How can churches have a healthy conversation about politics in the middle of a national election without demonizing the opposition and causing disunity? Learning to speak as a Chr ...

Good and gracious God: Today, like the rest of the world, when I woke I wrapped myself in myths. They are comfortable and warming in what can seem like such a cold world. Yes, they are old and worn but they ...

Jesus had the blues. He had the hometown blues. So, rejected, he fled his hometown. Then he sent his apostles out into the world proclaiming peace, healing the sick and the lame, and prepared to face the sam ...

Crosses as powerful symbols predate Christianity and are not the singular insignia of our faith. Some Christians prefer the fish to the cross as an identity marker for Jesus followers. I confess I simultaneous ...

When you hold yourself up as somehow favored in the eyes of God, it’s easy to hold those you deem as less favored to be somehow “less than,” and to dehumanize all who do not conform to your custom-built ideal ...

Editor's Note: Sister Joan Chittister, the Benedictine Catholic sister, author and social justice stalwart, delivered the Baccalaureate address at Stanford University a few weeks ago. On God's Poltic ...

It’s such an easy thing to do, To overshoot and lose touch with You; Surrounded by everyday anxieties,... It’s such an easy thing to do, To overshoot and lose touch with You; ...

I lost my joy. I suspect there are a few of you who feel the same way. Not that you aren't happy, but there is this deep place of celebratory joy which you once knew that really doesn't come around m ...

Peace is better than war. Good of the whole is better than whims of a few. God wants everybody — red, yellow, black, brown and white taken care of. God wants true community, more togetherness … not more separa ...

What does Jesus’ encounters with a desperate, suffering woman and a young girl believed to be dead have to do with America’s love of freedom and fireworks? Fifth Sunday After Pe ...

Given the historical record, it may seem the deck is stacked against American evangelicals organizing into a comprehensive peace movement — yet that’s exactly what’s happening. Bi ...

June 18, 2012 Sojo in the News Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove ...

I struggle to know how much is enough. I hear about Joseph Kony and the many children he’s exploited as child soldiers. I get angry, discouraged. I write about it, talk to friends about it. And then my life ke ...

Religious leaders do believe that massive deficits are moral issues, and that we must not saddle future generations with crippling debt. But we believe that how we resolve deficits also is a moral issue. And o ...

The Vatican has published rules to evaluate the authenticity of the dozens of apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported each year. The Vatican has published rules to evaluate the au ...

This week is one of those weeks where everyone seems to be talking, tweeting and blogging about the same video. I received it from several concerned friends with commentary like, “More bad news from North Caro ...

May 9, 2012 Sojo in the News David Crumm ...

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, ...

The sounds of the Pacific crashing on the shore mix with a reggae tune playing on the outdoor stereo of the bar next door as the speaker, a 41-year-old former pastor and bestselling author, resumes his riff on ...

In the business I am in, of ministry and pastoral care, listening is such an important thing. I can prepare all the fancy theology and exegesis imaginable but if I don’t listen I might be getting it all wrong ...

Georgetown University's Father Thomas Reese finds discrepancies between Catholic doctrine and Paul Ryan's fiscal ministry. "As Jesus said, 'Tough love your ...

To believe is easy. You can fill stadiums with people wanting to believe, either to solidify what they already think or to grasp hold of something because they feel cast adrift and lost at sea. To doubt, to in ...

In a video address Tuesday, President Obama told hundreds of young evangelical Christian leaders gathered at the Q Conference in Washington, D.C., that they had a partner in the White House in their humanitari ...

Poetry is language made material. It presents us with objects and the world, yes, that is part of its materiality, but it also – and perhaps fundamentally – makes our very language into a thing, rather than s ...

"These holidays have their roots in miracles that took place thousands of years ago. They connect us to our past and give us strength as we face the future. And they remind us of the common thread of huma ...

“When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand betwee ...

The image that moved his heart became one to which he returns daily, as do I. For the piercing of the side of the helpless man hanging on the cross happened not just then and there at Golgotha; it happens here ...

