Faith and Politics
At year-end, many news organizations compile their top 10 stories of the year. After a full year of the Daily Digest, here are my choices.
1. Faith & Politics. In a significant indication of how the conversation on faith and politics has changed in the U.S., expressions of religious faith played a central part in a year of presidential campaigning by candidates from both parties.
2. Region in crisis. The U.S. troop surge in Iraq reduced violence but has not [...]
We first published this reflection by Jim Wallis in 2002. It has since become our Christmas tradition, kind of our own Charlie Brown Christmas special, if you will. With the ongoing conflicts raging during each passing year, it remains tragically relevant.
Silent Night, by Stanley Weintraub, is the story of Christmas Eve, 1914, on the World War I battlefield in [...]
Last night Bill Talen and his wife Savitri Durkee discussed American consumerism at a special Sojourners screening of 'What Would Jesus Buy?'
The year of 1968 was very significant in my life, and a decisive one for the nation. It was the year when the hopes borne by the social movements of the 1950's and 60's were dashed by the assassinations of, first, Martin Luther King Jr., and then Robert F. Kennedy.
If Robert Kennedy had lived to become president on the inside (as he surely would have) and Martin Luther King Jr. had lived to lead a movement from the outside, the U.S. and the world might be very different today. But the [...]
During Advent, as I kindle the wreath candles that mark the journey to the Bethlehem stable, I return to particular writers that I love and certain music that I can't seem to get through the seasons without. I have Advent habits.
For instance, I often re-read W.H. Auden's For the Time Being. In one portion King Herod weighs the threat to publiic order posed by the birth of the Christ child. Is the collatoral damage of murdering the male children justified in order to maintain [...]
When I went to check my post office box after Thanksgiving, among the pile of mail waiting for me were review copies of Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great about Christianity and Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light.
I first [...]
Jim wrote a piece a few weeks back about the new Bonhoeffer-quoting Aussie PM Kevin Rudd. Well, another fun fact is that he has appointed Peter Garrett, rock star turned environmental activist turned Member of Parliament, his new Minister for Environment. That's the Aussie version of putting Bono in charge of the foreign [...]
As I do more reading about Darfur, I've had to re-examine some of my assumptions about genocide. I'd tended to think about genocides on the model of the Holocaust, which involved a massive logistical undertaking by a ruthlessly evil state whose armies were strong enough to conquer multiple other nations.
The genocide in Darfur is intentionally caused by a ruthlessly evil state, but that's where the similarities end. Khartoum's strategies in Darfur - as in southern Sudan before the [...]
It happened again. A presidential candidate's debate in two languages. Just as the Democratic presidential candidates had done before, the Republicans have followed suit - a presidential candidates debate on Spanish-language channel, Univision. (Tom Tancredo was the only candidate who did not attend the debate). I blogged on the earlier Democratic debate and thought it only equitable to do [...]
The denomination which I am now seeking to enter and belong to, the Episcopal Church, is a denominaton that many others are now seeking to depart.
Such a situation carries within it two things: danger and opportunity. The danger is self evident. The opportunty will come from listening to the jackhammer on our roof. The image of a hammer on the roof comes from my Bishop Greg Rickel. I've added "jack" to the "hammer" to note the severity of [...]
Last week, a Liberty University student asked Gov. Mike Huckabee to account for his recent surge in the polls. "There's only one explanation for it, and it is not a human one," Huckabee claimed, "It is the same power that helped a little boy with two fishes and five loaves feed a crowd of 5,000 people. And that's the only way our campaign could be doing what it is doing." In other words, God apparently wants Mike Huckabee to be president-or, at the very least, win the Iowa caucuses. And, [...]
This is an announcement mostly for those who post comments on this blog. As many have complained, our comments are often less a respectful dialogue, and more a reflection of our polarized partisan culture in which the most strident voices dominate. A typical complaint:
Nice piece this morning by James Carroll in The Boston Globe. He writes about what he calls "the radical militarization of foreign affairs."
A MAN bit a dog last week. Not just any man, and not just any [...]
The Nov. 27 Annapolis meeting on Israel/Palestine has launched us into a momentous one-year process to seek a permanent peace agreement between Israel and its neighbors. What is at stake is whether after more than 50 years of ghastly conflict and widespread bloodshed, genuine peace can come to one of the most dangerous areas and most divisive problems in our world.
Important steps were [...]
As you all encounter pictures of "jolly, old St. Nick" this season, remember that St. Nicholas the Wonderworker was a real Christian hero. He spent his life working for freedom and justice for the poor and powerless. In particular, he is known for saving three women from being sold into prostitution and preventing the execution of three men who were wrongfully convicted.
In what may be the defining moment of his campaign, Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a Mormon, addressed the issue of faith and its bearing on his pursuit of the presidency. Pundits inevitably compared Romney's speech in College Station, Texas, with the speech that John F. Kennedy gave just down the road at the Rice Hotel, Houston, on September 12, 1960.
The parallels [...]
After months of increasing talk of military strikes against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, the Bush administration has suddenly received a dose of reality. In what news reports called A Blow to [...]
As a child I found no joy in an Advent calendar; all those little flaps and doors and bite-size pieces of chocolate signified nothing more than the fact that Christmas was still a really, really long time away. Especially as I got down to the last few doors, just a few days before the big event, time seemed to take on a pace as slow as molasses sucked through a straw. Admittedly, the coming of the [...]
I couldn't help but be struck by a bizarre similarity in two back-to-back events this week: the YouTube/CNN Republican forum and the swearing in of Pakistan's President Musharaf broadcast by NPR. Although worlds apart, both demonstrated what happens when religion and politics mix in a less-than-productive way-the insistence on religious tests for holding office.
In the case of President Musharaf, he took the oath of office to a country with Islam as the state religion by swearing that [...]
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Here's some of Krista Tippet's introduction to her interview with Jim:
I've resisted interviewing Wallis as he's risen to a new kind of fame, in part because he has had so much exposure in major media - from Hardball to [...]