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Stop Violence Against Women word cloud, mypokcik / Shutterstock.com

It’s not easy to let strangers access the most intimate details of your life, your past, your body, and have them be dissected in order to have justice. Now think about that prospect with the added threat of deportation.

Walter Wink in 2010.

Walter Wink, 76, a world-class biblical scholar and non-violent practitioner, crossed over to God on May 10 at his home in Western Massachusetts.

Man silhouette doing yoga, aragami12345s / Shutterstock.com

Meditation is great. But simply focusing on personal practices without an end-goal of giving yourself away to the world is akin to self-worship. It would be like spending years and millions of dollars to construct an incredible house, only to cordon it off and only allow people to peer in from the outside.

Happy Sisters! Photo by Carrie Adams

Rose Marie Berger and I drove up to Silver Spring, Md., to the national office of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and boy was it worth the drive. First of all, these ladies give really good hugs. Second, handing someone a gift that makes them cry is amazing and really touching.

Shaped by an experience that left him void of parental companionship, Peter, the 20-something-year-old protagonist of the new film Sound of My Voice, searches for meaning alone, not knowing what to believe.

Photo by Jonathan Pattee
Some victims, it seems, are more worthy than other victims. This is the clear message sent by a deeply flawed version of the Violence Against Women Act that is headed for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Tell Lawmakers to Protect the Violence Against Women Act!

On The Blog

  • It's no wonder that Mitt Romney won plaudits from evangelical bigwigs for his commencement speech at Liberty University on Saturday. It showed he's learned how to talk to them--or at least, learned to listen to the people who know how he's supposed to talk to them.
  • It was drilled into my brain that even though I felt a “calling” as a writer, a storyteller, etc., it was extremely different from 'the call.' Read: What your husband is doing is more important than anything you will ever do in your lifetime — ever. Except maybe have his progeny, and then, still, it’s a toss-up.
  • When asked to describe my mother, Helen, my usual answer is: Queen Esther in espadrilles and a matching purse. Esther comes to mind when I think of Mom because she was fiercely loyal, smart, determined, brave and deeply faithful.
  • How do you step out and take a risk — as a pastor, as an artist, as a parent, as a person — when the job description of a pioneer or a vanguard comes with the assurance of persecution? “Surrender the outcomes,” Rob Bell says.
  • "At a certain point, I've just concluded that — for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that — I think same-sex couples should be able to get married. Now — I have to tell you that part of my hesitation on this has also been I didn't want to nationalize the issue. There's a tendency when I weigh in to think suddenly it becomes political and it becomes polarized."

In The Magazine

  • The apostle's attack on elitism in Corinthian church and society speaks a clear message about inequality today.

  • In Guatemala, 44,000 people were "disappeared" during decades of war. Now workers there seek to resurrect a buried history and human dignity.

  • Angela Glover Blackwell believes in Detroit's future, and she has a vision for how to get there. Failure is not an option.

  • Hebrew scripture teaches us that the Spirit of God was not in the earthquake or the windstorm or the fire, but instead in the whisper—that still, small voice. Most assuredly it is. But I cannot help believing that every now and again the Spirit arrives with flapping wings and honking, too. Like that old gray goose.

  • An interview with Rebecca Barrett-Fox, a scholar who finds the appalling, the unexpected, and the human inside Westboro Baptist Church.

  • Even al Qaeda can use re-branding.

  • Fairness matters, especially for people on society’s margins—and that conviction goes far beyond tax equity to every aspect of public policy. For people of the Book, it’s much more important than politics; it’s a matter of faith.

Put Your Faith In Action

Featured Resource

Sarah Kay: 'If I Should Have a Daughter...'

From TED.com:

hands are not about politics / this is a poem about love / and fingers/ fingers interlock like a beautiful zipper of prayer

--Sarah Kay

Plenty of 14-year-old girls write poetry. But few hide under the bar of the famous Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan’s East Village absorbing the talents of New York’s most exciting poets. Sarah Kay also had the guts to take its stage and hold her own against performers at least a decade her senior. Her talent for weaving words into poignant, funny, and powerful performances paid off.

Now 22, Kay is a successful spoken word poet and codirects Project V.O.I.C.E. (Vocal Outreach Into Creative Expression). Founded by Kay in 2004, Project V.O.I.C.E. encourages people, particularly teenagers, to use spoken word as a tool for understanding the world and self, and a medium for vital expression.

Her poem "B" has been turned into a hardcover book.

Election 2012