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Ending the War Against Women
On June 3, 1990, the church celebrated Pentecost. Sojourners sponsored Peace Pentecost 1990—"Breaking the Silence: A Call to End Violence Against Women." Worship services, vigils, and processions were held throughout the country.
In Washington, DC, we began our service at Luther Place Memorial Church. We followed with a procession to McPherson Square Park. Along the way we stopped four times: at Bethany Women's Shelter, where we focused on domestic violence; at The Washington Post building, where we made a note of the media's silence about incest; at an alley where a homeless woman had been raped; and at a video store which—like most video stores—carries a large selection of pornography. At each stop, we listened to statistics, then offered a litany and a refrain of the song, "O God, Give Us Power."
We concluded our service at the park, where we were moved and empowered by testimonies from survivors of the war against women. A bell was rung every three-and-a-half minutes throughout our service, a powerful reminder that every three-and-a-half minutes a woman is a target of rape or attempted rape in the United States. Below is the reflection offered by Joyce Hollyday at Luther Place Memorial Church.
—The Editors
When the day of Pentecost had come, the apostles were all together in one place" (Acts 2:1). So begins the Pentecost passage. In the verses preceding this one, the apostles are named: Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Matthias, whom the others had chosen to replace their fallen brother, Judas. These men have personalities—we know during the ordeal they have just gone through who was courageous, who doubted, who denied.
And after the list of their names, the scripture tells us they were together "with the women" and Mary the mother of Jesus. These other women have no names. Like most of the women in the record of our faith, these remain marginal, unknown, present but unaccounted for.
Casualties of War: Seeking the Truth About Nicaragua
An Interview with Penny Lernoux
The Sojourners Guide to the Nation's Capital
With summer almost upon us, many of us at Sojourners are getting ready for long-awaited vacations. But each year, just as we're trying to spend a few weeks at the beach or in the mountains, many of our readers and other friends make a trek to the nation's capital.
In The Middle: The Challenge of Racial Reconciliation
An Interview with Catherine Meeks
Gifted with Hope: Five Religious Women Talk about their Changing Roles.
An interview with Marjorie Tuite, Melinda Roper, Luanne Schinzel, Joan Chittister, and Rosemary Radford Ruether.
Dismantling Apartheid: Walter Fauntroy Talks About the Free South Africa Movement
An interview with Walter Fauntroy.
Prisoner of Hope
Sojourners interviewed Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and archbishop of the Anglican Church in Johannesburg, South Africa by phone on December 24, 1984.
Calling The Bluff
An interview with former CIA analyst David MacMichael on arms shipments from Nicaragua to El Salvador.
As We Have Been Given
The Community of Communities statement of vision and purpose.
Bishops at the End of the Line: Two Catholic Bishops Discuss Nuclear Resistance
An interview with Bishop Leroy Matthiesen and Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen.
Suffer The Little Ones
Poor children under Reagan's budget. An interview with Marian Wright Edelman