Commentary

I went to the theater alone, feeling small and bereft. At the urging of a friend, I went to see Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. I felt my smallness increase as the theater darkened. Then suddenly, there was Marcel, a one-inch-tall shell, blinking back at me. Marcel is soft-spoken, inquisitive, and wears pink shoes.

Despair blossomed in me; my fears of what my life and the lives of future generations could become seem to be coming true. I take my bouquet of despair to the only place big enough to embrace it: the body of Creation. I set it before the altar of the water and soil.

A MAJORITY OF faith-based organizations have only one mission—to shepherd their adherents through life. However, these congregational mechanisms of faith can also be utilized for conflict early warning and early response (EWER). For decades, peacebuilders have used EWER systems to identify and analyze conflict trends, alert to conflict risk, inform decision-making, and initiate timely responses to prevent violent conflict.

In fact, religious bodies, particularly churches, are an emerging frontline of conflict early warning and early response. Churches are highly local with deep roots in communities. They build “organic” intra- and interfaith mechanisms that can mobilize to prevent political violence at the source. Faith-based early warning systems are a valuable tool for identifying emerging signs of community violence and for controlling in-group members to quell political violence. My research shows this is as true in Sri Lanka and Nigeria as it is in the United States.

Over the years, the field of conflict early warning has evolved from formal international institutions to more community-based mechanisms capable of preventing violence using local knowledge. Early warning systems have successfully prevented political violence and mass atrocities.

Amid the avalanche of rogue supreme court decisions that have come out in the past few months, there’s one that has slid under the radar: West Virginia v. EPA.

Nope, writer/director Jordan Peele’s third theatrical release, opens with a Bible verse: “I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle” (Nahum 3:6). Cut to a blood-soaked sitcom set where a chimpanzee — arms and mouth also covered in blood — wanders around before settling down and looking at the audience.

One hundred- and eight-degrees Fahrenheit. According to the University of Washington, that June day in 2021 was the hottest day ever recorded in the city of Seattle. And my fourth-floor apartment did not have air conditioning.

I’ll never forget my pastor’s response when I asked about putting a $130 portable ramp in the building where our church meets: “That’s not stewarding tithe well,” he announces without embarrassment. He acts as if he’s making a measured budgetary decision — like he is choosing between two beige paint colors of a similar hue. Except I am the one on eggshells.

Compiling Weekly Wrap is sort of like going on a literary scavenger hunt for meaningful faith angles. And folks, there’s always a faith angle.

I was in elementary school when the first Harry Potter books were published in the United States. At the time, I was a painfully shy and awkward child; I treasured my library card and found solace in the stacks of books I carried home from our local branch. Though I was a prime target for a sensational new children’s book series, my parents — like the rest of our fundamentalist Baptist church — deemed anything about witchcraft inappropriate reading for good Christian children.