Faith and Politics
Five years after bombs first exploded over Baghdad with a "shock and awe" display of staggering military might, the Iraq war continues with tragic costs and still-unseen consequences.
First, we mourn and honor the American and Iraqi dead whose lost lives are the ultimate reminder [...]
"Can I forgive the people who killed my husband?"
It was perhaps the most practical and personal question asked during a recent meeting of Iraqi civil society leaders who had gathered to advise the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) about its future peacebuilding work in [...]
A modern-day version of the story of David and Goliath is quickly unfolding at Ohio's State House. The "Davids" of this story are the faith-based groups, housing advocates, consumer, community action, and other anti-poverty organizations around the state. "Goliath" is the powerful payday lending industry that has grown to more than 1,600 stores and has gross revenues of $2 billion annually. The issue in question is whether Ohio's 12-year-old law on payday lending should be changed to provide [...]
He may or may not have been the bomb-maker.
Did it matter, now that I stood in front of his body, still connected to tubes and vents and drips, but a body that had already breathed its last?
No, it didn't really matter. I stepped to the bed and laid a hand on his still-warm [...]
On Tuesday, President Bush spoke to the annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters. In a speech that The New York Times described as "Citing Faith, Bush Defends War [...]
In Ramah, a voice is heard, crying and weeping loudly. Rachel mourns for her children and refuses to be comforted, because they are dead. Jeremiah 31:15
Last week a spate of four deaths in our Chicago high schools was blamed on gangs and guns. Last year, the public high [...]
A couple of weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, I received a call from my cousin. Her father-in-law in Baghdad was dead. His death was not the result a car bomb or a kidnapping. No bullets or beheadings were involved. Instead, it was a kitchen fire. He was badly burnt up and down his [...]
Two brothers, Jamal* and Khalid,* were arrested randomly in a raid of their neighborhood by Iraqi Special Police Forces, the Palestinian ghetto in Baghdad. They were tortured and forced to confess on a [...]
Five years ago, I was in Iraq. It was as a member of the Iraq Peace Team, living in the middle of the "shock-and-awe" bombing of Baghdad -- some of the scariest days of my life. As Easter approached, we walked through the Lenten season with brothers and sisters in Iraq. One night I had a [...]
Tuesday evening, John McCain clinched the Republican nomination for president, and Mike Huckabee, the last remaining contender, conceded defeat. Huckabee's campaign, and the failure of the Religious Right to support him, has been one of the most interesting and puzzling stories of this primary season
While Huckabee is certainly a social conservative, he refused to toe the line on a number [...]
I write these words from Iraq, where I have worked through the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) since October 2002 - before, during, and since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. CPT attempts to [...]
Last Friday I was in Santa Barbara, California, to speak at Westmont College - where even on a Friday evening, the gymnasium was packed with students. Before that event I did an interview with The Santa Barbara Independent, a local weekly newspaper, which they titled The Next [...]
As our baby's due date approaches, the Mercedes Sosa song, "Todo Cambia" ("Everything Changes") has found an echo deep within me. Click here to listen to the song.
I am great with child-and the changes in my body are unmistakable. Nature is taking its course to bring this [...]
They came to the Georgia World Congress Center by the thousands. They represented thirty different Baptist groups from across the nation, along with an array of representatives from Baptist groups from abroad. This gathering, held January 30 to February 1, 2008, marked the historic beginning of what is being called The New Baptist Covenant. This is not a new "super" denomination, but rather, is an association of separate Baptist denominations that are committing to work together to further [...]
The Iraq war has cost lives. Perhaps this is such an obvious statement that many will wonder why it has been made. It has cost lives of military personnel, many thousands of civilians in the immediate theatre of war, as well as lives of insurgents. It has even cost lives away from the [...]
Last week I wrote about unfair attacks on Sen. Barack Obama's faith. And though it hasn't been in the headlines as recently, Sen. Hillary Clinton has also faced a steady stream of criticism of her faith. Christianity Today summarizes in sad detail and rightly debunks these "baseless blows to the former first lady" in a [...]
The sorrowful convergence of the fifth anniversary of the war and the observation of the 4000th fallen U.S. soldier in Iraq looms sadly ahead. Soon candles will be lit and vigils held, [...]
This week will be a full one for me and for many of us in the Washington, DC, area. Friday and Saturday, I'll be leading the Everything Must Change gathering in Vienna, Virginia, but first, I'll be part of the
My parents had an agreement: If my father could name his children, then my mother could raise us in the church. So I was given a full Muslim name, but I was baptized as a Christian. Growing up I never really liked my name very much - Omar. For a little kid in Texas, a foreign [...]
The Global Christian Forum is a new phenomenon bringing together Christian churches from throughout the globe and the different parts of the Christian community - from Pentecostal to Catholic, historic Protestant to Orthodox. In the March issue of Sojourners, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson [...]