audiences

Gary M. Burge 8-02-2011

I prefer my revolutions to be simple: A corrupt dictator/tyrant, an oppressed population, inspired reformers who risk their lives, calls for democracy, waves of marchers in the streets, background music from Les Misérables. The stories from Tunis and Cairo were epochal. The Arab spring was in full bloom as calls for participatory government could be heard from every corner of the Middle East.

Then there was Syria. The Assad government has been infamous in its intolerance to dissent. It is a military regime whose 30-year leadership under Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000) established it as one of the most severe in the region. In 2,000, after the death of Hafez, the world was intrigued to see his second son -- Bashar al-Assad -- ascend the throne. Bashar was an ophthalmologist who had studied in London, but because of his older brother's death in a car accident in 1994, he was called to follow his father. Bashar speaks English and French fluently and has been as critical of the U.S. as he has been of Israel.

Gary M. Burge 6-27-2011
I send many of my students to the Middle East as interns. In fact, Wheaton College has an entire program devoted to student short-term placement.
Gary M. Burge 5-10-2011

Once again last week the pages of the New York Times was graced with an ad published by David Horowitz's Freedom Center, one of those websites you visit and immediately begin to rethink the sanity of published discourse on the Web.

Julie Clawson 4-27-2011
Hollywood is generally fairly reluctant to produce films with strong feminist messages. It is far easier to sell women cast as the sexy sidekick or vapid damsel in distress.
Gary M. Burge 4-05-2011

It isn't as if the Middle East needed another complication. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen -- now Terry Jones? Rev. Jones is a fringe pastor in Gainesville, Florida, who spent about 30 years as a missionary in Europe.

Bryan Farrell 3-21-2011

With all the recent and well-deserved attention on the work of Gene Sharp, it shouldn't come as any surprise that a film about the foremost living strategist of nonviolent action is soon to be released.

Gary M. Burge 3-01-2011

I've been fascinated watching an earlier blog hunker down into a strong debate about Israel and the Palestinians (February 22, "

LaVonne Neff 1-11-2011
A public figure is shot. School children are shot. A building explodes. A package explodes. And immediately we look for someone or something to blame: Republicans?
Jim Wallis 12-02-2010

"I thank my God every time I think of you.

Ruth Hawley-Lowry 12-01-2010
"It gets better." Those are the words of promise that many of us spoke to Internet audiences this past autumn to encourage adolescents who are considering suicide.

Lena Horne is gone, but she remains a bright shining light.

Kathy Khang 2-12-2010
Right now my head is a bit stuffed up thanks to a cold, but the little voice inside my head usually takes no prisoners.
Julie Clawson 5-01-2009
As I process the conversations I had recently at EVDC09 (a gathering of emerging church participants to discuss the future of Emergent Village), I realized that one of the topics that keeps surfaci