general
The newest issue of Sojourners, hitting mailboxes and newsstands soon, has a photo of Andrew Natsios, President Bush's special envoy for Sudan at press time. Natsios stepped down [...]
Last year, my wife Jeanette and I returned to Honduras with a group from our congregation. What alarmed me was that a decade ago the MS (La Mara Salvatrucha) had a considerable presence in many of the poorest neighborhoods. Now they have a stronghold. One of my pastor friends told me, "Gabriel, people are afraid to come to church. The MS killed a woman in front of the church just the other day." The MS is going global. Recently Law & Order had an episode that featured the MS [...]
[Continued from yesterday's part one] On January 3, 2008, Focus on the Family's CitizenLink criticized those of us who responded to an invitation to dialogue with 138 Muslim scholars.
With the pivotal event of the Iowa Caucuses, news analyses have said that Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are now the defining candidates of this campaign-even if they don't win their respective nominations. It appears Obama has a better chance to do that than Huckabee does, but there is no telling how far he can go and, win or not, he could help redefine the Republican Party. In Sunday's New York Times, Frank [...]
Before joining Sojourners, my wife, Amy, and I spent the last five years doing urban ministry in Boston. We were invited to start a church in an abandoned chop shop by the matriarch and saint of the neighborhood, Ma Siss. The Boston Globe and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael [...]
On January 3, Focus on the Family's CitizenLink sent an email by associate editor Stephen Adams called, "Evangelical Leaders Pledge Common Cause with Islam." Their target once again was the National Association of Evangelicals, echoing an attempt last year to oust Richard Cizik for having common cause with the birds of [...]
A lot of us are people without a label these days.
Media folks want to call us the "Religious Left," since they can tell we're not the Religious Right. But that bipolar terminology brings a lot of baggage we neither want nor believe in. There's "Progressive Christians"
Bob Dylan mural in downtown Minneapolis. Image via popturf.com/Flickr.com
I've had an old 1989 tune by Bob Dylan running through my head for the last couple weeks. Unlike some other things that get stuck in my mind
The vicious assassination of Benazir Bhutto means many things for our world. Already pundits are rushing to consider what it means for our presidential elections here in the U.S. Who will it help most - Giuliani? Clinton? Biden? Obama? Of course there's a place for this kind of analysis, but I believe at least four other kinds of reflection should not be rushed over in the process.
First, we should pause to consider what this means for Pakistanis. There's something about hearing people express [...]
At year-end, many news organizations compile their top 10 stories of the year. After a full year of the Daily Digest, here are my choices.
1. Faith & Politics. In a significant indication of how the conversation on faith and politics has changed in the U.S., expressions of religious faith played a central part in a year of presidential campaigning by candidates from both parties.
2. Region in crisis. The U.S. troop surge in Iraq reduced violence but has not [...]
We first published this reflection by Jim Wallis in 2002. It has since become our Christmas tradition, kind of our own Charlie Brown Christmas special, if you will. With the ongoing conflicts raging during each passing year, it remains tragically relevant.
Silent Night, by Stanley Weintraub, is the story of Christmas Eve, 1914, on the World War I battlefield in [...]
Last night Bill Talen and his wife Savitri Durkee discussed American consumerism at a special Sojourners screening of 'What Would Jesus Buy?'
During Advent, as I kindle the wreath candles that mark the journey to the Bethlehem stable, I return to particular writers that I love and certain music that I can't seem to get through the seasons without. I have Advent habits.
For instance, I often re-read W.H. Auden's For the Time Being. In one portion King Herod weighs the threat to publiic order posed by the birth of the Christ child. Is the collatoral damage of murdering the male children justified in order to maintain [...]
When I went to check my post office box after Thanksgiving, among the pile of mail waiting for me were review copies of Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great about Christianity and Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.
I first [...]
As I do more reading about Darfur, I've had to re-examine some of my assumptions about genocide. I'd tended to think about genocides on the model of the Holocaust, which involved a massive logistical undertaking by a ruthlessly evil state whose armies were strong enough to conquer multiple other nations.
The genocide in Darfur is intentionally caused by a ruthlessly evil state, but that's where the similarities end. Khartoum's strategies in Darfur - as in southern Sudan before the [...]
The denomination which I am now seeking to enter and belong to, the Episcopal Church, is a denominaton that many others are now seeking to depart.
Such a situation carries within it two things: danger and opportunity. The danger is self evident. The opportunty will come from listening to the jackhammer on our roof. The image of a hammer on the roof comes from my Bishop Greg Rickel. I've added "jack" to the "hammer" to note the severity of [...]
This is an announcement mostly for those who post comments on this blog. As many have complained, our comments are often less a respectful dialogue, and more a reflection of our polarized partisan culture in which the most strident voices dominate. A typical complaint:
Nice piece this morning by James Carroll in The Boston Globe. He writes about what he calls "the radical militarization of foreign affairs."
A MAN bit a dog last week. Not just any man, and not just any [...]
The Nov. 27 Annapolis meeting on Israel/Palestine has launched us into a momentous one-year process to seek a permanent peace agreement between Israel and its neighbors. What is at stake is whether after more than 50 years of ghastly conflict and widespread bloodshed, genuine peace can come to one of the most dangerous areas and most divisive problems in our world.
Important steps were [...]
As you all encounter pictures of "jolly, old St. Nick" this season, remember that St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was a real Christian hero. He spent his life working for freedom and justice for the poor and powerless. In particular, he is known for saving three women from being sold into prostitution and preventing the execution of three men who were wrongfully convicted.