Opinion
Thirty years after the release of the Steven Spielberg film that brought T. Rex to the silver screen and turned velociraptor into a global superstar, I sat in the theater watching Jurassic Park again. But this time, it wasn’t the giant dinosaurs that captivated me. It was a small, intimate conversation between Hammond and Sattler.
The nations of the world — including the U.S. — are against them. They use money, weapons, diplomacy, and theology against the people of Palestine, the people of Gaza. They talk among themselves about where we will end up after our ethnic cleansing, as if we were extra boxes that have no place in the house!
Lost in the conversation about abortion rights and religious liberty is the fact that many Christians are not merely politically in favor of abotion access, but theologically in favor as well. These attempts to restrict abortion care and reproductive rights — even to the point where it puts the lives of pregnant people at dire risk — go against our Christian faith.
I am not interested in a commercialized version of Día de Muertos; parades, concerts, and celebrations where I must buy a ticket are an invention of capitalism. I am interested in the family remembrance rituals, in the nights at the cemetery communing with loved ones, in the ofrendas set up in homes, schools, and public plazas.
It’s clear why fans created the once popular but now defunct Facebook page,“Is This Sufjan Stevens Song Gay Or Just About God?” But Stevens’ music has never been either gay or about God. It’s indivisibly gay and about God.
I have spent my life advocating for Palestinians and Israelis to use nonviolent means to resolve their conflicts. Because Israel feared Palestinian unity and mass nonviolent action, I was expelled by the government in 1988. Since then, I have, on several occasions, personally advocated with Hamas leaders to abandon armed struggle and embrace nonviolent campaigns. Yet, today, Palestinians and Israelis are once again killing each other.
As is still the case today, bipartisan programs take effort — and bringing PEPFAR to life was no small feat. It required navigating a host of controversial issues such as the use of condoms and perceptions of the disease. It required enlisting the support of social conservatives. It required making an economic, a national security, and a humanitarian argument. It required raising awareness and galvanizing political will.
Book-banning has always been about censoring the stories, histories, and information that push us to question the status quo.
With her book, and her appearance in the documentary series Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, Jill peels back layers of life on reality TV.
We all are shocked by Hamas’ horrific, inhumane attacks on the people of Israel, which killed more than 1,000 people, according to recent estimates. Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes have killed at least 1,000 more; thousands of people on each side are wounded. In both Israel and Gaza, innocent civilians are bearing the brunt in this latest round of indiscriminate, militarized lethal violence — violence that will solve nothing and only further entrench mutual mistrust, hatred, and the thirst for vengeance.
You may be asking: How do I reconcile, on the one hand, identifying as an evangelical Christian but then, on the other hand, striking with organized labor? “Media Christianity” — represented by “The 700 Club” and other television and radio programs — has, over the years, generally opposed organized labor and its work stoppages, often referring to it as “greedy” and decrying it for disrupting the lives of workers and the economy. For me, however, participating in this strike is congruent with my commitment to biblical principles, such as admonitions about not exploiting workers, of which there are numerous references in the Old Testament, most notably in the prophets such as Isaiah, Amos, and Micah.
What’s the most important intervention to assist someone who is experiencing homelessness?
If you said “housing,” then you’d be aligned with the overwhelming consensus of experts. Those who research and study homelessness, people leading nonprofits, service providers, and most importantly, people who have themselves experienced homelessness believe that housing is the bedrock that allows people to rebuild their lives. This approach is called “housing first” because of its emphasis on the following philosophy: Begin with a stable, permanent place to live and then surround people with services. This approach is what helps people resolve their homelessness for good.
“They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain...” —Isaiah 11:9
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop. From the rubble of gentrification and political abandonment in New York’s South Bronx, overlooked Black and brown kids used turntables and records to create new words and beats, movement and art. They built community and kinship, created meaning and culture, and developed self-worth in a world that hated them. “We were creating something that took up our time and made us feel good and brought us together,” Easy A.D., a member of Cold Crush Brothers, told oral historian Jonathan Abrams. “You have to imagine walking out your house every day and seeing abandoned cars burnt up, empty buildings, and you’re going to elementary school.”
At the first 2024 Republican presidential primary debate on Aug. 23, presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy called for a return to involuntary institutionalization of “violent, psychiatrically deranged people” as a solution for our country’s gun violence epidemic.
His voice joins that of former Vice President Mike Pence who made a similar call at an NRA convention in April. Democrats are also pushing for the involuntary institutionalization of people: Last November, Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams laid out a plan for involuntary hospitalization as a solution for addressing homelessness, and Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom recently amended his proposed $6 billion mental health bond language that would have prohibited involuntary psychiatric institutionalization. Pence, Adams, and Newsom identify as Christian.
The word “monster” originates with the Latin words for “omen” or “warning.” The best monster stories teach us about ourselves — about the evil that lurks in our own spirits. That’s something horror stories and the Enneagram have in common.
In launching The Reconstruct, Sojourners’ newest newsletter, we hope to continue what we have been doing, but with more regularity: Offering thoughtful, constructive conversations with folks who are changing the world and reforming our faith.
As a Jewish atheist, I’m not invested in arguments about which version of Christianity is truer. However, I am skeptical when I hear Christians respond to Christian nationalism by distinguishing it from “true,” “Christlike,” “pure,” or “orthodox” Christianity. If Christianity is only true Christianity when it is good or kind, then no “true” Christian ever does anything bad. That makes it easy to dismiss Inquisitors and slaveholders alike in the past, and it makes it easy to dismiss structural power to do harm that you may have as a Christian now as well.
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A cleanseañera ceremony in San Diego hosted by Puentes Collective. Image courtesy of the author.
Many Latines living in this country have adopted a form of white, Western Christianity that has come at a great cost to our cultural identity, our communal connection, and our sense of belonging. We’ve faced the tension of embracing a faith marked by discourses that demonize Indigenous, Afrolatine, and mestizo wisdom and spiritual practices. In trying to live out our new faith values, we wrestle with continuing to trust the goodness of the traditions and saberes in which we were raised. If we have internalized the air of superiority that white, Western Christianity breathes, we are at risk of losing the very wisdom that allowed our people to resist the dagger of colonization. But our bodies, our hearts, and our communities often clamor to remember, and they will not go silent.
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Indian River School Board member Peggy Jones speaks during a town hall meeting in Gifford at the Gifford Community Center, July 31, 2023. Jones asks while holding back tears, "Can you imagine an African American middle school student sitting in a classroom and seeing there is a benefit of slavery? Can you imagine an African American teacher having to teach that?" Credit: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect.
Across the U.S., a coordinated effort is being made to suppress any history that might be deemed “uncomfortable” to its listeners.
In Oklahoma, the state’s superintendent of public instruction Ryan Walters sparked outrage by saying that teachers could teach about the Tulsa Race Massacre so long as they did not, “tie it to the skin color and say that the skin color determined it.” New legislation restricting the teaching of “divisive concepts” in Tennessee, Georgia, and New Hampshire has teachers fearing they’ll be fired simply for discussing racism or sexism in history.