Integration

Karen González 10-31-2022

101 new Americans are sworn in as citizens at a naturalization ceremony at the New York Historical Society. Frances Roberts / Alamy

The message of assimilation makes me uncomfortable because it requires me to celebrate the loss of other people’s culture, traditions, and languages in order to alleviate the fears that white people, including Christians, might have about a diverse society where their position as power brokers of society may be threatened. It is akin to saying, “White Christians, please do not fear immigrants because they, too, will submit to white supremacy and blend into it as best as they can, even with their non-white skin and features.”

Lisa Sharon Harper 9-30-2011
Dear Herman, On September 28, you actually called African-Americans "brainwashed" for their support of the Democratic Party.

1100808-markhatfieldMark O. Hatfield's political witness shaped a whole generation of students, teachers, pastors, and social activists in the evangelical community and beyond. The voice of Christians today who plead for social justice and peaceful alternatives to war would not have emerged with its strength and clarity in the 1970s without his leadership. His death underscores the vacuum of such spiritually rooted voices uncompromising in their commitments to peace and justice within the cacophony political rhetoric today.

One of my life's greatest privileges and joys was to work as an assistant to Senator Mark O. Hatfield for nearly a decade, from 1968 to 1977. I saw first-hand what courageous leadership, combined with unswerving compassion and civility, looked like within the political life of that turbulent and formative era. Those experiences are shared in my book, Unexpected Destinations (Eerdmans).

Andrew Wainer 7-29-2011

When John Steinbeck's classic novel The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, it caused a sensation. It won the Pulitzer Prize and was the best-selling novel of the year. Just months later, in 1940, the book was turned into a film by John Ford, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

For readers today, Steinbeck's migration saga remains relevant as a piece of (dramatized) social analysis. It's essentially a road novel about the Joads, a poor Midwestern migrant farming family. Throughout the novel, the Joads fight to keep their family intact while fleeing the 1930s Oklahoma Dustbowl for the hope of farm work in California.

The Hebrew scriptures recount time and again how God blesses the earth with enough provision and food for its inhabitants.
Mike Morrell 6-06-2011
North Carolina, host state for the inaugural Wild Goose Festival, has many things going for it.
Melvin Bray 5-24-2011
This June, I plan to attend the Wild Goose Festival, an arts, music, justice, and spirituality festival in Shakori Hills, North Carolina. My appeal to you is simple.
Jake Olzen 3-23-2011

In a country torn by 30 years of war, where the promise of peace continues to be broken, despair and resignation seem to be the norm for Afghan society. War -- and its corollaries of social decay, poverty, corruption, and trauma -- does not discriminate.

Andrew Wainer 2-17-2011
Even before the 112th Congress convened in January, we knew that advancing progressive immigration policy would be challenging.
Allison Johnson 10-20-2010
[Editor's Note: Myths and misinformation abound when it comes to the topic of immigration reform.
Alan Bean 6-10-2010
A University of Michigan study suggests that the college students of today are 40 percent less empathetic than students twenty or thirty years ago.
Amy Graham 5-13-2010
The Houma Tribe, located in southern Louisiana, has had more than their fair share of trials and obstacles over the last 100 years. The oil spill may be the final straw.

The world is stubborn. It changes its thinking at a glacial pace. People fear change, and they come to hate what they fear. Powerful interests do not want to lose or to share power. The work of social justice, of affecting positive change requires persistent commitment and radical love that gives one the energy to continue the work across decades.

Martha St. Jean 1-22-2010
While the rest of the world has been pondering the economic and social fate of the recently earthquake-devastated island nation of Haiti, Haitian-Americans alone have asked, "What will happen to ou
Chris Rice 12-01-2009
"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.

Raising one half-African son and one of mixed European descent posed both ordinary and unique parenting challenges for my husband and me.
Neeraj Mehta 5-26-2009
A standard definition of community development often goes something like this: