Opinion
No Christian leader has influenced my faith and activism as much as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — but the day we devote to his legacy often leaves me frustrated. There’s a bitter irony in a nation that takes a day off to celebrate King’s life and work while that same nation is experiencing a deep backlash against racial justice.
According to recent polling from the Washington Post and the University of Maryland, Republicans are now “more sympathetic to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol and more likely to absolve Donald Trump of responsibility for the attack than they were in 2021.” The same polling found that Americans were now slightly less likely to believe that President Joe Biden’s win was legitimate and more likely to believe there was “solid evidence” of voter fraud.
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Supporters of the lawsuit stand in front of the Berlin Regional Court before the start of the hearing of Environmental Action Germany's landmark lawsuit against the U.S. internet giant Meta (Facebook, Instagram) at the Berlin Regional Court, Nov. 21, 2023. Credit: Carsten Koall/dpa via Reuters Connect.
In October of last year, 33 states sued Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, alleging that the company has “concealed the ways in which these Platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children.” The lawsuit further alleges that the company “repeatedly mislead the public about the substantial dangers of its Social Media Platforms.” The most recent lawsuits make it clear that churches, that are operating large numbers of social media accounts, must do some soul-searching about whether they should stay on platforms that are causing harm to young people.
For many Christians in the West, Advent is a time of preparation infused with prayer, anticipation, and reflection. This year, Advent is painfully marked by more than 18,000 Palestinian deaths — including more than 7,000 children — as a result of Israel’s brutal military retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. But the violence stretches beyond the borders of Gaza and the West Bank.
My first experiences of Christian sacraments, including baptism and the Eucharist, were mysterious and somewhat confusing. As a Catholic little girl, I didn’t remember my infant baptism and could never quite wrap my head around eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood. What’s more, these solemn events happened within the confines of a giant, cavernous church — a place where I had to be still, quiet, and serious. During weekly Mass, I learned implicitly from the nuns that reverence and fun do not go together.
Minus One, which premiered in U.S. theaters on Dec. 1, became the highest grossing Japanese live-action film in U.S. history.
Each book, whether subtly or overtly, shows readers how to build community in the face of both real and existential danger.
In a televised interview this week with Sean Hannity of Fox News, former President Donald Trump initially refused to answer the question of whether, if elected in 2024, he would be a dictator or use his power to seek retribution for his political opponents. After Hannity pressed further, Trump said he would only be a dictator on “day one” of a new presidency; he did rule out political retribution. This should be shocking, but are any of us surprised? Trump is known for his lying and exaggeration. Nevertheless, we make a grave mistake if we don’t take Trump’s words seriously.
Gary’s goal in the trial was to bring the buried deeds of the Loewen Group into the light, to tell the story they hid behind contracts and laws and cultural biases and systemic injustice. In doing so, he aims to purchase some measure of justice. Is this what Willie Gary learned in Black church?
I’m older now and a good bit more skeptical about Israel’s virtue and Israel’s safety. I am far from convinced that Israel could or would serve as a refuge from violence for the American Jewish diaspora — the home of the majority of Jewish people outside Israel. And I think that viewing regions across the world in which the diaspora has settled to be temporary or lesser than ideal is dangerous to Jewish people and to the Jewish experience.
At their strongest, films and TV shows can help us pay attention to — and by extension, love — the people and the world around us.
It is the norm for Western media outlets to silence and ignore the voices of Palestinians. Israel set up a blockade against Gaza beginning in 2007 in response to Hamas’ taking over the territory. By restricting the movement of goods and people in and out of the territory, Israel has created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel has attempted to justify this blockade and the ensuing humanitarian crisis by characterizing Gazans specifically, and Palestinians in general, as “terrorists” — a characterization of Palestinians that is also prevalent in the United States.
My seminary students are eager to confront the challenge Christian nationalism poses, including its simplistic use and cynical abuse of biblical texts. Christian nationalists wield the Bible as if it were a static authority, perverting its vision of peoplehood to emphasize homogeneity. Yet the biblical writings themselves are characterized by lively exchanges, competing perspectives across multiple generations, and appeals to care for the stranger.
Nearly two years have passed since feminist bell hooks died of renal failure on December 15, 2021. The writer of more than three dozen books was widely remembered for her contributions to feminism, cultural criticism and scholarship — not to mention her decision to lowercase her pen name, chosen in honor of her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.
In Priscilla, which is based off Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, we don’t primarily see Elvis through the eyes of his manager or adoring fans, instead, we see him through the eyes of the only woman he ever married, who he began courting when he was 24 and she was 14.
Like many across the world, the events in Israel and Palestine have had me glued to a wide variety of sources in search of live updates. My first reaction was to message my dear friends living in Israel-Palestine to check on them and their families’ safety: Sami, Mohammad, Jehad, Feras, Jack, Miriam, and Naama. My heart is tremendously heavy with the immense loss of precious life that has already unfolded and the dread for the violence still to come. I say this sorrowfully and without an ounce of callousness: This attack by Hamas, though sudden and horrific, did not come as a surprise to me.
Illinois set a historic U.S. precedent on Sept. 18, when it became the first state to abolish cash bail.
Cash bail, or the practice of imprisoning people accused of crimes before their trial unless they can pay a certain amount of money set by a judge, has a pernicious history. In the United States, cash bail has led to high rates of pretrial incarceration. Consider these statistics: There are more than 400,000 people in the United States who have been incarcerated without a trial. In Illinois, the problem has been especially sobering, with the Center for Criminal Justice of Loyola University Chicago reporting that in 2020 and 2021, 173,000 people were held in jail before a trial.
The real mystery of Killers of the Flower Moon is not who murdered so many Osage people, it’s how these murders can go on for so long — how the loss of life can be dismissed with such apathy.
Wars, by their very nature, often force people to choose sides and dehumanize the other side to justify violence. We’ve seen the dangers of this binary here in the U.S. as some student groups in support of Palestinian liberation have wrongfully praised or failed to condemn Hamas’ attacks, while some pro-Israeli groups (including many U.S. Christians) have failed to acknowledge the injustice of the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the severe death toll Israel’s response has inflicted on Gazan civilians. Yet while the powers of the world want us to take a side and declare ourselves fully (and exclusively) pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, Christian compassion must be freed from favoritism. As peacemakers, we must honor the image of God in every Israeli and every Palestinian.