Opinion

Jim Wallis 10-17-2019

Image via Flickr/Ecco Homo

Autocrats and strongmen all over the world attack the free press and the idea of objective truth because they want you only to be able to listen to their truth. As Trump always puts it, “Believe me.” It's a way of governing that holds people captive because they depend on the strongman to tell them what the truth is. So when you take away the truth, you are purposely trying to take away people’s freedom.

Julián Castro recently announced policy to end state-sponsored discrimination against LGBTQ families.

10-17-2019

Jim Wallis, in conversation with William Matthews and Allison Trowbridge, explores the themes of Chapter Four, “The Truth Question” from his new book Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus.

book.sojo.net

Norman Allen 10-16-2019

Giovanni Bellini - Saint Francis in the Desert. Wikimedia Commons

Francis of Assisi met Sultan Malik Al-Kamil 800 years ago. 

Elizabeth Stice 10-11-2019

YouTube Trailer for Netflix's The Family. 

The message we’re sending to people in power is possibly not the Gospel message.

Jim Wallis 10-10-2019

This challenge to dismantle white supremacy and build a beloved community is one that white Christians need to undertake for the sake of their own obedience to God. Those of us who are white need to realize that this challenge and calling isn't for other people. It isn't for people of color who white people need to help.

Russell Jeung 10-09-2019

The Bay Area will be without electricity for at least a day and a half in order to prevent power lines from sparking wildfires. 

Kaitlin Curtice 10-09-2019

Photo by Loïc Fürhoff on Unsplash

Our greatest prophets took the time to ask that question often, and we can follow in their footsteps.

Hannah Pape 10-09-2019

Photo by Andrew Itaga on Unsplash

As people of faith, our blood should boil when we hear people try to say our God is for marriage segregation.

Sonja Livingston 10-07-2019

Most everyone I grew up with near Goodman Street in northeast Rochester attended Corpus Christi. A post-Vatican II parish complete with folk group and food pantry to help a neighborhood of mostly single mothers, the church was a rare source of sustenance and light. Still, by the time we hit our twenties, most of us had escaped the urban neighborhood and along with it, left the church. I returned a few years ago — first for Christmas Mass, then to interview a parishioner for a story, and then for no good reason at all. This unmoored me. Even as I sang the Psalm, I surveyed the rows of empty pews. 

Photo by Kyle Ellefson on Unsplash

How do we maintain hope when our earth is brutalized daily by the climate disasters brought on by human greed, denial, and consumption?

Jim Wallis 10-03-2019

Pope Francis attends the unveiling of a sculpture depicting a group of migrants of various cultures and from different historic times, following a mass for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, at St. Peter's Square at the Vatican September 29, 2019. REUTERS/Vincenzo Pinto/Pool

It’s a tragic fact that 75 percent of white Americans have no people of color in their social circles outside of work. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s observation that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week is still largely true. And if you’re only in a world that looks like you, then you aren’t going to understand Jesus’ answer to the question “And who is my neighbor?”

Aaron E. Sanchez 10-03-2019

Revelations are supposed to happen on roads. Prophecies on the road from Delphi. Epiphany on the way to Judah. Miracles on the road to Damascus. You don’t expect them to happen on empty highways in East Texas.

Jim Wallis 9-27-2019

Image via REUTERS/Leah Millis

I found some fundamental questions Jesus asked or were prompted in others by the things he said and did — eight Jesus questions — that resonate as so completely relevant to the time we are in. A crisis is both a danger and an opportunity, a great danger to marginalized people who have been put in such risk, but also an opportunity for all of us to re-discover Jesus — to reclaim Jesus, to go back to him. That’s why I wrote this book Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus, to lift up these core Jesus questions, which are both so timely and yet so timeless. I knew the book would likely be timely when it came out this fall; but couldn’t have imagined how dramatic that timing would be.

Rosalind C. Hughes 9-26-2019

Image via Rev. Jeff Bunke / RNS

It’s not much to make 100 stoles when up to 100 people die each day in this country from gun violence.

Jamar A. Boyd II 9-26-2019

Credit: Shutterstock

Lost in the debate was concern about the employees preparing the sandwich, their hours, and compensation.

Photo by Jaromír Kavan on Unsplash

Saint Francis praying to sister moon and brother sun has changed me. I must confess I am going through a conversion, yet another one. But this time much bigger than I could imagine. I have begun listening to the birds. I have started paying attention to the rivers. I have stopped to talk to trees. As a city boy who grew up in the dirty streets of Sao Paulo, I am becoming closer to the pulsing heart of forests, animals, rocks and skies, and it has expanded my allegiance to God.

Kyrie Mason 9-26-2019

A great migration north. By Jacob Lawrence.

Much like Isaac from the book of Genesis, I am the son of a family seemingly destined to transience.

Amanda Tyler 9-24-2019

Donald Trump speaks during the "Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom" event at U.N. headquarters in New York City, Sept. 23, 2019. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Today, Congress took another step toward addressing its constitutional duty to provide oversight of the executive branch. The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship are holding a joint hearing on oversight of the “Muslim” travel ban.

Abby Olcese 9-20-2019

To Kill a Mockingbird and Just Mercy have notable parallels and important divergences: Like Atticus, Stevenson is defending a wrongfully accused black man from a racist community. But this time, there’s no white savior, and Stevenson isn’t going to lose the case.