The protesters gathered to raise their voices for gun control and lament gun violence three days after a gunmen killed 21 people in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
“I hate, I despise your vigils,
and I take no delight in your school shooter drills.
Even though you offer me your thoughts and prayers,
I will not accept them;
and the offerings of well-being of your collection plates
I will not look upon.”
I loved watching Top Gun: Maverick. That’s the main problem, actually. The new “lega-sequel” hits all the right notes, including a repeated on-screen instruction not to think. The result is a thrilling jingoistic fable about the inherent heroism of the U.S. military, built on a long legacy of violence.
It has been hard to read any of what has been written about the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. At some point, you start to wonder if we have convinced ourselves that words speak louder than actions.
Christians are often unhelpfully wary of aggressive protest tactics. They promote a particular understanding of “unity” or “love” prioritizing “civility” over difficult conversations that lead to justice. Some Christians are even uncomfortable being present during debates or protests where activists utilize more aggressive tactics. But Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s letters to the church help Christians analyze power and privilege so that they can engage in healthy disruption and confrontation.
For many of the people who watched the show and enjoyed the Duggar’s supposedly wholesome, winsome lifestyle, the recent conviction and sentencing of the eldest child, Josh Duggar, to 12 years in prison on multiple counts of possesion of child pornography may be shocking. How could a family with such strong “Christian values,” who kept their children far away from the evils of “The World,” have created this?
God, our nation feels the loss / as our children pay the cost / for the violence we accept, / for the silence we have kept.
Men uses imagery from Genesis 3 to reflect on the culturally assigned guilt of women and the patriarchal system that has perpetuated this guilt through a centuries-long history of interpretation.
Sojourners honors nearly 200 years of Asian American and Pacific Islander Christian heritage including Hawaiian, Samoan, Guamanian, Filipino, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Bangladeshi, Hmong, Pakistani and more than 50 other ethnic groups.
I told my congregation that nine years earlier, on a cold January morning, I walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic.
Before you read further, let’s pause: What story do you think I’m about to tell? What assumptions about me or my circumstances did you make? Do you see me as someone with less moral authority than when you started reading? Take a moment to think.