrorist attack yet. But they did say that Tesla was helpful in the investigation.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Police were able to track the vehicle from its stops at Tesla charging stations, and Tesla also supplied videos from those stops.
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New Orleans Attack, Suspect's Texas Home, Las Vegas Truck Explosion
Good to talk, Steve.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
The Black Hawk's recorder, as far as we know right now, is still in the river. But the National Transportation Safety Board, they're very confident they'll retrieve it.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
What do we know about the crew of the American Airlines jet? Yeah, we've got some confirmations here. The pilot was Jonathan Campos. He was 34. The first officer, a man named Sam Lilly in his late 20s, both based in Charlotte, really avid flyers. And Lilly is a second generation pilot. His father, Tim, used to fly for Air Wisconsin. And writing on Facebook yesterday, he said,
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Tim Lilly wrote that Sam's career had been going very well, and he was engaged to be married in the fall. And he wrote this. He said, now it hurts so bad, I can't even cry myself to sleep. Now, later today, we should learn the identities of the three service members who were crewing the Blackhawk.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Yeah, this was an FAA report that's been quoted by a number of news sources. NTSB, this is one of the board members, a guy named Todd Inman spoke yesterday, and he said they had not reviewed any specific reports about the controllers, but said, of course, as a matter of course, you know, you're going to be looking at what was going on in the control room and with the controllers.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
And, you know, A, that's not ideal, but analysts say it's also not unusual and not necessarily dangerous, depending on how much traffic is going on at the time.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Yeah, I mean, just more information. The NTSB yesterday down at Reagan National, during the press conference, they didn't say very much. And they're planning another briefing today. And typically, it's the second day where you learn a bit more. Yesterday was just the first day the team was on the ground. And
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
I'm actually looking at photos right now of NTSB workers opening up those black boxes from the airliner. And federal investigators, what they're really emphasizing is they want to be really careful about confirming facts before they pass them on. And there should be a preliminary report on this accident. It should be completed in about 30 days.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
Yeah, A, I think the final conversations in the cockpit, obviously before the two aircraft collided, they'll also be able to see about the plane's performance, data points, and including, and I think this is really important, the altitude of the plane leading up to and at the time of the collision.
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Plane Crash Latest, German Far Right, Nuclear Testing
It's not yet clear how these two aircraft, who are supposed, of course, to pass at a safe distance, how they ended up in the same place at the same time. Of course, also going to need the Army Black Hawk black box to be able to compare. And a question that's really coming up, I think, particularly yesterday, talking to people at the NTSB is, was that helicopter on the right flight path?
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Hey, good morning, Michelle.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, Trump officials at USAID, you remember, they cut off funding to thousands of aid recipients. This began January 20th when Trump took office. And the idea was they were going to review contracts to see if they were aligned with Trump's America First agenda. Now, this hit these organizations incredibly hard. They had to furlough people. Some were at the risk of going bankrupt.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
And so they ended up suing to get paid. Now, a lower court ordered the government to pay up and gave a deadline. Still, the government would not pay. And on Wednesday night,
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
The Trump administration was about to blow through this deadline, so it appeals to the Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Roberts, he pauses the case, hands the government a temporary victory, and naturally, that got a lot of attention.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, definitely. These are among the first cases in front of the Supreme Court that involve the president's attempts to expand executive power, like you were just saying. And after all, in these cases, the government had effectively refused to pay money that Congress had already appropriated and the government clearly owes, and that this judge had told it to pay.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
And the government says in one of its filings that it thinks the lower court exceeded its authority in doing that. And so people are watching very closely now to see how the Supreme Court responds to all of this.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
You know, Michelle, they point out that people's interest really perked up with the Supreme Court's initial ruling in favor of the government. And now the court, of course, it's got a conservative supermajority. Trump appointed three of those justices. Now, Stephen Vladeck, he's a law professor at Georgetown. He's an expert on federal law. And he was writing about this in his substack.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
And he thinks Robert's you know, may have just been trying to give the justices some time to make a reasoned decision rather than one right up against the clock. And Vladek says at a superficial level, quote, it's obvious to him that the government should ultimately lose these cases. And that's because the government's, you know, not allowed to just not spend money appropriated by Congress.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
As we said, I think often on these shows, on the U.S. system of government, Congress has the power of the purse. However, Trump says, you know, he wants to change the law so that the president can impound money approved by Congress.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, the government says it's actually changed its tune a little bit. It says it is committed now to paying what it owes, but it needs to do what it's calling a payment integrity review to make sure that all these invoices are legitimate. But remember, you know, the government did unilaterally halt these payments and it could have restarted them at any time. Where's this headed next?
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Yeah, the plaintiffs have to file a response to the government today. Legal scholars think the justices are going to move quickly to try to resolve the case because, you know, almost none of these age organizations, they're getting, they've been paid, it's been five weeks, and every day their financial situations are only getting a lot worse.
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Zelenskyy Visits DC, Tate Brothers In Florida, USAID Standoff, AOC and DOJ
Happy to do it, Michelle.