 QUOTE OF THE WEEK |
Dickens was about half right. This is the toughest year anyone can remember, and a lot of charities have their backs against the wall.
- Michael Durkin, president of the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, recalling the author’s best-of-times, worst-of-times paradox. (Source: The Boston Globe)
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We Needed a New Approach in Afghanistan -- and This Isn’t It
The decision by President Obama to send additional troops to Afghanistan saddens me. I believe it is a mistake, it is the wrong direction for U.S. foreign policy, and it is disappointing to many of us in the faith community and our friends who spearhead the on-the-ground development efforts in Afghanistan and around the world.
We needed a new approach to the very difficult and complicated situation in Afghanistan, and this isn’t it. We were promised fundamental change in the direction of U.S. policy around the world, and this isn’t it. We were promised change we can believe in, and this military escalation is not something many of us as faith leaders can believe in. This is still a primary reliance on military solutions and occupations to defeat terrorism -- a strategy which has not succeeded. The defeat of violent extremism is a necessary goal of the international community -- but old thinking, old ideas, old strategies, have failed time and time again to do that. And we have no reason to believe it will succeed this time.
Two weeks ago, we delivered to the White House an open letter to the president calling on him to lead with a different kind of “surge” -- a surge of strategic and focused international development, diplomacy, and targeted humanitarian assistance (and, yes, the necessary security to support it), rather than again relying on more military escalation. Seventeen thousand people have signed on to that letter. We heard little of that new approach in this announcement of sending more troops to fight terrorism. To undermine, isolate, and roll back the influence, capacity, and power of groups like al Qaeda is a necessary goal, but we still fail to fully comprehend how the presence and consequences of foreign military power serve to strengthen the extremism we seek to weaken. The plan that the president announced last evening is still the wrong kind of surge, and the emphasis of this policy is still in the wrong place. The history of the troubled country of Afghanistan, the lack of a reliable governance partner, the absolute failure of every other occupation of that nation, and the consistent mistake of leading with military solutions all predict sad outcomes for this old approach. Our nation’s growing skepticism about this war is well-founded.
Ultimately, only a whole new approach to Afghanistan will have any chance of success. And many of us will continue to call for that, in the hope that the Obama administration will eventually listen. In the meantime, we will pray for our servicemen and women who will continue to sacrifice for a tragic strategy, for more innocent civilians in Afghanistan who will die from more military escalation, for a president whose deepest instincts we still trust, and for the soul of our own nation. May God save us from our well-intentioned mistakes.
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| BUILDING A MOVEMENT |
Save Energy, Care for Creation
The United Nations Climate Change Conference kicks off in Copenhagen on Dec. 7. Nearly every country in the world will be coming together to try to forge a new global resolution to combat climate change.
On a more local level, here are some practical tips, hints, and instructions from ENERGY STAR on how congregations, families, and individuals can cut energy costs by up to 30%. This is just one way of practicing good stewardship of financial resources, as well as creation care, by implementing measures to reduce energy waste and energy costs. Why not think up some more and share them?
| ON THE GOD'S POLITICS BLOG |
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Attacking Our Mental Programming on Race
by Chandra White-Cummings
I'll tell you up front -- I'm going to talk about race. I know some are tired of hearing about it, and I think that's mainly because we've been hearing about it in the same ways for so long.
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Governments, a Kingdom Agenda, and Reading Scripture Badly
by Chuck Gutenson
A popular argument amongst political conservatives goes like this: while they grant that scripture requires concern and care for the poor and marginalized, that concern is one to be addressed by individuals and not by governments. This is a popular argument, but is it a sound one from a biblical perspective?
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Christmas is Supposed to Be Crusty
by Tracey Bianchi
For me, Christmas is supposed to be crusty. I mean that in a good way. It is supposed to be all yellow, damp from the basement, and smelling like candles and old pine needles. There is tradition dripping from every one of the items I pull out of our bins.
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Climate Justice Clips: Countdown to Copenhagen, Day 6
by Jarrod McKenna
This clip gave an Aussie kid like me who grew up on Midnight Oil goose bumps (embarrassingly I cried despite the cringe factor) and was very popular with students in our workshops because of the big name stars.
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Advent, Mary, and Sudan
by Melanie Weldon-Soiset
As I reflect on the dire situation in Sudan, I am reminded of the angel Gabriel's visit to a peasant woman -- in a politically turbulent region -- named Mary.
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Three Ways to Remind Hospitals Why They Exist
by Ernesto Tinajero
Most modern hospitals are now more concerned with the bottom line than they are in healing; they're more concerned with taking care of the insurance companies than the "revenue generating units" (what were formally called "patients"). Several proposals could help in refocusing hospitals back to their reason for existence.
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World AIDS Day and Rosa Parks' Civil Disobedience
by Ruth Hawley-Lowry
December 1 is World AIDS Day. December 1 is also the day that Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on a bus in Montgomery. I've been thinking quite a bit about the confluence of those dates this past month.
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Climate Justice Clips: Countdown to Copenhagen, Day 7
by Jarrod McKenna
In the countdown to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15), here are some of the most popular, inspiring, informative, and provocative video clips we have used in our workshops. Feel free to post them on your blog, send them to friends, share them in your sermons, small groups, and bible studies.
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The U.S. Shouldn't Bless Honduras's Flawed Elections
by Lisa Haugaard
Elections carried out under a state of emergency -- with visible military and police presence, by a government installed by coup, with a significant movement opposed to the coup calling for abstention, and with the deposed president still holed up in the center of the capital city in the Brazilian Embassy -- are no cause for celebration.
