Here at Sojourners, we believe following Jesus means being “creatively maladjusted” to the dominant definitions of success; for us as editors, this means resisting the tyranny of fickle algorithms that have so much power in determining which stories get read and which don’t. We love the 10 stories listed below, but each year we publish hundreds of beautiful and important stories, interviews, columns, reflections, reviews, and poems — and darn it, we aren’t gonna let algorithms tell us (or you!) what stories matter most.
The U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol on Monday asked federal prosecutors to charge Donald Trump with obstruction and insurrection for his role in sparking the deadly riot.
2022 was a year marked by high-profile humanitarian crises. From the war in Ukraine to a rare outbreak of Ebola in Uganda to the ongoing migration crisis in the Americas, emergencies dominated the headlines. But what about the crises that unfolded outside the spotlight? As the year comes to a close, millions of people are still living through forgotten emergencies, and, as has been the case for more than 50 years, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is there to help.
Churches far too often operate under the “male gaze.” The male gaze, a term I'm borrowing from film criticism, always answers the question of “Who is this for?” with “Well, men, of course.” Some congregations, even though they affirm women pastors, worship directors, and singers, still caution them to dress so that the men in the congregation don’t find them “tempting.” The male gaze is always cisgendered and heterosexual, so churches that are formed by the male gaze are structured to be hostile toward queer people (no matter how kind congregants in those churches are to queer individuals).
But as my research on the relationship between the New Testament and the development of popular Christian traditions shows, the earliest biblical descriptions do not mention the presence of any animals. Animals first start to appear in religious texts around the seventh century.
God’s promise in Advent is about meeting us wherever we are. We, too, can go out and build relationships with all our neighbors — housed or unhoused, incarcerated or not — as we prepare for a future where all people can be comforted.
President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law on Tuesday at a jubilant celebration that featured singer Cyndi Lauper performing “True Colors” in front of thousands of supporters on the White House lawn.
President Joe Biden is establishing an inter-agency group to coordinate efforts to counter antisemitism, Islamophobia, and related forms of bias and discrimination, the White House said on Monday.
Ukraine’s top security officials have ordered punitive measures against seven senior clerics, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, part of a crackdown on a branch of the Orthodox Church with longstanding ties to Moscow.
The 1992 classic is full of wonders you can’t find anywhere else: Michael Caine starring in a children’s movie, a ghost of Christmas future that haunts me every time I consider splurging on frivolities, and a drum set at a Victorian England Christmas party. But the movie isn’t just a fun, Muppet-y take on Charles Dickens’ classic novella; it’s also a compelling screenplay with heart-warming, humorous songs that offer a radical Christmas message of “cast down the mighty … send the rich away empty.”