Of all the various surveys and polls I’ve seen leading up to today’s election, one was the most disheartening and depressing: The 2018 American Values Survey by the Public Religion Research Institute. While examining voters’ attitudes on a wide range of issues facing the electorate, most revealing are the views of white evangelicals. This constitutes nothing short of moral and ethical indictment, documenting with irrefutable evidence the failure of this group to embody many values of the gospel they confess.
"My faith informs my agency in the world and we are called to use whatever resources are at our disposable," Shields told Sojourners. "Luke 11: 5-13 is a story of persistence. And when I se injustice in our system or at the least, morally gray positions held by people in power, that is a call to act in the world. As a Christian, Christ calls us to the ministry of reconciliation, and that include the process of voting."
The 30-second ad, which was sponsored by Trump's 2020 re-election campaign and which debuted online last week, featured courtroom video of an illegal immigrant from Mexico convicted in the 2014 killings of two police officers, juxtaposed with scenes of migrants headed through Mexico.
In two stunning interactive visualizations, individuals are able to examine workplace diversity state by state - controlling for factors such as race, sex, and occupation. One visualization ranks states according to representation, with red and green bars showing what percent under and overrepresented certain populations are in relationship to their presence in the labor force. The other visualization allows users to compare states - giving a clear breakdown of representation at each occupation level.
Vote today. Choose the candidates you think represent the best chance to bring God’s values of love, inclusion, justice, healing, and compassion into our world.
In a time like this, prayer is not perfunctory, an add on, or a brief closing to a meeting. Rather it is an opening to what indeed has now become “spiritual warfare” as the New Testament describes.
In the black community, voting has always been complicated.
We voted and yet you lynched us.
We voted and yet you incarcerated us.
We voted and you poisoned our water.
I’ll treat the earth as sacred space
Name violence a vile disgrace.
Build a world of justice and peace
Help the oppressed find release.
We are told that the world has never been richer, freer, or more advanced but at the same time, there are many who don’t seem to feel this. Among the young, especially, anxiety and depression seem rampant and young people are held up as politically disillusioned, increasingly turning their back on both political processes and institutional religion. How might this relate to neoliberalism? And what does neoliberalism have to with theology?
One day, Naomi and Ruth crossed the border,
This day, we see streams of new refugees.
God, you have called us to welcome the stranger;
May we in love welcome people like these.