What's Acceptable? What's Possible?
by Jim Wallis
Sojourners 5-20-2007
I feel very honored and excited to be addressing you graduates today; about being a small part of this great occasion in your lives--the day when you are symbolically "set loose" into the world; and I would suggest that all of us have a great stake in what you are going to do. Title "What is Acceptable? What is Possible? »read more

Join Christians Around the World: Stand Against Global Poverty
SojoMail 10-04-2006
»read more

Sink or Swim
by David Batstone
SojoMail 9-13-2006
It is those at the margins, the least of these, who are being asked to make the biggest sacrifices. If anything the poor are being thrown overboard to keep the ship afloat. »read more

Liberal literalists
by Jason Byassee
SojoMail 9-13-2006
Mainline liberal churches are not noted for their literalist view of scripture. Generally it is "conservatives" or "evangelicals" who attend to the letter of the Bible, and liberals who prefer its "spirit," to gain some wiggle room out of uncomfortable moral positions. »read more

What we've forgotten about 9/11
by George W. Drance, SJ
SojoMail 9-13-2006
The air was saturated with cruelty, and most people recognized that any additional cruelty just couldn't fit in the air. »read more

September 11: 100th Anniversary of Gandhi's First Public Protest
by Tobias Winright
SojoMail 9-06-2006
On Sept. 11 Americans will remember the fifth anniversary of the nightmarish terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Probably unbeknownst to many, however, is that Sept. 11 also marks the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's first public act of civil disobedience. »read more

Witnesses to all the earth
by Steve Thorngate
SojoMail 8-31-2006
I grew up in a particular kind of evangelical church, in which the sermon frequently began with, “Bear with me; we’re gonna be flipping around a lot today,” flipping pages of the Bible around to create some composite text and pet reading from a dozen favorite verses, often stripped from their contexts. So I’ve come to appreciate sermons based on just one or a couple more substantial passages. And I especially like that, in a church that follows a lectionary, the subject of the day is defined by something larger than whatever the pastor happens to want to talk about. »read more

Missouri Creates Stumbling Block for 200,000 Registered Voters
by Meg E. Cox
SojoMail 8-31-2006
Some 200,000 Missouri residents have new hoops to jump through if they plan to vote in November's congressional elections. This is the number of registered voters in the state who lack state or federal photo ID, which will be required at the polls this fall under a new law passed in June. »read more

Nonviolence and the strategy against terrorism
by David Cortright
SojoMail 8-28-2006
In the months after 9/11, Jim Wallis challenged peace advocates to address the threat of terrorism. “If nonviolence is to have any credibility,” he wrote, “it must answer the questions violence purports to answer, but in a better way.” Gandhian principles of nonviolence provide a solid foundation for crafting an effective strategy against terrorism. Nonviolence is fundamentally a means of achieving justice and combating oppression. Gandhi demonstrated its effectiveness in resisting racial injustice in South Africa and winning independence for India. People-power movements have since spread throughout the world, helping to bring down communism in Eastern Europe and advancing democracy in Serbia, Ukraine, and beyond. The same principles - fighting injustice while avoiding harm - can be applied in the struggle against violent extremism. »read more

'Fear Not!' for 'The Root of War Is Fear'
by Timothy Seidel
8-23-2006
Every Thursday at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center, in Jerusalem, they hold a simple communion service. During this service, instead of delivering a sermon, Sabeel's director Rev. Naim Ateek offers a few thoughts reflecting on the texts of the day and encourages the rest of us there to do the same. Specifically, Ateek challenges us to reflect on scripture in the context of the situation that surrounds us, seeking to hear the word that God has for those suffering under the weight of violence, oppression, and injustice. One of the texts read this past Thursday was from the gospel of Mark. In it, the story is told of Jesus going to meet his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and offering the words of comfort that are repeated time and time again in the gospels: " Do not be afraid" (Mark 6:50). "Do not be afraid." How appropriate right now. These words brought me immediately to another reflection that is all too relevant. It was written by Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, many years ago and titled "The Root of War Is Fear" (from New Seeds of Contemplation). Merton wrote: "At the root of all war is fear: not so much the fear that men have of one another as the fear they have of everything. It is not merely that they do not trust one another; they do not even trust themselves ... They cannot trust anything because they have ceased to believe in God." »read more

