Commentary
An artisanal miner works at a cobalt mine-pit in Tulwizembe, Katanga province, Democratic Republic of Congo, November 25, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Kenny Katombe.
Christians need better analytical tools that can help us parse out the systems of global exploitation. These systems keep us from loving our neighbors from every nation, which is a central emphasis of the gospel. For example, investigating who is producing the products we buy and under what labor conditions they work can show us where our neighbors are hurting and how we’re implicated.
Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at an anti-war demonstration in New York City in 1967. Photo: Ian Dagnall / Alamy
King’s preaching used the power of language to interpret the gospel in the context of Black misery and Christian hope. He directed people to life-giving resources and spoke provocatively of a present and active divine interventionist who summons preachers to name reality in places where pain, oppression and neglect abound. In other words, King used a prophetic voice in his preaching — the hopeful voice that begins in prayer and attends to human tragedy.
Migrants from Venezuela, who are subject to Title 42 and unsure of whether to turn themselves in, wait next to people from other nationalities who are in line to be processed by United States Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas on Jan. 4, 2023. REUTERS/Paul Ratje
During his recent visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, President Joe Biden announced changes to border enforcement and the asylum process — the legal process that allows people fleeing danger to seek safety in the U.S. One of the most concerning changes was an expansion of Title 42, a public health policy invoked by former President Donald Trump that weaponized the pandemic to turn away many Black and brown migrants looking for asylum.
Late last week, the White House announced new enforcement measures at the U.S.-Mexico border. Among other things, these measures expand the pathway for migrants from Haiti, Cuba, and Nicaragua to receive two years of legal entry if they have an eligible U.S. sponsor — and allow the administration to expedite removal of migrants from these nations who cross into the U.S. from Mexico without documentation. It’s unclear what the full human impact of these measures will be, but when I read the news, my heart broke for those whose pathway to safety just slipped even further out of reach.
People gather for the January 6th Day of Remembrance and Action event in front of the Capitol on January 6, 2022, the first anniversary of the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.Credit: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY
In the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, I naively believed that the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election outcome would serve as a breaking point for the nation and the Republican Party. Despite the party’s anti-democratic slide, including so many embracing the lie that the 2020 election was stolen, I thought the collective horror of the day — felt across the political spectrum — would awaken everyone to the danger that former President Donald Trump and his enablers posed to our democracy. Of course, we now know that isn't what happened.
Protestor on a loudspeaker. Credit: Unsplash/Clay Banks.
Black Dignity is a must-read for anyone struggling against domination in a world constituted by anti-Blackness. For Lloyd, domination is the arbitrary exertion of one’s will over another, and its “primal scene” is the master/slave relation. For Lloyd, his use of the language of “domination” points toward a specific kind of relation that permeates the world: anti-Black violence. Lloyd specifically says the purpose of the book is “to get a sense of this new language of Black dignity, to explore how the hashtags could be filled out, linked together, and oriented toward the struggle against domination in general and anti-Blackness in particular.” Morally stimulating, energizing, probing, and clear, Black Dignity demonstrates Lloyd’s ability to weave together and synthesize Black political and religious thought.
Nativity scene with Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. Credit: Unsplash/Mick Haupt.
The following is an act of imagination. It is an attempt to fill in the gaps that are left for us in this story to bring the text to life. My hope is that this could be used as a resource for family Christmas Eve devotions or for congregations looking to creatively imagine the birth of Christ.
This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. Photo via NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
When the biblical writers penned words about the “creator of the heavens and the earth,” they didn’t have the faintest idea of what they were really saying. Yet Christian faith asserts the power that created galaxies full of black holes and dark energy is the same power that became mysteriously embedded in the uterus of a poor teenage girl in a forsaken village in present-day Palestine. The first chapter of the gospel of John describes Jesus’ arrival this way: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (1:3). That defies all boundaries of rationality.
Image by George Pagan III via Unsplash.
Here at Sojourners, we believe following Jesus means being “creatively maladjusted” to the dominant definitions of success; for us as editors, this means resisting the tyranny of fickle algorithms that have so much power in determining which stories get read and which don’t. We love the 10 stories listed below, but each year we publish hundreds of beautiful and important stories, interviews, columns, reflections, reviews, and poems — and darn it, we aren’t gonna let algorithms tell us (or you!) what stories matter most.
A photo of a nativity scene. Image credit: Oscar Llerena/Flickr.
But as my research on the relationship between the New Testament and the development of popular Christian traditions shows, the earliest biblical descriptions do not mention the presence of any animals. Animals first start to appear in religious texts around the seventh century.
Melanie Field (Jo) prepares for her at-bat in Amazon series A League of Their Own. Credit: Anne Marie Fox/Prime Video.
