Faith and Politics
On Friday, Oct. 26, I was part of a small delegation of evangelical leaders who met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. We were there to follow up the letter we sent to President Bush in late July to encourage more vigorous U.S. efforts to promote a fair, two-state solution for Israel/Palestine.
Secretary Rice understands the formidable obstacles. She spoke of a little moment of [...]
As an addendum to Jim's post on Mike Gerson and his new book, I thought I'd share Monday night's Daily Show interview with Gerson, who held his own quite well. If he hadn't provided the speechwriting for Bush's rush to war, I might really really like him, instead of just liking him. But for now I'll leave the skewering to Jon Stewart:
Mike: I'm sometimes disappointed with the [...]
"Our best option is to leave Iraq immediately." This is not from a Democratic pundit or a Christian pacifist like myself. It's from 12 former Army captains who served in Babil and Baghdad, Najaf and Ninevah, and beyond.
As they wrote in "The Real Iraq We Knew":
Even with 'the surge, [...]
Dr. Marvin A. McMickle delivered the following sermon on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) at a public witness and rally during Sojourners' "Reviving Our Spirits: Transforming Our Politics" conference in Cleveland last weekend. Dr. McMickle is pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio. + Click here for the full sermon text.
Who made the following statement in a recent television interview?
I'm not sure that that group in Washington is really representative of evangelicals across the spectrum. This is the Family Research Council and some of the James Dobson supporters, I just think that's just a narrow slice of evangelical thought.
A) Jim Wallis
B) Pat Robertson
C) Hillary Clinton
C) Rick Warren
D) Rudy Giuliani
No doubt there are critics who will dispute Jim's description of the Religious Right as having an overly narrow agenda. Case in point: Witness this dynamic observed by Faith in Public Life's (former Sojourner intern) Dan Nejfelt, live blogging from the FRC Summit on Friday:
Earlier [FRC head Tony] [...]
On the eve of his dialoge with the Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land at the Family Research Council's Values Voters Summit, Jim appeared on CBS News with Katie Couric last night to talk about changes in evangelical political engagement.
Last week Jim was on The Tavis Smiley Show and talked about how the changing political landscape will affect the upcoming '08 election. Jim and Ken Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state, debated and discussed both the impact of "value voters" on the election and what those values entail.
Earlier this week we posted an open letter from Tony Campolo in response to a Christianity Today column by Stan Guthrie, "When Red is Blue," in their November issue that was critical of the Red Letter Christians concept. CT has now posted Guthrie's column online, accompanied by an [...]
In The New York Times story about the administration's secret
authorization of torture, one sentence is particularly chilling: "With
virtually no experience in interrogations, the CIA had constructed
its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi
intelligence officials and copying Soviet [...]
As the Religious Right has diminished in influence, many are searching for a new political agenda that doesn’t fit the standard right/left battles of American politics and is more consistent with their deeply held values. That new agenda would be good news for the majority of Americans who are alienated by the political [...]
I remember about eight years ago when then presidential candidate George W. Bush repeatedly claimed that he would restore honor to the presidency, soiled as it had been by our previous president's infamous affair. I remember hoping he would succeed. But a new kind of shame has come to the office and to our nation as reports surface about our government's secret authorization of torture. We all share [...]
The last time I saw Rami, we were at the beach near Gaza City. A group of us were in the water and I was trying to force Rami underwater. Rami was a big man, weighing at least twice what I do. Needless to say, I did not manage to get him to budge. When he in turn came after me, all I could do to protect myself from suffocating under him was flee. Eventually I was able to sneak up on him under water, [...]
In response to Stan Guthrie's article in the October 2007 Christianity Today, "When Red Is Blue: Why I Am Not A Red Letter Christian," Tony Campolo wrote the following open letter as a response.
Dear Stan,
I have to say, "You got us right!" You said:
Though I [...]
With all the fuss around Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent visit to New York, you'd think that he had political power, command of the military, or at least strong popular support in his homeland. Actually, he has none of the above, as Stephen Zunes argues in a recent Foreign Policy in Focus article:
International solidarity and support for the Burmese democracy movement is growing, as evidenced in the imposition of new economic sanctions against the military regime. The European Union and the U.S. government have announced additional measures to isolate the dictators. The democracy movement has supported the imposition of these international sanctions as an effective means of pressuring the Burmese government, as
New York Faith and Justice was inspired into being by Sojourners/Call to Renewal during their annual Pentecost Conference in 2006. It started with just a handful of committed Christians in New York who were focused on discovering how God was leading them to respond to the issue of poverty in their city.
As Becky Garrison reported last week, their mission is simple but profound: "Following [...]
The news this afternoon from Myanmar/Burma is not good. A recent AP story said that
Soldiers clubbed and dragged away activists while firing tear gas and warning shots to break up demonstrations Friday before they could grow, and the government cut Internet access, raising fears that a deadly crackdown was set to intensify.
The government said 10 people have been killed since the violence began earlier this week, but British Prime [...]
When I got an invitation to attend the launch of New York Faith & Justice (www.nyfaithjustice.org), their mission statement caught my eye. Simply stated, their goals are: Following Christ, uniting the church, and ending poverty in New York through spiritual formation, education, and direct advocacy. Grounded in the words of Isaiah 61, this movement [...]
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
- Romans 15:13-13
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