Although deconstruction has been a disorienting process, I feel myself breaking free from the oppressive ideologies that locked me in static racial and gender hierarchies. It has allowed me to find value in our unique narratives as well as our partnership with God and the community of creation.
Several days ago, I spent more than I would have liked on a dental procedure that involved removing decay from one of my molars, doing a lot of horrible-sounding drilling and scraping, then saving the delicate bits that remained by capping it with a fake tooth. My dentist insisted this was called a “crown,” but I know a euphemism when I see one.
Across the nation, Catholic Church leaders are beginning to reckon with their institution’s role in operating Indigenous residential schools and the lasting consequences these schools left on Native American communities. One state seeing growing momentum to address this history is Minnesota, which had 15 boarding schools; Catholic groups operated at least eight of them.
Time after time, these Christians would lay hands on me while I waited in line at Starbucks or the food court at the local mall. They’d try and cast out evil demons, pray that my faith would be strengthened, or command in Jesus’ name that I get up and walk (even though I could already walk). Each time, they would stand back as if they’d just recited the magic words. Each time, with progressively less optimism and greater anger, I’d step forward only to find out I wasn’t healed. Some would accuse me of not having enough faith, but most just apologized and went on with their day. I was left alone. Still limping, still furious.
Pew Research conducted a study in 2020 examining teens’ relationship to religion compared to their parents: data from that report showed that while 43 percent of parents claimed religion was “very important to them,” only 24 percent of teens answered similarly. In 2021, Springtide Research Institute, where I am a student ambassador, found that 52 percent of young people believe that religious communities are “rigid” and too “restrictive.”
Last year, Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, a social practice artist, created In America: Remember — a vast field of flags on the national mall, one for each American who died from COVID-19. Visitors, both in-person and digitally, had the opportunity to dedicate a flag by writing a message on the while poly film. When the installation began in mid-September of 2021, there were 666,624 deaths. When the installation closed in early October, there were 701,133 deaths. As of this week, nearly 1 million people have died of COVID-19 in the United States, 6 million globally. As we try to grapple with the weight of these fatalities, we’re revisiting an interview from late October 2021 between Firstenberg and Sojourners associate culture editor Jenna Barnett, in which they discuss what it looks like to honor grief and memorialize an ongoing pandemic.
For the past six years, Sojourners has celebrated Women’s History Month by sharing a list of Christian women who are bringing us hope and inspiring us to action. This year’s group includes pastors and poets, abolitionists and mothers, liturgists and storytellers; women who question authority, disrupt unjust systems, set boundaries, reimagine what’s possible, and pray.
When I was a kid, Christian comic Brad Stine yelled at me about wearing a helmet while riding my bike. He also yelled about seatbelt and car-seat laws, smoking laws, and gay marriage through his stand-up routine that I sat in the front row for.
One measure, an executive order from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, jeopardizes foster care licenses for anyone who takes in unaccompanied immigrant children who arrive in the country without authorization. The other, a bill being fast-tracked through the state legislature, would bar state and local governments from contracting with businesses that knowingly transport undocumented immigrants, including bus companies or airlines.
Tania Fernandes Anderson, Boston’s newly elected councilor, embraces struggle.
In November, she made history as Boston’s first Muslim, first African immigrant, and first formerly undocumented person to be elected to the city council. Now, with an ambitious slate of policy goals, she hopes to transform the city she calls home. While politics brings a new set of challenges for Anderson, her struggle doesn’t take place at city hall. Rather, her struggle is spiritual.