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Beyond 'Diversity': New Creation and a Mestizo Vision
by Chris Rice
"Integration" and "diversity" do not express God's purpose for reconciliation deeply enough. What we need is a fresh paradigm that declares our new culture in Christ.
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Death on the Border: Who's the Criminal Here?
by Maryada Vallet
The U.S. government continues to escalate the hyper-criminalization of both migrants and humanitarian workers on the U.S.-Mexico border. This is happening through the ticketing of humanitarian workers for putting out water on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Humanitarians are being prosecuted for "littering," a ridiculous charge to smokescreen the larger socio-political issues at hand.
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Lamenting Churches Labeled by Race
by Leroy Barber
For a long time the church I pastor has been called a "white church." We have had many people of color visit and not stay very long because of it. For most of the church's ten-year history I have been the only black man attending. We have tried to discuss it but have never really gotten anywhere because the topic is so hard to discuss. In fact, I hate churches labeled by race (which may be part of the problem -- me not talking enough about race).
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Video: Jim Wallis and Eboo Patel
by Jim Wallis
At Interfaith Youth Core's conference, Dr. Eboo Patel talks to Jim Wallis about Jim's personal faith journey and the potential for interfaith cooperation.
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Fair Trade Christmas Lists and Links
by Julie Clawson
As we gear up for the celebrations, the spiritual reflections, and the traditions, now is a good time to start deliberately planning how we can make this Christmas a just Christmas. In other words, how can we subvert systems of oppression and exploitation through our holiday habits.
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Equality in the Beautiful Image of God -- and the Ugliness of Violence Against Women
by Eugene Cho
Why didn't I learn that women and men are both created equal in the beautiful image of God? Why didn't I learn that through Christ, women and men can do all things through him who gives strength and grace?
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Bedbugs: A Modern-Day Leprosy. Seriously.
by Bart Campolo
Bullets in the backyard we can handle, I think. Bedbugs ? I don't know. I used to judge all those Bible people who shunned the lepers to protect themselves and their families. I thought I was different because I was willing to spend my life in a ghetto. Now I know better ? and wish I had some DDT.
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Advent: Apocalypse Now?
by Diana Butler Bass
Those of us attracted to the vision of the Beatitudes may find Luke's end-times vision a little hard to take. We've had too much experience with a callous form of faith that does not seek to redeem the world and only wishes to escape it.
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An Afghan Leader We Can Admire
by Margaret Benefiel
The media coverage of Afghanistan focuses, on the one hand, on the evils of the Taliban and, on the other hand, on the necessity of rooting out corruption in the current U.S.-backed government. Where are the leaders we can admire?
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'Spewing Reasonable Dialogue': Affirmation from a 'Skeptical' Commenter
by Ryan Rodrick Beiler
"If you people are going to be spewing this kind of reasonable dialogue, I think my subversive friends and I should pay attention."
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Debunking the Beauty Myth
by Onleilove Alston
Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth, discusses how images fueled by consumerism are used against women. Wolf points out that the beauty myth becomes harsher after times of political gain for women, thus distracting us from the cause of equality.
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A More Serious Threat to Catholic Identity than Removing Public Crucifixes
by César Baldelomar
The erosion of the Catholic social tradition among Catholics is a more serious threat to Catholic identity than the removal of crucifixes.
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In My Community: Equal at Birth, but Incarcerated at Adulthood
by Alex Gee
Dane County, Wisconsin, is an amazing community for African-American babies to be born into. It is a horrible community in which to live if you are an adult African-American male.
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Uniting to Eliminate Violence against Women
by Justin Fung
In his address marking the 10th anniversary of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a new initiative aimed at mobilizing men to get involved in the campaign. In announcing the formation of the Network of Men Leaders, Ban called on men and boys everywhere to combat violence against women.
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| SOJOURNERS IN THE NEWS |
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Top Stories:
Evangelical, and Young, and Active in New Area
The New York Times
What happened to both Wheaton and Jenna Liao tells much about the shifts in evangelical Christianity as a whole. Her Christian education exposed her to examples of religious idealism from St. Thomas Aquinas to Mother Teresa to the progressive evangelical ministers Jim Wallis and Soong-Chan Rah. +Click to continue
Rev. Jim Wallis: New approach to Afghanistan needed and Obama's plan isn't right solution
The News-Press
The decision by President Obama to send additional troops to Afghanistan saddens me. I believe it is a mistake, it is the wrong direction for U.S. foreign policy, and it is disappointing to many of us in the faith community and our friends who spearhead the on-the-ground development efforts in Afghanistan and around the world. We needed a new approach to the very difficult and complicated situation in Afghanistan, and this isn’t it. +Click to continue
Follow up Afghanistan withdrawal with humanitarian aid surge
The News-Press
In his blog, Rev. Jim Wallis, an evangelical minister and editor of Sojourner magazine, criticized the President’s speech last night as advocating the wrong kind of surge — it should have been humanitarian instead of military, he argues. +Click to continue
US Christians say Obama's Afghanistan surge 'a mistake'
Ekklesia (United Kingdom)
An evangelical leader in the US has said that Barack Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan is “a mistake” and “the wrong direction for US foreign policy. Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners Magazine and of the Washington DC-based Christian community of the same name, said that many faith leaders would be disillusioned with the President, feeling that they had been promised fundemantal change in foreign policy and an end to a "reliance" on military solutions. +Click to continue
Global faith leaders hope to give push to climate change action
Anglican Journal
From a Church in West Dallas, the "Stepchild of Dallas," One Pastor's Call for Unity
Dallas Observer blog
"Sojourners in the news" articles are the most recent news clippings that mention Sojourners in any way - whether favorably or unfavorably. Though we provide the text on our site for your convenience, we do not necessarily endorse the views of these articles or their source publications. |
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