Opinion
“Black Baby Jesus at Xavier.” Photo by Mark Gstohl, licensed under CC BY 2.0.
On white Christian mantels and white Christian church lawns across the country, nativity scenes continue to depict, in illuminated plastic and with robed volunteers, a white holy family surrounded by a throng of other white folks. If there is anyone in the scene with brown skin — and there wasn’t until the 15th century — it is one of the three “wise men” or kings (specifically Balthasar, the one bringing the gift of myrrh).
In Matthew 25:35, Jesus identifies himself with the stranger we welcome or exclude. Advent hospitality extends beyond our personal relationships and into the ways we structure our neighborhoods and our common life. But in the United States, our politics are driven by “NIMBYism” (“not in my backyard!”), as housed individuals and politicians not only demand the exclusion of unsheltered people from public spaces but also oppose the creation of shelters and permanent, affordable housing in our neighborhoods.
Doves and shooting stars decorate the White House on Nov. 29, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Christians believe that God’s reign of righteousness, steadfast love, peace, and justice is not just a promise relegated to the future. Instead, we see glimpses of that heaven in the here and now, even as we face the realities of suffering and grief all around us. This means that Christ’s birth in Bethlehem makes it possible for us to co-labor with God in yanking pieces of heaven and bringing them closer to Earth.
Detail from mosaic in the upper level chapel of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, Israel. Photo: versh / Shutterstock.com
As I observed and engaged in the multifaceted conversations about abortion, I came to a stark realization: In the story of the Annunciation, God reveals the importance of consent, agency, and women’s rights. This season of Advent presents us with the perfect opportunity to look at the Annunciation from this perspective.
The Great Resignation is underway in the United States with an astounding 3 percent of employees collectively refusing the terms of low-wages, absent benefits, and dangerous working conditions expected by their bosses. Pastors, too, are walking away. Recent poll data collected by Barna Group, a California-based research firm that studies faith and culture, confirmed what I’m seeing among my friends and colleagues. According to Barna, about 38 percent of Protestant senior pastors surveyed have considered leaving ministry over the past year. Among pastors under age 45, that number rose to 46 percent.
My favorite part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers. If we’re being honest, most of the food tastes better the day after the feast. Cranberry sauce becomes a sandwich spread, ham goes into a breakfast taco, bones go into a pot to make enough broth for several weeks of soup. Some happenings are so big that there’s always much leftover.
But not all leftovers are good. Trauma, for instance, can linger for months or years after the initial act of violence.
The High Five Interchange in Dallas via shutterstock.com.
Earlier this month, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg made headlines by announcing that the recently-passed $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill will be used in part to address racial inequities in U.S. highway design. “If a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a white and a Black neighborhood, or if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly Black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach … in New York was designed too low for it to pass by, that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices,” he said.
A number of Americans were confused — how can concrete and paint be racist? But Buttigieg is correct: Highways and bridges are examples of structural racism literally built into the American cityscape. Reconstructing more equitable cities will require prophetic imagination and real, political solutions. They will vary from city to city. From suburb to suburb. So if you’re looking for a place to start, look in your own neighborhood.
Black women have been historically marginalized both in the church and society — and this trend continues today in theological education as well as the church. Neither the church nor the world of theology will survive if things continue in this direction.
By Jason Blackeye via unsplash.com.
Even with the mass upheaval of our societal patterns and expectations brought by the pandemic, and the spread of global protests against racism and police brutality, our material conditions are not changing at the pace of our rhetoric.
A woman, who only wanted to use her first name, Maria, from Kenosha, Wis., shows her support for Kyle Rittenhouse with a sign at the Kenosha County Courthouse during the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021. Photo by Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via Reuters.
The United States, regrettably, is still struggling to right the longstanding racial bias in our courts and policing. But one area we have entirely failed to examine is who gets labeled as a “gang” and what gets labeled as “gang activity.”
Members of Indigenous groups from Brazil speak on the stage in George Square as part of the Fridays for Future Scotland march during COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland on Nov. 5, 2021. PA via Reuters Connect
Colonial logic, when applied to political systems, protects power and controls the public narrative. When world leaders use generic terms like “humanity” or phrases like “all humans are responsible for the crisis,” it conceals the responsibility of governments and large corporations. By pointing to humanity in general, they imply that we are all equally responsible for the climate crisis and invisibilize the efforts of Indigenous leaders in the fight for climate justice.
