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Voice of the Day: Howard Thurman
Too often the price exacted by society for security and respectability is that the Christian movement in its formal expression must be on the side of the strong against the weak. This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization and of nations whose very position in modern life has too often [...]
Verse of the Day: 'Rich and poor'
The rich and the poor have this in common: the Lord is the maker of them all.
- Proverbs 22:2-2
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Voice of the Day: Flannery O'Connor
You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.
Brian McLaren: Christianity and the 'Pride of Power'
I recently came across this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from his sermon on 2 Corinthians 12:9:
"Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to [...]
Verse of the Day: 'Let love be genuine'
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
- Romans 12:9-13
Voice of the Day: Walter Brueggemann on Transformation
The real God is the one who can invert life from terror to boldness, from sorrow to joy.... The transformative power of God jeopardizes all of our gestures of equilibrium and our idolatrous images of God as the great stabilizer of the status quo.
Candorville on the IRS and Churches
by Darrin Bell, used with permission.
See more comics at www.candorville.com
Verse of the Day: 'The cry of the poor'
If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard.
- Proverbs 21:13-14
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Voice of the Day: Mother Teresa
We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.
- Mother Teresa
Voice of the Day: Rainer Maria Rilke
That's when I want you - you knower of my emptiness, you unspeaking partner to my sorrow. That's when I need you, God, like food.
Verse of the Day: 'Consider it nothing but joy'
My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.
- James 1:2-4
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Voice of the Day: Wendell Berry on Sabbath
The sense of it may come with watching a flock of cedar waxwings eating wild grapes in the top of the woods on a November afternoon. Everything they do is leisurely. They pick the grapes with a curious deliberation, comb their feathers, converse in high windy whistles. Now and then one will fly out and back in a sort of dancing flight full of whimsical flutters and turns. They are like farmers loafing in their own fields on Sunday. Though they have no Sundays, [...]
Verse of the Day: 'Do not worry'
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to the span of your life?
- [...]
Verse of the Day: Civil Disobedience in Ancient Babylon
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up."
- Daniel [...]
Voice of the Day: Peter Storey on 'Ordinary People'
There have been many, many others who have stood for the truth. They have been a minority, but together, the convictions of that minority and their commitment to obey God and stand for God's truth have made it possible for this moment of God's intervention - God's turning of the tide. Never underestimate the importance of ordinary people standing for the truth, because they also enable others to play their part.
- Peter [...]
Verse of the Day: If I do not have love
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
- 1 Corinthians [...]
Voice of the Day: Menno Simons on 'true evangelical faith'
True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant. It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all people.
Voice of the Day: Margaret Silf on 'prayer that works'
Prayer that works is prayer that makes a difference, contemplation that turns into action, on behalf of peace and justice in a troubled and unjust world system. Prayer is energy, the energy of love and transformative power. It is given to us to use for the good of all creation. In prayer God gives us the fuel of life, and asks us to live it.
Verse of the Day: 'Do not fret'
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday. Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices.
- Psalm 37:5-7
Ron Sider: A Biblically Balanced Agenda
The consensus evangelical document (For the Health of the Nation: AnEvangelical Call to Civic Responsibility) says that "faithful evangelical civic engagement must champion a biblically [...]