Opinion
In this special SOTN episode, Rev. Jim Wallis joins Peter Eisner and Jonathan Winer, hosts of District Productive's Unconventional Threat, to discuss Lawyers and Collars, an initiative that seeks to ensure that everyone--including our most vulnerable citizens — is able to safely and effectively exercise their right to vote.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump joined a Las Vegas church service where a pastor pronounced that God told her Trump would receive a “second wind” and introduced the president against the backdrop of dancers waving American flags with the Statue of Liberty on them. On Tuesday, televangelist Pat Robertson said God told him Trump would win re-election, and it would set off a series of events ushering in the End Times.
Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash
In the midst of a tumultuous election season, Christians in the United States are discerning faithful ways to engage with politics. Christian discernment involves understanding ourselves, our relationship to God, our connection to our neighbors, and our most deeply held values.
The author's grandparents, mother, and uncle in August 1959. Photo courtesy of the author.
My kids are the great-granddaughters of Chinese immigrants, but until recently, I hadn’t shared much about our immigration story or been a vocal advocate for immigrant rights. Instead, like many evangelicals, I had absorbed hardline views on the subject.
Rev. Mariama White-Hammond , founding pastor of New Roots AME Church in Dorchester, Mass., offers a sermon on the Genesis creation story and our role in that story.
Michael-Ray Mathews' sermon is a reflection on Ephesians 6:10-19, his transformation in Ferguson, the work of racial justice, and the 2020 election.
Shane Claiborne offers a sermon on the peculiar politics of Christ.
The economic disparities in our country are enormous and have been built on structural racism resulting in an economic caste system. We, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, have a responsibility to steward our power to work on behalf of the most marginalized people in our country.
Churches have been barred from directly supporting or opposing candidates since the passage of the Johnson Amendment in 1954. But pastors can still work on the election in meaningful ways without jeopardizing their tax-exempt status, so long as they are mindful of the rules.
Voters on presidential election day in 2016 in Arlington, Va. Photo by Rob Crandal / Shutterstock.com.
Immigration is never out of sight for those whose lives depend on it, even while it may have not been a topic of choice for presidential and vice-presidential debates this year. Candidates and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have used the stories and experiences of immigrant people for political gain. But for many immigrant people, engaging in the larger immigration discourse and advocacy work is primarily about our families and our communities: their present reality and their future opportunities. It is not about touting a “welcoming” nature or defending a seemingly attacked territory or national identity as politicians and others have often approached it.
How do we, as a nation, miss Jesus in our national priorities? Is Jesus disappearing from the scene?
Jenny Yang, vice president of policy and advocacy on refugee resettlement at World Relief, offers a sermon on the refugee crisis ahead of the 2020 election.
Workers wearing protective suits bury a coffin at the Muslim burial area provided by the government for victims COVID-19 at Pondok Ranggon cemetery complex in Jakarta, Indonesia, Sept. 16, 2020. REUTERS/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana
Pope Francis has a penchant for impeccable, maybe even providential timing. His encyclical Laudato Si’ came out just months before the 2015 Paris climate summit and played a key role in influencing public opinion and galvanizing political will behind bolder climate action to protect “our common home.” Now, less than a month before the most consequential U.S. election in generations, the pope’s new encyclical provides a powerful rebuke to a politics of division, fear, and hate while also casting a vision for the human family that is deeply relevant to applying our faith to U.S. leadership in the world.
Protesters gather at the White House on July 24, 2020. Photo: Allison C Bailey / Shutterstock.com
This executive order is dangerous. Instead of acknowledging that diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings can help work towards the country’s ideals of “liberty and justice for all,” it labels them as reverse racism and sexism.
As churches create plans for re-opening their buildings and look toward a future where people have been vaccinated against COVID-19, there is an opportunity now to re-imagine church. Likely, it will never be the same. And maybe that’s for the better. Singing, hugging, and sharing food have become risky activities. I still grieve this, and yet the possibilities and imagination spurred by these limits excite me.
President Donald Trump briefly rides by supporters in the presidential motorcade in front of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he is being treated for COVID-19 in Bethesda, Md., Oct. 4, 2020. REUTERS/Cheriss May
When news broke last week that the president was diagnosed with COVID-19, I tweeted that the psalm of the morning ought to be Psalm 109, which includes startling lines like "may his days be few" and "may his children be orphans." It was not in jest. While people had varying reactions to the news, the imprecatory psalms give Christians guidance on how to pray.
Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner, Co-Convener of the National African American Clergy Network, shares an inspirational message and prayer for Christians to continue fighting for a free, fair, and safe election for all Americans.
Racism is and must be a central issues for people of faith in this election. Racism denies the image of God in every person and is antithetical to the teachings of Jesus.
Our racial tragedy breaks God’s heart. Christ’s church must embrace and embody the work of justice and reconciliation to turn the tragic hostility of racism into a pursuit of hospitality.
Makeshift sheets displaying messages of protest contesting the ability to pay for rent hang in the window of an apartment building in the Columbia Heights neighborhood in Washington, D.C., May 18, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
Despite our immense wealth as a country, poverty has always been a problem in the United States. It remains as an insidious legacy of slavery and systemic racism as well as an ever-present barrier in largely white rural communities and increasingly among Americans living in suburban communities.