Inside the People of Praise, the Tight-Knit Faith Community of Amy Coney Barrett

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/08/us/people-of-praise-amy-coney-barrett.html

About 35 years ago in New Orleans, a young lawyer for Shell Oil Company received an opportunity that should have been a triumph: a prestigious transfer to the main office in Houston, and a significant raise. On paper, the promotion was a stroke of good fortune for the father of six. In reality, it was devastating. He broke the news to his wife in the driveway of their home. “This is awful,” he told her. “A move to Houston means life for our family will never be the same.”

The family’s life in Louisiana revolved around an unusually tight-knit young Christian community. Members worshiped and socialized together for several hours every Sunday. They often shared the same houses, or the same neighborhoods. Some consulted leaders on everything from their household budget to whom they should marry.

For about three months, Mike Coney gutted it out, commuting between Texas and Louisiana. Then he quit the job. “Our life was in a covenant community in New Orleans,” he reflected much later in a magazine published by the community, which would later become known as the People of Praise. “For the sake of our children and ourselves, we needed committed relationships with other Christians who were serious about their faith.”

The Coney family’s eldest daughter, Amy, spent formative years of her childhood embedded in that intense faith community in Louisiana. She later attended law school in South Bend, Ind., the group’s national hub. She married a man named Jesse Barrett who had himself been raised in South Bend’s People of Praise community, and settled there to raise her family. And now, Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated to become the country’s next Supreme Court justice.

*snip*

[GeorgeGist]

1. People are dying because Amy believes her appointment is more important ...

than American lives.

[Nevilledog]

2. Just the type of temperament you look for in a Justice.