In a controversial decision, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill on Monday that allows physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients. As a former Jesuit seminary student, Gov. Brown said the decision was difficult but that he wanted to give terminally ill patients all the options to consider.
Do not be alarmed: there are no known bands of Jesus fish-sporting, vigilante hackers patrolling the cyber underworld.
But in 13 cities this weekend — including Jakarta, Bangalore, Addis Ababa, Guatemala City, London, Waterloo, Atlanta, and Raleigh-Durham — more than 800 Christian coders, developers, programmers, designers, pastors, and artists gathered together for a 48-hour simultaneous hackathon. They scripted, designed, collaborated, and competed to develop new apps and websites for global and local adherents to the faith.
Programmers speaking of transformational love, and pastors wielding code: Welcome to the first global Christian hackathon.
On Thursday afternoon, a 26-year-old man slaughtered nine people and wounded nine others on the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg, Ore. It is a sadly familiar story in this country, routine even. President Obama named it as such in his remarks last week, claiming that we have become “numb” to mass shootings and the discussions that follow. He’s right about that.
But I’d argue that we’re numb to all of our society’s violence, as we have lazily accepted a theology of death rather than do the work to reflect the theology of life so many of us profess to believe. I’m glad for the separation of church and state in this country, so don’t confuse this for me claiming that U.S. society should be run as a Christian institution. Rather, I’m saying that a lot of people in this country who profess to be Christian buy into this acceptance of violent death all too easily. The proof of this is that, shooting after shooting, execution after execution, violent death after violent death, we as a society have not changed. And it is our lack of change that keeps the door open for history to repeat itself.
Pope Francis returned to Rome Sept. 28 after the longest and perhaps most challenging foreign journey of his pontificate: a trip that lasted 10 days and took him from the communist outpost of Cuba to the capitalist superpower of the U.S., where the popular pontiff faced some of his toughest critics — both inside and outside the church.
Now comes the hard part.
On Oct. 4 in the Vatican, Francis formally opens a three-week meeting of some 270 bishops from around the world who will discuss — or, more likely, argue vociferously about — church teachings on family life, a topic that encompasses hot-button questions about the church’s views on divorce, homosexuality, and cohabitation.
Judges 19 is a story of intimate betrayal and the complicity of a larger community calling us to consider our own roles in our communities...The sheer horror of what this woman endured—including at the hands of husband and host—extinguishes the fires of my sanctified imagination. I can only conjure her screams. And I have no words to express them. One might look to God for a final word, but God is absent from the chapter, as this chapter and any mention of domestic violence is absent from too many pulpits.
Just before the Religious Freedom Restoration Act controversy exploded in Indiana earlier this year, a compromise was playing out 1,500 miles away.
In Utah, as the Salt Lake Tribune noted, same-sex marriage had been banned both through state law and constitutional amendment. Attempts to pass lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender anti-discrimination measures had failed six times.
But in March, lawmakers brought together representatives from the Mormon and LGBT communities and passed landmark legislation.
Utah law now lists sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in housing and employment — but, without buy-in from the religious community, it does not include “public accommodations,” a broad legal term used to describe everything from bus services to restaurants and other private businesses.
1. 9 Ways We Can Make Social Justice Movements Less Elitist and More Accessible
"After a few weeks of feeling confused and invisible, I decided that I just wasn't smart enough to be an activist."
2. WATCH: Obama Condemns 'Routine' of Mass Shootings, Says U.S. Has Become Numb
"As I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough."
3. French Catholics Take in Refugee Family Seeking a 'Normal Life'
"The local effort is part of a national Catholic network that connects homeless asylum seekers with families willing to take them in."
At one point in the new film The Walk, high-wire walker Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is asked, after successfully walking a tightrope strung between the two towers of the World Trade Center, why he chose to perform such a dangerous, death-defying act. His answer: “There is no ‘why.’ I just look for a place to hang my wire, and when I find it, I put it there.”
There are a couple of ways you could take this statement. One is a thrilling feeling of limitless possibility. The other is a little more disconcerting: that there was no deeper meaning; Petit simply did it because, well, why not?
In the rollercoaster ride that has been media coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to the U.S., yet another twist has emerged: Pope Francis met with a same-sex couple, according to CNN.
After departing to widespread adulation, Pope Francis’ reputation in the U.S. shifted dramatically after it became known that His Holiness had secretly met with Kim Davis. The Vatican then stated that the meeting did not signal support for Kim Davis’ case.
But Oct. 2, the rollercoaster took another loop. Pope Francis’ longtime friend, who is openly gay, met him in Washington and brought along his partner of 19 years.
As one human family, it’s time to raise our moral voices.
As Pope Francis has illustrated, true faith is not a disengagement from the challenges of the world but an embrace of those very challenges.
The truth is there is no gospel that is not social; no gospel that relieves us of our call to love our neighbors as ourselves; no gospel that lives outside God’s admonition to serve the least of these. Pope Francis has made this clear, and for that we thank him.
In the history of the United States, a moral critique has always been at the center of any challenge to the structural sins of society—slavery, the denial of women’s rights, the denial of labor rights, the denial of equal protection under the law, the denial of voting rights, and the promulgation of unchecked militarism. We have never overcome any of these evils without a moral critique that challenged their grip on the heart and imagination of our society.