But a blogger for Sojourners worries that talking about compensation packages distracts from a pastor's true purpose: serving God.
"Seminaries are places for the formation of pastors, not employees. I am afraid, however, that we have lost the sense of that," wrote Tripp Hudgins, the director of admissions at American Baptist Seminary of the West. "Have we lost our middle-class status? I wonder why we had it in the first place."
Source: Red Letter Christians | Brian Gorman
If there is one thing that most Christians of all denominations agree on, it is abortion. A 2012 Gallup poll found that 54% of American Catholics and 57% of Protestants/Others consider themselves “pro-life.” Every presidential election, we hear of prominent pastors raising questions about a candidate’s position on abortion. And while organizations such as Sojourners have tried to emphasize additional issues which ought to concern Christians as they go to the polls, the reality is that abortion is still a central issue for many people. This is not altogether a bad thing; since the earliest days of Christianity, the church has always had a special concern for unborn and abandoned children, taking them in and caring for them when others do not. These days, however, whether or not it is an accurate portrayal, “pro-life” Christians are more associated with picketing abortion clinics, hanging pictures of dead fetuses in public places, and gathering for the March for Life than welcoming such children into their homes.
Source: Intervarsity Press | Chris Smith
C. Christopher Smith is editor of The Englewood Review of Books, and a member of the Englewood Christian Church community on the urban Near Eastside of Indianapolis. Englewood is one of the churches whose experiences gave root to the concept of Slow Church. Chris’s recent work has appeared in Books and Culture, Sojourners, The Christian Century and Indiana Green Living.
Source: Preston Yancey | Preston Yancey
That's why I read and talk to and with and pray with and alongside Ann Voskamp and Ben Moberg; Glennon Doyle Melton and Derek Rishmawy; Jennie Allen and Krista Dalton; Deeper Story and Christ and Pop Culture; Rachel Held Evans and John Blase; Jen Hatmaker and Nish Weiseth; The High Calling and Converge Magazine; Seth Haines and Jes Kast-Keat; Lore Ferguson and Emily Maynard; Joy Eggerichs and Relevant Magazine; Sojourners and The Werewolf Jesus Blog; Sarah Bessey and Jonathan Martin; Karen Swallow Prior and Religion News Service; Jefferson Bethke and Kristen Howerton.
Poverty Must No Longer Be With Us with Huruhisa Handa, Jim Wallis, Katherine Marshall, Dr. A T Ariyaratne, Tim Costello, Sulak Sivaraksa and Sr. Joan Chittister
Source: Religion News Service | Heather Adams
Testimonies were coordinated by three groups: Creation Justice Ministries, the Washington-area chapter of Interfaith Power and Light and the progressive evangelical group Sojourners.
Source: Christian Post | Morgan Lee
Under interim president Bill Robinson, the president emeritus of Whitworth University, the CCCU joined the Evangelical Immigration Table and recently joined leaders from World Vision and Sojourners to call Congress to authorize additional funds for unaccompanied immigrant children.
Source: The New York Times | Theodore Schleifer
“The science is clear,” said Lisa Sharon Harper, the senior director of mobilizing for Sojourners, an evangelical organization with a social justice focus. “The calls of city governments — who are trying to create sustainable environments for 25, 50 years — that’s clear.”
Ms. Harper was one of about 20 interfaith activists who quietly sang “Hallelujah” and Jewish spirituals in a prayer circle outside the environmental agency’s 12th Street entrance here on Tuesday. Mr. Yearwood and three other faith leaders spoke at the hearings on Tuesday, and about 20 others did on Wednesday.
Source: The Huntsville Times | Kay Campbell
Saperstein's nomination has been praised by Russell Moore, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and by Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, who will himself be lecturing in Huntsville in November 2014 as a guest of the Interfaith Mission Service.
Source: Christianity Today | Timothy Morgan
President Obama nominated Rabbi David Saperstein this morning to be the next—and first non-Christian—United States ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.
Source: Associated Baptist Press | Jeff Brumley
President Obama has nominated law professor and Rabbi David Nathan Saperstein as ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he will be charged with promoting religious freedom around the world.
Source: Time Magazine (online) | Jim Wallis
Was the law made for people or people for the law?
Source: America (The National Catholic Weekly) | Sean Salai, S.J.
One of my dear friends, Jim Wallis at Sojourners in Washington, told me something I’ll never forget: “Politicians are always going to hold up their finger and check the direction of the wind before they vote. What we have to do is change the direction of the wind.” That’s what we need to do.
Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette | Margaret Bullit-Jonas
Let’s say you step into an elevator, push the button for the 10th floor, watch the doors slide shut and cast a quick glance at the other passengers in the car. Lo and behold, you spot one of the Koch brothers!
Source: Huffington Post | Jim Wallis
The horrible human costs and increasing danger the world is now facing in Gaza, Ukraine, and Iraq show the consequences of not telling the truth. And unfortunately, we seem to mostly have political leaders who are unwilling to admit the truth of what's happening, deal with root causes instead of exploiting symptoms, and then do everything possible to prevent the escalation of violence and further wars. Instead we have politicians who are mostly looking for opportunities to blame their political opponents, boost their own reputations, and protect business interests. As people of faith, we are called to speak the truth in love. It's time for some truth telling.
Source: The Baltimore Sun | Jim Wallis, Amy Gopp
Sojourners and IMA World Health (on behalf of the WeWillSpeakOut.US coalition) recently released a new report, Broken Silence: A Call for Churches to Speak Out, based on a LifeWay Research survey of 1,000 U.S. Protestant pastors. According to the report, U.S. faith leaders seriously underestimate the prevalence of sexual and domestic violence experienced by people within their congregations. They also lack the tools to address it in constructive and helpful ways. The good news is more than 8 in 10 said they would take appropriate action to reduce sexual and domestic violence if they and the training and resources to do so.
Source: Christianity Today - Her.meneutics | Ruth Moon
Vast amounts of ink have been spilled pointing out how our attempts at charity go about it wrong.
Source: The Huntsville Times | Kay Campbell
Jim Wallis, the Christian minister who has taken the Christian principle of protecting the weakest as his life's work, will be speaking in Huntsville, Ala., Nov. 2 and 3, 2014, as part of a conference being organized by the Interfaith Mission Service.
Source: Huffington Post | Yasmine Hafiz
Though immigration is a polarizing issue, the plight of migrant children at the southern border of the United States is so dire that an unlikely assortment of faith groups have found themselves standing on the same side of the fence.
Source: Christian Post | Morgan Lee
In the midst of an unprecedented number of unaccompanied Central American children migrating across the Mexican-American border, Conservative and progressive Evangelicals have called upon Congress to authorize additional funds to address the crisis. The letter, signed by the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference's Samuel Rodriguez, Sojourners' Jim Wallis, and World Vision's Richard Stearns, also asks the legislative branch to resist calls to weaken a human trafficking bill.