We commit sacrifice when we scapegoat, demonize, marginalize, expel, persecute or kill others in the name of our own safety and security or to bolster our belief in our own goodness. ...

Black smoke from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel signaled that the first day of the conclave ended without the election of a new pope. VATICAN CITY — Black smoke from the chim ...

March 11, 2013 Sojo in the News The Huffington Post ...

Members of Congress ask White House for the legal basis for drone killings. Eight Members of Congress sent a letter to the president yesterday, requesting a complete report on t ...

MAG_1303-2.jpg $4.95 off ...

March 11, 2013 Sojo in the News Bob Allen ...

MAG_1303-2.jpg $4.95 off ...

I think CrossFit is like secular church. It offers more than weight loss or fitness. It speaks to our innate desires for community, purpose, and transformation. The first Christma ...

Sen. Rand Paul's filibuster sparks public debate. Sen. Rand Paul’s 13-hour filibuster last week against the administration’s drone policy brought a long-simmering debate to ...

First drone strike in nearly a month kills two. The first reported drone strike in nearly a month is said to have happened Sunday morning in the North Waziristan tribal region o ...

Species don’t evolve to become like other species. They evolve into better versions of themselves. I read a lot of Trinitarian theology last semester at Duke Divinity school, most ...

Women in the Democratic Republic of Congo face shockingly high rates of rape, including reports of mass rapes by soldiers, especially in the conflict-ridden province of Kivu. One Christian hospital, operated b ...

The film I Was Worth 50 Sheep by Global Voices premiered on Sept. 2, but you have the opportunity to watch it online until April 28. The film I Was Worth 50 Sheep   by Glo ...

Written for U.N. Women to celebrate International Women’s Day, “One Woman” is sung by acclaimed singers and musicians to celebrate the mission and work to improve women’s lives around the world. ...

Yesterday, President Obama signed a reauthorization of the 2013 VAWA act, saying, “All women deserve the right to live free from fear, that’s what today is about.” Yesterday, Pr ...

Sen. Rand Paul helps put drone killings in the spotlight. Sen. Rand Paul took the floor of the U.S. Senate Wednesday morning and announced that he was filibustering the nominati ...

A few weeks back at the Justice Conference we had the chance to sit down with Jeremy Courtney, cofounder of the Preemptive Love Coalition, and tell the story of his amazing work in Iraq providing heart surgery ...

I watched with great delight as my sons, Luke and Jack, saw the first episode of “The Bible,” a History Channel special series that began this past Sunday and runs the five weeks through Easter. Film and telev ...

We did a focus group here as part of strategic planning at Trinity Episcopal Church. CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — We did a focus group here as part of strategic planning at Trinity Epis ...

Elaina Ramsey Be a witness against the bomb--share these graphics! The Cold War is over. However, the U.S. go ...

Sen. Rand Paul filibusters Brennan nomination over drone strikes. The Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday confirmed White House adviser John Brennan as CIA director on a 12- ...

Now it's time to ask Congress to show some courage and enact sensible measures to prevent gun violence. Too many parents have already lost their children. As a mom of two sma ...

All around us, death and life, life and death. Pitch black darkness, confusion, pain, redemption, hope, joy, life, and healing hover around us and within us each day and it’s rarely a smooth, seamless process. ...

It's a marvel that people hate vehemently enough to end their lives and those of complete strangers as a solution to their actual suffering or perceptions of injustice. It's expensive to make this me ...

Drones are beginning to fill U.S. skies. The Federal Aviation Administration is scheduled to begin issuing commercial drone permits in 2015, allowing for a massive use of domest ...

What's it like to wrestle with the Divine One? You know, like Jacob did there in the desert one night. You can contend with God, can you not? Is God not then your enemy in some way? ...

There were at least 5,000 honor killings in 2000, according to a U.N. report. In 2010, a British newspaper estimated the number as high as 20,000. Most honor killings involve the murder of one family member — ...

When I first listened to Tame Impala, I was almost convinced they were the late-60s Beatles reincarnated. Lead singer Kevin Parker’s nasally yet gentle voice sounds about as John Lennon as you’re gonna get. ...

THIS JUST IN — horrific news from our friends in Kabul. Over the weekend two kids, age 7 and 8, were killed by NATO forces while herding cattle in the Uruzgan Province in Afghanistan. ...

to an ancient idea whose time has urgently come: the common good. $17 ...

March, 2013 Life, unplugged: Richard Rohr on finding God in the depths of silence. ...

The papacy of Benedict XVI came to a quiet end at 8 p.m. on Thursday, making him the first pope in 600 years to voluntarily leave office. VATICAN CITY — The papacy of Benedict XVI ...

This past year, I’ve been working out of my house, something like a stay-at-home dad, what with the after-school hours and school holidays and such. ... What I have discovered, in all this mess, is that I am a ...

The House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on drone policy. The House Judiciary Committee yesterday held one of the first public hearings on U.S. drone strikes, with Democrat ...

February 27, 2013 Sojo in the News Anthony Bradley ...

British terror suspects stripped of citizenship, then killed by drones. While the U.S. continues to debate whether the president has legal authority to order the drone killing o ...

We’re approaching the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq — an appropriate time to reflect upon the antiwar ferment that gripped the globe at that time. We’re approaching t ...

You won’t find many Catholic churches named after Pope Benedict IX. You won’t find many Catholic churches named after Pope Benedict IX. Benedict IX squandered the papacy’s ...

Current events, like much about our lives, frequently leave us hopeless, fearful, and uncertain. Religious faith isn’t a matter of wishing away these experiences; it involves perceiving God in the midst of our ...

The bubble I see bursting is establishment Christianity in America. It is bursting ever so slowly, even as millions of people still find life, meaning, safety, and structure inside. ...

Opposition to gun control is about defending the gun market more than the Second Amendment. Mary Sanchez, op-ed writer for the Kansas City Star , offers in her column ...

“Stepping into community is far riskier than expected. It’s far worse than you expect it to be. But in the end, it’s far better than you could ever imagine.” I’ve been asked sev ...

The excuse of national security is being used to eliminate a basic foundation of democracy: transparency. If evidence used to convict a person is secret, if the accused cannot openly challenge the charges bein ...

To the accusation that a nonviolent Jesus is a projection of my own wussy imagination: That is false and, in fact, the reverse is true – a violent Jesus is a god made in our own image. ...

If you read the text as a propositional description of God, it can be a rather disturbing image as God keens agonizingly one minute, and rages menacingly the next. It is almost a frightening glimpse of someon ...

It’s hard to over-emphasize the importance of honesty with God in our prayers. Stifling that honesty in ourselves or in our children by demanding that he or she pray for world peace instead of an awesome Chris ...

Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland resigned on Monday in the wake of explosive charges that he had made “inappropriate” sexual advances to four men, three of them priests, and one now a former seminarian, star ...

Former White House press secretary was told not to acknowledge drone program existed. Yesterday on MSNBC’s Up w/ Chris Hayes , former White House Press Secretary Robert G ...

U.S. troops are in Niger to support a new drone base. With a short note  to the Congressional leadership, President Barack Obama announced last week that a total of 100 U ...

I love Peter Rollins' honesty about his dark night of the soul. He's popularized a term for the intellectual position accompanying the dark night of the soul: a/theism. I interpret Peter's thoug ...