We're heading in a direction "not compatible with the planet to which life on earth is adapted."
Columns
Ed Spivey Jr. 7-01-2010
I never look forward to my trips to Dallas, a red-state city short on political tolerance but long on congenial in-laws, who welcome me to their comfortable little patch of sagebrush while trying t
Jim Wallis 6-01-2010
We need to behave differently, for the sake of our spiritual integrity and the health of our democracy.
Rose Marie Berger 6-01-2010
The nice vendor who sells aromatic oils in front of Speedy Liquor on 14th Street got stabbed the other day. Word on the street is he “got sliced with a machete.”
Jim Wallis 5-01-2010
Glenn Beck picked a fight with the nation’s churches when he said that “social justice” is a “code word” for “communism” and “Nazism,” and that Christians should leave their churches if they preach, practice, or even have the phrase “social justice” on their Web sites. Contrary to Beck’s claim that “social justice is a perversion of the gospel,” he has now learned that Christians across the theological and political spectrum believe that social justice is central to the teachings of Jesus, and at the heart of biblical faith. Because Christians couldn’t “turn in” their pastors to “church authorities” as Beck suggested (the pope would have to turn himself in to ... himself), many have started turning themselves in to Glenn Beck as “social justice Christians”—50,000 at last count.
The news networks, the cable and radio talk shows, and even Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have reported or spoofed Beck’s attempt to discredit the whole concept of social justice, but all that seems to just make him angrier. What he doesn’t realize is that a commitment to social justice unites churches of different doctrinal and political beliefs; if Christians were to leave those churches, they would have to leave their Catholic churches, black churches, Latino churches, evangelical and Pentecostal churches, and mainline Protestant churches. Beck’s own Mormon Church’s theologians and leaders have made it clear that they too believe social justice is integral to their faith, and that they disagree with the famous talk show host and want it known that he doesn’t speak for them.
Most would agree that the term has sometimes been used to support ideologies of the Left and the Right, but a range of people from liberal ministers to Southern Baptist theologians have defended the integrity of social justice as core to Christian faith and have disagreed with Beck’s attack. In fact denominational leaders are reporting that their pastors are actually preaching more on social justice than before, just because Beck told them not to. Social justice as a personal commitment both to serve the poor and to attack the conditions that lead to poverty is one of the most passionate beliefs of a younger generation of Christians, and one of their most compelling attractions to Jesus Christ.
Eboo Patel 5-01-2010
Have you ever been to a college campus at 8 a.m.? It looks like a ghost town. And usually an invitation to come out at that hour is synonymous with pressing the snooze button. So what motivated a thousand people to stand together outside Stanford University’s Taube Hillel House that early on a Friday morning?
Westboro Baptist Church—an extremist group known for spouting hate speech—had posted on its Web site plans to march in front of Hillel House at Stanford. Making good on their promise that January morning, six members of the church stood holding signs with anti-Semitic and anti-gay slogans. They shouted hateful jeers at students and passers-by.
But a few feet away stood nearly 1,000 members of the Stanford community—students, faculty, and staff from more than 20 religious and cultural clubs on campus. They came together to celebrate their diversity in the face of those who would try to tear them apart. The power of the gathering wasn’t lost on anyone—partway through the event, a young man stumbled out of a nearby dorm, awakened by the noise of the group. A few minutes later, he re-emerged, playing a solo of “Amazing Grace” on his bagpipes.
However good the cause, however ugly the provocation, a thousand people don’t naturally rise from their beds to promote a positive value. Somebody has to rouse them. Somebody has to be the alarm clock.
Lynne Hybels 5-01-2010
Every time I hear a news report about casualties of war, my mind travels back to the early ’90s. Twice in two years I traveled with a humanitarian organization to Croatia and Bosnia as those countries were being ripped apart by war with Serbia. It was a vicious war. When entering a village, soldiers routinely raped the women and took captive all the men and boys over 13, most of whom never returned.
In Croatia, we visited refugee centers filled with women who had lost everything: jobs, husbands, homes, country, and their planned-for future. In Bosnia, we visited schools where social workers tried to help grade-school kids who suffered so severely from post-traumatic stress that they sat all day silently chewing their nails to the quick. It was the first time I had seen war up close, and I was stunned by what human beings do to one another.
On my last day in Croatia, I climbed to the top of a hill that overlooked the countryside of Bosnia. I sat there for hours and wept and prayed for the women and children I’d seen. While I prayed, an unbidden question repeated itself: “Am I my sister’s keeper?” And the repeated answer was, Yes, yes, yes; you are your sister’s keeper.
“God, then who is my sister?”
They are all your sisters, I sensed God saying. Croatian Catholics. Bosnian Muslims. Serbian Orthodox. They—and every other woman you will ever meet—are all your sisters. And every man you will ever meet is your brother. Whether they know it or not, they are all part of the human family I have created, and I love them.
Ed Spivey Jr. 5-01-2010
As summer approaches, I look forward to the day, sometime in late July, when all the snow will finally be gone from Washington, D.C. But right now I’m writing from the confines of my home, trapped under three feet of snow and occupying my time by worrying about the porch roof collapsing.
I share this snowbound fate with spouse and youngest daughter, the oldest daughter having wisely decided to move to the warmer climate of northern Massachusetts.
As the snow continues, and my fear for the porch intensifies, I have been told that under no circumstances will I be permitted to climb onto the roof and shovel it off, this from household members who never stand in my way when tires go flat, lawns require mowing, or the bodies of rodents need to be removed from locations where the cat has proudly put them on display.
I originally attempted to stand on a ladder and rake snow from that relatively safe vantage point, but family members referred to news reports of injuries resulting from just that technique. So, after carefully coming down from the ladder by falling backwards into the snow, I withdrew to my basement workshop to plan a different strategy. [Editor’s fact check: There is a basement, but no “workshop.” Just a bench with dusty tools that haven’t been used since the last time the author’s 85-year-old father demonstrated how to use a saw without injury.]
Jim Wallis 4-01-2010
It’s the largest federal budget in history. President Obama’s 2011 budget totals $3.8 trillion and contains a deficit of $1.3 trillion.