"Courage is more exhilarating than fear, and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."
In this cultural moment, I am convinced that the theological education we are entrusted with demands that we advocate for justice in our world. Because the forces of injustice are so great and manipulative, we need brilliant lawyers advocating for immigrants and incarcerated folks, theologians writing books on the biblical mandate to seek justice, doctors who can tend to those on the frontlines of protests, and politicians and activists who can support the abolition of debt.
At some point this Easter Weekend, Christians will be reflecting on the final words that Jesus spoke from the cross, sometimes referred to as the seven last words of Jesus.
When I was younger, I was convinced that System of a Down’s “Chop Suey!” was a Christian song because lead vocalist and lyricist Serj Tankian incorporated Jesus’ final declarations into the song. But dissimilar to the order that Christians have typically arranged Jesus’ final words, the song first quotes the cry of reunion and then climaxes with the cry of dereliction.
Considering that the Roman Empire believed Jesus was a terrorist and crucified him as one, emphasizing the cry of dereliction seems apt.
In Anne Frank, the world remembers a light of courage, even hope — a girl who lived and loved and laughed in the face of immense terror.
Reading these passages today, Jesus’ trial is a striking example of the interplay between the political power brokers who condemn Jesus to death and the crowds who cried out to Jesus days earlier for deliverance. While Pilate is responsible, he uses the crowd’s actions as cover, absolving himself of responsibility for deciding Jesus’ fate. Reading this story amid the deeply concerning judicial drama playing out in real time between the Trump administration and courts, I’m reminded of the role we all can play when we collectively act — or fail to act — in support of justice.
“The problem with the meritocracy ... [is that it] leeches all the empathy out of your society.”
The right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson said that back in 2017 and, by my lights, there’s a kernel of truth there. It almost echoes the early 20th-century sociologist Max Weber’s critique of the Protestant work ethic, how Americans are trained to see wealth as a just reward for living a good life and poverty as punishment for living a bad one; an economic spin on Calvinism. Even if you think Carlson is a reactionary grifter (which I do), I think he’s onto something here.
This past March, the Trump administration deported over 200 men to El Salvador to be held in the notorious maximum-security prison known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo.
White House spokespersons have repeatedly claimed that these men — most of whom are of Venezuelan background — are members of the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua.
However, multiple outlets have reported that neither the U.S. government nor El Salvador have provided any evidence to support these accusations.
Sometimes I am haunted by Glennon Doyle’s forward to the late Rachel Held Evans’ book Searching for Sunday. Doyle begins: “Whenever I want to scare myself, I consider what would happen to the world if Rachel Held Evans stopped writing.” In 2019, about four years after those words were published, Evans died. She was 37, survived by her husband, two kids, and Christians around the world who found comfort in her faith-rooted advocacy for racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and egalitarianism.
From the first day of his administration, President Donald Trump has sought to end birthright citizenship, meaning that being born on U.S. soil would no longer be sufficient for establishing permanent legal status in the country.
So far, three different judges have blocked the executive order Trump issued on Jan. 20, which the administration has appealed to the Supreme Court. Legal scholars have pointed to over a century of jurisprudence to indicate that birthright citizenship is too well established to effectively challenge. Despite the history, the Trump administration’s attempts have ignited small-scale debates about birthright citizenship, a debate faith leaders say has too often failed to consider the ethical and moral implications of revoking it.
Bishop Mariann Budde got a lot of attention at President Donald Trump's inauguration when she called on him to be merciful to those he had attacked during his campaign. Now, she reflects on her word choice, why she believes “mercy” was the right word, and the tension of leading a church through a political minefield.