We’ve heard an awful lot of talk about the soul during this inauguration week. Which is not all that surprising, given that President Joe Biden described the 2020 campaign season as a “battle for the soul of America.”
President Joe Biden’s inaugural address emphasized the need to foster unity in the U.S. The next day, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber III challenged the country to go a step further: to become what Isaiah 58:12 calls “repairers of the breach.”
I believe fervently in the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who said that “the church is not called to be the master or servant of the state, but to be the conscience of the state.” In that vein, we will be neither chaplain nor sycophant to our new political leaders. Instead, we seek to be a faithful conscience, serving as a bridge-builder and offering prophetic critique (and pressure) when necessary.
Valarie Kaur, Simran Jeet Singh, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, and other interfaith leaders team up to heal their communities.
For Muslim religious and political leaders, President Joe Biden’s inauguration ends the “nightmare” of the Trump administration; nevertheless, Muslim leaders remained cautious in expressing optimism about the Biden administration’s promises.
On his first day as president, Joe Biden followed through on one of his pre-inaugural commitments: re-entering the United States into the Paris climate agreement.
Though religious intolerance in India has continued to intensify under Modi, the Trump administration has largely stayed silent.
“Saint Augustine, a saint of my church, wrote that a people was ‘a multitude defined by the common objects of their love,’” Biden said. “What are the common objects we, as Americans, love, that define us as Americans? I think we know: opportunity, security, liberty, respect, honor, and, yes, the truth.”
