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Jerusalem: Trump’s gift to evangelicals

Trump has made clear that he is listening to a powerful group of people eager to set the stage for Armageddon and the Second Coming.

By Matthew Avery Sutton, Edward R. Meyer distinguished professor of history

Matthew Avery Sutton
Sutton

Biblical prophecy is being fulfilled. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has set in motion events that evangelicals have long predicted. Or so it seems to the president’s most faithful supporters.

The president’s latest foreign policy decision is a gift to the evangelicals who have long supported him, those who advise him and those who fill his cabinet.

American evangelicals believe that Jesus is going to return to earth soon. But for that to happen, most of these Christians believe, Jerusalem has to become the capital of Israel.

With Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, evangelicals are eagerly anticipating what might come next—perhaps the rebuilding of the temple, the rapture of all true Christians from earth, then, for the rest of us left behind, tribulation, war and the battle of Armageddon.

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Seattle Times

Vancouver group steps up to keep ‘A Radio Christmas Carol’ on the air

The golden age of radio gets newer all the time.

For years now, the Kiggins Theatre and Re-Imagined Radio, a Washington State University Vancouver project, have been reviving the bygone era when families gathered around a grand wooden box in the living room to listen.

So, local radio-drama lovers nearly slipped on a banana peel upon hearing that, for the first time in years, Portland’s busy Willamette Radio Workshop won’t perform its annual holiday classic “A Radio Christmas Carol” at the Kiggins this year.

John Barber
Barber

“We couldn’t find a time that worked for everyone,” said John Barber, who has steered Re-Imagined Radio as a faculty member in the creative media and digital culture department at WSUV. “It was a challenge we just couldn’t solve.”

But Kiggins owner Dan Wyatt recalled that Vancouver’s own Metropolitan Performing Arts group recently shone during a live reading of the script “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” at a Harry Potter festival. Turning to Metropolitan to carry on the radio-drama tradition seemed like the perfect way to transform a loss into a win, Barber said.

“Let’s go a little more grassroots than before,” he thought. “Why have this event in Vancouver and bring in the entertainment from afar?” The idea of developing a local stable of voice actors and sound-effects specialists “is quite exciting when you think about all the ways it could go,” he said.

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The Columbian

Built off the legacy of her mother, a daughter earns two degrees

WSU graduate wants to change the world through policy.

Jessica DoJessica Do walked away from Washington State University on Saturday with two degrees, a hefty résumé and a couple of internships under her belt. And despite the multiple tries it took to find the right majors—sociology and political science—the 21-year-old graduated a semester early.

For Do, the motivation to succeed comes from several sources: her mentors, her breathing, her mother. In fact, it was her mother’s immigration to the U.S. from Vietnam that most inspired Do to make something great of her life.

“She just wanted a better life for all her children, and I just wanted to make her proud,” Do said. “I don’t want to disregard everything that she’s worked hard for to come to America, and not contribute to society.”

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Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Opinion: Trump Wrecks U.S. Foreign Policy to Get Christian Zionist Votes in Alabama

The Trump administration’s controversial decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is an appeal to Alabama evangelicals who largely support embattled U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore, says radio host Ian Masters.

Matthew Avery Sutton
Sutton

Masters discusses the role of evangelicalism in U.S. politics and history with Matthew Sutton, Edward R. Meyer distinguished professor of history at WSU.

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Background Briefing

Running marathons is hard—breaking up with your running group is harder

David Marcus
David Marcus

Leaving a group can mirror the experience of breaking up with a partner.

“Both involve brain regions that are also associated with physical pain,” says Dr. David Marcus, a faculty member of Washington State University’s psychology department. People experience a type of social pain when they are rejected or shunned by a group, similar to the pain experienced when a couple breaks up, whether it’s being kicked out of a high-school clique, or falling out with your family. This is compounded by the fact that a group can become part of a person’s self in much the same way as a romantic partner can, Marcus says.

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Quartz