Opinion

People of all religions and political leanings are speaking up against the administration’s policy of taking children from parents — but that’s not enough. We also must challenge the ideology that produces these human indignities, the mindset that supports them, and the perverted theology that blesses them. Those things have been around from our country’s beginning.

Tonight at 6:30 EDT, we will be kicking off the first of four live-streamed “Core Conversations” for The Summit 2018: Radically Rooted, and we warmly invite you to tune in on our Facebook page. (RSVP here to be alerted on Facebook when it begins.)

Rogers believed that the need to love and be loved was universal, and he sought to cultivate these capacities through every program, saying in a 2004 documentary hosted by actor Michael Keaton, one of his former stagehands, "You know, I think everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know that he or she is lovable. And consequently, the greatest thing we can do is to help somebody know they’re loved and capable of loving."

4. The Forgotten Psychological Wounds of the Stress of Migration

“Focus of resettlement of Syrian refugees has been on immediate minimum housing and financial and physical health care needs. Mental health, which requires greater language and cultural familiarity, has typically not been a priority before and after arrival in the U.S.”

5. My Life-Changing Switch to Only TV Shows That Feature Real Black Lives

“These women are not loudmouth, promiscuous, or asexual stereotypes. These are shows in which I am affirmed, in which Black women, Black people—Blackness—are affirmed.”

But outsiders, especially conservative Christian neighbors, considered the Rajneeshees a threat. In Wild Wild Country, we see Osho speak to his followers of “an awakened man,” and meditation as a means of attaining higher levels of awareness. His seemingly revolutionary way to sainthood, which rested on being spiritual without having to isolate or reject human needs, had a profound effect on his devotees, and soon his stature grew to resemble that of a rockstar. Neighbors around Rajneeshpuram felt they were being too quickly outnumbered. And they were — they lost elections, as well as the city council. 

Her actions cry, “Give me your oil, your gold,

Your riches are my rightful destiny!

But keep your desperate people, young and old,

They’ve no right to a future within me!”

All over the place in American Christianity, we are asking what is appropriate, what will work and what will not work anymore, how women and people of color are to be treated, what is expected of our male leaders. We are re-wiring things and tearing some things down. We’re making room for a new kind of faith, detaching it from the fear-based faith we were taught as children.

Christian ministries have been a part of the prison reform movement for decades, and Barna polls like the one conducted by Prison Fellowship tell us that 89 percent of practicing Christians agreed with the statement, “It’s important that prison conditions are safe and humane, specifically because I believe every person has intrinsic value and worth.” Our Christian belief that every single person bears the image of God within them informs the actions we take to support each other.

The historic meeting was set for June 12 in Singapore, but was cancelled by Trump this month. The U.S. approach to this meeting was concerning. Trump felt that the U.S. did not have to do anything to prepare for the June meeting. He  continues to keep a military presence in South Korea with joint U.S. and South Korean military exercises that have always been a threat and irritation to North Korea. The mere presence of 25,000 U.S. Troops in South Korea heightens the suspicions and anxieties of Kim Jong un and the North Korean people. Trump has become blind to the need for diplomacy.