It turns out that, although plenty of folks have their own explanations, nobody actually knows why we call it Good Friday. I think the Germans are spot-on by calling it Karfreitag, which means “Suffering Frida ...

Jesus healed and he taught and he called for others to follow him, yet the suffering still was all around. Some part of his humanity must have wanted to take up a sword and fight it. Yet he knew that violence ...

We've compiled a playlist of songs inspired by or that speak in some way to the Holy Week journey that brings us to Maundy Thursday and the great mandate from which the day takes its name: "If I, the ...

yrics of The Smiths and their Manchunian contemporaries and used them -- brilliantly and powerfully -- to retell in a thoroughly modern milieu the greatest story ever told. The mu ...

President Obama hosted his third annual Easter prayer breakfast for about 150 members of the clergy from across the nation in the East Room of the White House Wedndesay morning. In his six-minute address, Obam ...

I stood in the middle of a valley. Hot wind whipped the sand at my feet. Dry bones, bleached by the sun covered the valley floor. Son of man, God said, can these bones live? It ...

Every Christian knows the story: Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. But what did he do on Saturday? Every Christian knows the story: Jesus ...

Lots of folks love preaching about the risen Christ on Easter Sunday without talking about what he went through to get there. It’s a bad habit we Protestants have, but plenty of us skip right over Maundy Thurs ...

Jesus radically broke with the prevailing culture and paradigms of his day. He reached across social, cultural, religious and ethnic boundaries. He built bridges, spanned the gap, and reconciled us to each oth ...

“God doesn’t loves us as a flower but as a bouquet.” Most every Sunday Ruth or Lily Janousek hands me a drawing on the way out the door. I have quite a collection. Lily and Rut ...

A note from the poet: Two years ago, our church opened its doors and began serving meals to our community. The immense and overwhelming feelings I felt scared me and so I penned them in this poem. Working with ...

Galatians 3:22: Is it the faith of Jesus or faith in Jesus that’s the key? The following is an excerpt from Banned Questions About Jesus , edited by the author: Galatians ...

Jesus said it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle that you used to stitch that Noah’s Ark for your child’s bedroom — than for a rich guy to get to heaven. Let. That. Sink. In. ...

In the Bible, Jesus even goes so far as to say that when we feed the poor, the “least of these,” we are feeding Christ himself. When Jesus speaks of the final judgment he says we will be asked by God, “When I ...

This Thursday, March 22nd, is World Water Day. The April 2012 issue of Sojourners includes Ched Myers’ 'Everything Will Live Where the River Goes', a Bible study on water, God, and redemption. See a ...

I am on food stamps. This will surprise almost everyone who knows me. I have hidden it from friends, from family, from classmates. I am on food stamps. This will surprise almost e ...

What action will at once end the violence, protect the people, and depose an illegitimate government while not increasing violence in a complicated and volatile region of the world? ...

When I am faced with dishonesty and fraud on a systemic scale, I ask my questions of God. But I am continually directed back to humanity itself to find the origins of injustice. So what can we do to end injust ...

I know, Christians, love everyone and everything, right? Mister Bluebird on my shoulder and all that jazz. Well, that ain’t me. Not that I don’t try, but I also don’t try to fake it when I’m not feeling the lo ...

Hearing about the injustice and suffering in our world can be overwhelming. The problems seem so insurmountable. Is it really possible to make a difference? Hearing about the inju ...

"It's an exciting thing to grow spiritually, emotionally and physically here in the community," Larry Johnson says. "We're committed to showing the love and power of Jesus Christ and w ...

I wrote a piece a little while back about a guy in Espanola, New Mexico, who found the image of Jesus in his tortilla. While that was interesting, this is AWESOME. I wr ...

You asked for it. So here it is — an oldie but a goodie: Bono's keynote address at the 2006 National Prayer Breakfast. You asked for it. So here it is — an oldie but a go ...