When my husband and I started fertility treatment, we intentionally stopped going to church. Due to various traumatic religious experiences, we had been floating for over a year and we remained undecided on whether belonging to any religious organization would be part of our future. Then we went to a church service on Father’s Day weekend. Belting pop songs about the joy and goodness of God was already too much. But then they asked all fathers to stand and it broke us. Around this time, we alerted a small group of people that we were beginning fertility treatment and taking a break from church service.
There are large swaths of the Bible that the lectionary skips over. And while there are lots of reasons for not including certain passages, it doesn’t take too long to notice one major pattern: Passages that are uncomfortably violent (or just angry) are frequently left on the cutting room floor, and consequently left out of Sunday worship.
Pope Francis’ July visit to the First Nations in Canada has rekindled conversations about the Catholic Church’s responsibility in blessing and legitimizing the colonization of Indigenous homelands.
Honk for Jesus follows Lee-Curtis and his wife First Lady Trinitie Childs (Regina Hall) as they prepare a grand reopening for their Atlanta-area megachurch.
The crises that Puerto Ricans are facing are not simply the results of “natural” disasters, according to Carlos A. Rodríguez. As founder and CEO of The Happy Givers, a Puerto Rico-based nonprofit that provides meals, rebuilds homes, and operates a community farm on the island, Rodríguez sees firsthand the harms of U.S. colonialism and climate change. On the island, residents are very clear that they are oppressed by their status as a colony, and when natural disasters hit, the pain is exacerbated.
While there’s no magic solution, now is the perfect time to make sure every eligible voter nationwide has everything they need to cast their vote, which increasingly means possessing knowledge, motivation, and determination. Here are five concrete and actionable ways that each of us can help empower and inspire every eligible voter to vote this November.
“Centering the marginalized” is common parlance among both Christian and secular social justice advocates. This especially makes sense for Christians, as it was Jesus who said, “the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16). So when it comes to seeking justice, it makes sense that we’d try to prioritize the experiences and perspectives of those our society discriminates against because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, or other identities. But two examples from this past year have made me doubt the viability of an identity-based approach for pursuing social justice.
In Leviticus 25, God instructs Moses and the people of Israel to institute a year of Jubilee. Every 50 years, at the blast of a trumpet, the Jubilee would mark a moral and economic shift in society: Slaves were set free, land was returned to its original owners, and any outstanding debts were eliminated (25:1-12). Similarly, in Deuteronomy 15, God says that every seven years, creditors should “remit the claim that is held against a neighbor” because “the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed.” In the New Testament, Jesus instructs his followers to pray “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12, Luke 11:4). Scripture is clear when it comes to debt abolition and the freeing of the debtor: God demands a society that delivers justice and freedom to all and rejects a society that physically and rhetorically shackles its people.
O God of all creation, as ocean waters warm, / we grieve the devastation that comes with violent storms. / We pray for people struggling— who need your help and grace / on every flooded island and in each flooded place.
When about 50 people found themselves stranded last week on Martha’s Vineyard, the island’s nonprofit social services agency called on local churches to help. “We rallied and did what any decent human being would do if strangers showed up,” local pastor Rev. Charlotte Wright told Sojourners this week.