Dispatch from the desert
by Maryada Vallet
SojoMail 8-22-2006
It's mid-afternoon and the sun has taken its harsh toll since the morning hours of meeting deportation buses. By 10am we have given water, food, and medical care to more than two hundred people. Hundreds and hundreds of tired eyes, blistered feet, and hungry stomachs. "We have another bus," shouts a volunteer who sees the large, white Homeland Security bus pull up next to the U.S. customs and immigration building at the Mariposa Truck Port of Nogales, Arizona and Sonora-Mx. By now we know the drill and we station ourselves to be a team of hospitality. Volunteers take on the roles of handing out fliers telling of migrant shelters and aid for migrants in Nogales, distributing baggies of bean burritos and 1-liter bottles of water, conducting interviews for abuse documentation and general statistics, and ready to provide medical care. From a distance we watch and count, twenty-three ... thirty-eight ... fifty-two ... a full bus. My stomach sinks, however, when I see that among the figures walking in a line through the port and in our direction are quite few smaller figures as well. »read more

Charity, Justice, and Love on the Gulf Coast
by James Ferguson
SojoMail 8-16-2006
Each morning we left our air-conditioned oasis of hospitality for dust, sweat, and infuriation with our inability to use a tape measure properly at our work sites in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. »read more

The art of being David Bazan
by John Potter
SojoMail 8-09-2006
Recently named one of the "Top 100 Living Songwriters" by Paste magazine, Bazan's often ironic narratives on faith, hypocrisy, and social justice frequently gain him comparisons with legendary author Flannery O'Connor. »read more

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!
by Ben Jacques
SojoMail 8-02-2006
To many today, mercy is weakness. To insist on punishment, even the taking of human life, shows strength, and satisfies our yearnings for revenge. »read more

The Body of Christ in Lebanon
by Jim Wallis
SojoMail 7-27-2006
It's time for American Christians to start listening to Christians and churches in the Middle East, and Lebanon would be a good place to start. »read more

Blistering Hope: A stonemason's meditation on perseverance
by Ken Sehested
SojoMail 7-26-2006

When cutting capstone, carefully
measured, from a larger block with
nothing but hammer and chisel you
come to know the necessity of blister-raising
toil to achieve envisioned result. »read more

Meanwhile, back in Gaza
by Philip Rizk
SojoMail 7-26-2006
In a recent meeting I had with a White House confidant I was informed that the case of Shalit is of utmost priority in Washington. When I asked how the situation on the ground would change if the soldier were released, he asserted that Israel would be willing to negotiate. I didn't believe him; I will tell you why. »read more

Stalling Tactics Fail in Voting Rights Renewal
by Meg E. Cox
SojoMail 7-26-2006
A measure to extend expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed handily in the House of Representatives in July. But several weeks earlier passage was by no means assured. »read more

Finding common ground at family reunions
by David Batstone
SojoMail 7-19-2006
SojoMail readers tend to be passionate about religion and politics. Funny enough, those are the very topics that can generate adversarial divisions at family gatherings. So for the sake of future family harmony and enjoyable vacations, I throw out a few reflections on reunion behavior. »read more

Is this creep-show catastrophe biblical?
by Elizabeth Palmberg
SojoMail 7-19-2006
I’ve chosen to focus on the third film, Left Behind: World at War, because it was released in churches (the first two films had tanked at the box office). A reported 3,000 congregations, including a number of megachurches, elected to screen the film last October, often billing it as an evangelistic opportunity. But it’s not an entirely gospel message that this film gave its viewers, churched and unchurched – and it’s not just a spiritual kind of warfare that it urges upon the faithful. »read more