Demi Singleton as Serena Williams, Will Smith as Richard Williams, and Saniyya Sidney as Venus Williams in Warner Bros. Pictures’ ‘King Richard.’ Photo credit: Chiabella James, courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures.
The film opens when Venus and Serena are already near teenhood and tennis stardom. We don’t suffer through scenes of the two first learning to swing a racket, and this allows the movie to focus on the true challenge the sisters faced: the classism and racism of rich, white, tennis institutions that had little time for two Black girls from Compton, Calif. — an issue that has improved but still exists in U.S. tennis.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
OUR CLOTHES BEAR more than our personal style. Stitched into favorite garments is the suffering of those who made them.
From Bangladesh to Vietnam, millions of garment workers are exploited to feed the burgeoning demand for ready-made wardrobes. These workers endure unsafe working conditions and workplace abuse to meet the mounting quotas imposed by hungry clothing brands—all while being paid pennies per hour.
Garment workers’ labor conditions seized the attention of international media in 2013 when the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 1,100 people. This disaster accelerated the work of human rights organizations such as the Worker Rights Consortium, the Maquila Solidarity Network, and the Clean Clothes Campaign that were already collaborating withcorporations to implement safety protocols in the supply chains. This collaboration birthed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (the “Bangladesh Accord”), which was the first international agreement to include global brands, retailers, and trade unions in a legally binding framework.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
DESPITE THE FACT that critical race theory (CRT) is a complicated academic theory that some scholars use to examine disproportionate outcomes in the criminal justice system, school board meetings across the U.S. have erupted in passionate debates with parents demanding it be banned.
Ironically, CRT cannot be taught to children because it is not age appropriate for K-12—just as we would not teach advanced nuclear physics to schoolchildren. Yet the strategic placement by far-right activists of a narrative that CRT has crept into K-12 education is causing dramatic outbursts of racial anxiety. All this passion could be rerouted to address an important question that everyone cares about: What should children be taught about race and racism in the United States? This conversation, if done well, could actually move our society toward much-needed racial healing.
Illustration by Michael George Haddad
TWO YEARS AFTER likely origination in a wet market in China, the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its mutations are spreading across the globe with terrible, long-term consequences. We now know what it’s like to have a global-scale crisis, one that disrupts everything.
Infectious disease specialists have been warning governments for a long time about such impending crises, and the World Health Organization (WHO) had encouraged countries to ensure that they met minimum standards for pandemic preparedness long before COVID-19. In 2018, the WHO detected outbreaks of six of its eight “priority diseases” for the first time. The rise of populist nationalism in recent decades has led governments to starve the United Nations and the WHO of the financial resources and authority they need to safeguard global public goods, instead of empowering these institutions to act. So, while pandemics are a result of our global interconnectedness, they are exacerbated by our lack of global cooperation.
In the metaverse, you don’t just curate your surroundings — you also curate your own avatar. One of Zuckerberg’s poker pals, for instance, arrived at the virtual party as a robot wearing a baseball cap.
Although it is hard to imagine a world without Facebook, we must look critically at the implications of its widespread use and the powerful companies that control these platforms — and us. Whether by making election interference easier, selling people’s data, fostering social division by populating feeds with malice, greed, and dissension, social media provides an opportune venue for users to live into our depraved human condition. The consequences of this, however, are not contained in the digital world.
By Gabriella Clare Marino via unsplash.com.
I know enough to know what I don’t know.
People pray during a prayer service in support of clemency for Julius Jones on Nov. 6, at the Oklahoma state capitol. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
I am troubled about Oklahoma’s recent decision to reinstate the death penalty and to resume state executions. I know you are a Christian, governor. As a Christian minister myself, I believe that capital punishment should end.
But I am not writing to you today to debate policy; the occasion for my letter is much more urgent: The decision to kill Julius Jones or to spare his life rests in your hands.
Photo by George Cox on Unsplash
This quietude at New Camaldoli is different than the imposed silence that accompanied the global time-out wrought by the pandemic. That silence descended like a pall when humans retreated, social distancing in the hopes of slowing the spread of a deadly virus. At the hermitage, the silence is chosen. In that choice there is a freedom to hear, see, and feel more of the natural world as well as our place in it. Such silence-keeping allows us to experience human community in a more deliberate and ultimately transformative way.