As pastors and church leaders determine how best to shepherd their congregations during this health crisis, Sojourners reached out to those who have experience for their best words of advice. Below, we’ve compiled their thoughts.
Ash Wednesday 2020 marked a meat-free decade for me, a spiritual choice I made in 2010, just after I became engaged to a devout Hindu. What began as both a Lenten fast of solidarity and desperation — my husband is the cook, I am not — has held steady. A liturgical season turned into a year, then another and another. At each meal, I’ve made choice: Do I eat meat or not? Why or why not?
Pope Francis, holed up in the Vatican by Italy's coronavirus epidemic, held his first virtual general audience on Wednesday, thanking medical staff but urging the world not to forget the plight of Syrian refugees.
We have failed to be good citizens. We have become complicit in the president’s nativism, racism, xenophobia, narcissism, and fearmongering.
God whose will is health and wholeness, hear your people as we pray:
Many now are facing illness; more face sickness every day.
As we lift our song toward heaven, may we use the gifts you give—
science, justice, and compassion— to help others safely live.
The religious community shares a moral responsibility to protect others from the harms of methane pollution and the devastation of climate change. it is our moral responsibility to act now. We must stand for the health of all humanity and work to limit methane pollution in our communities, especially among the most vulnerable.
The emergence of Bernie Sanders as one of two finalists for the Democratic presidential nomination has renewed focus on his self-identification as a “democratic socialist.” Although several pundits, including Paul Krugman of the New York Times, have argued that Sanders’s “socialism” is really a pale version of what most Europeans regard as socialism, many Americans — including those who identify as evangelical Christians — remain suspicious of Sanders’s ideology.
Churches across the United States are advising parishioners to avoid direct contact with fellow members as an oft-reiterated warning against spreading the coronavirus, which emerged in China last year and causes the sometimes deadly respiratory illness COVID-19.
Coronavirus, Christian nationalists, politicians using Matthew 25, and more.