Churches far too often operate under the “male gaze.” The male gaze, a term I'm borrowing from film criticism, always answers the question of “Who is this for?” with “Well, men, of course.” Some congregations, even though they affirm women pastors, worship directors, and singers, still caution them to dress so that the men in the congregation don’t find them “tempting.” The male gaze is always cisgendered and heterosexual, so churches that are formed by the male gaze are structured to be hostile toward queer people (no matter how kind congregants in those churches are to queer individuals).
Toronto, Canada light trails at night. Image credit: Unsplash/Namra Desai.
God’s promise in Advent is about meeting us wherever we are. We, too, can go out and build relationships with all our neighbors — housed or unhoused, incarcerated or not — as we prepare for a future where all people can be comforted.
A scene from 'The Muppet Christmas Carol,' directed by Brian Henson. Entertainment Pictures / Alamy
The 1992 classic is full of wonders you can’t find anywhere else: Michael Caine starring in a children’s movie, a ghost of Christmas future that haunts me every time I consider splurging on frivolities, and a drum set at a Victorian England Christmas party. But the movie isn’t just a fun, Muppet-y take on Charles Dickens’ classic novella; it’s also a compelling screenplay with heart-warming, humorous songs that offer a radical Christmas message of “cast down the mighty … send the rich away empty.”
Graphic by Betsy Shirley / Sojourners
The list below reflects my own preference for films and shows that help me leverage my own viewership to sustain a lifestyle of equity and inclusion. I’ve included 10 films and shows that gave the spotlight to communities, issues, and stories that we usually don’t see — and how richer the world is because of them.
An attendee poses for a picture near a model earth during the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt November 19, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
I know talking about international lending policies makes most people want to yawn, but the Bible takes debt — and the people who profit from it — seriously. In his opening Nazareth sermon (Luke 4), Jesus cites the prophet Isaiah to proclaim “the year of the Lord’s favor,” a passage that evokes the ancient instructions for debt forgiveness, such as those found in Deuteronomy 15 (“Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts”). While biblical scholars can’t confirm that these Jubilee injunctions were fully lived out, these instructions were understood to be a regular course corrective to extreme inequality and injustice. Other parts of the Bible flat-out forbid charging interest when the person seeking the loan is poor (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 25:37).
Climate activist Vanessa Nakate at the Stockholm +50 conference, June 1, 2022. Credit: Reuters/Pierre Larrieu and Hans Lucas.
In recent years it’s become clearer how young women are leading the global movement calling for climate justice, even as government leaders fall short at global talks. Young women and girls have been shown to be catalysts for linguistic change — experimenting, gradually updating norms, and leading linguistic disruption. Children in general, but girls especially, have been shown to be more effective climate messengers to older generations.
FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 - Group E - Japan v Costa Rica - Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Al Rayyan, Qatar - November 27, Japan's Takuma Asano in action with Costa Rica's Keysher Fuller. Credit: Reuters/Peter Cziborra TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY.
Christians who appreciate soccer, when we watch the World Cup, are not only celebrating stunning aerial goals but are also learning about sin and evil. The workers exploited for the World Cup, which ultimately is a purely recreational event, need to be mourned. Migrant labor markets all over the world prioritize money over human lives — the United States. We live authentically as people of faith in this corrupt world when we acknowledge sin, challenge the powers that be, and work for change so as to prevent the sin’s recurrence.
Morocco's Youssef En-Nesyri celebrates during a match against Canada on Dec. 1. REUTERS/Carl Recine
I can’t deny the unbridled excitement that this global phenomenon unleashes every four years. And since this year’s tournament is taking place in November (to avoid Qatar’s crushing summer heat), the international fervor coincides with the start of Advent. Somehow, it all feels fitting.
Day is who Mayfield looks to when her soul is parched and she longs to be renewed with God’s love “in order to keep going.” I found Unruly Saint spiritually nourishing in this way: It wrestles with the questions of how we keep going, how we keep having hope in our exhausting world, how we keep our inner light burning. “She wanted to keep a flame lit for people wondering how to break the cycles of war and oppression built into our histories and hearts,” Mayfield writes.
Ramy Youssef as "Ramy" and Mahershala Ali as "Sheikh Malik" pray together in the Hulu original Ramy. Photo courtesy of Hulu.
Ramy is a Hulu series wrestling with deep questions of faith from Muslim 20-something son of Egyptian immigrants. The show follows Ramy Hassan, played by comedian Ramy Youssef, as he navigates the tensions of dīn and dunyā — religion and the world. Transcending the clichés of blind religiosity, terrorist sympathies, and the social ignorance stereotypically associated with Arab and Muslim American life, Ramy shows us the messy work of finding our own way in the world between halal (permissible) and haram (not permissible).