History

Ed Spivey Jr. 10-12-2009
Every year on Columbus Day, the Sojourners team gathers around bagels, juice, and coffee to listen to our resident humorist and art director, Ed Spivey Jr., read an essay about Christopher Colu
Efrem Smith 10-12-2009
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke often of something he called the beloved community. This was the title given to describe a reality in which freedom, love, justice, and reconciliation would reign.
Randy Woodley 10-12-2009
Gurgen Bakhshetsyan / Shutterstock.com

Photo via Gurgen Bakhshetsyan / Shutterstock.com

As an explorer, Columbus was not the first to reach the Western Hemisphere. Native Americans had been here for 10,000-20,000 years, and Vikings and Chinese are among those others who hold prior claims. Even after four attempts, Columbus never realized his goal of finding a western ocean route to Asia. As a “founding father type figure” he never set foot in what is now considered America but landed in the present day Bahamas, Cuba, and Haiti. 

As a Christian example he enacted terrible cruelties to friendly natives: assuming unlawful rights of authority; robbing and subjugating whole nations of their freedom and entire capital; allowing his men to rape, murder and pillage at will; and deliberately leading the way for the genocide of millions, considered by many to be the worst demographic catastrophe in recorded history.

So why do Americans celebrate Columbus Day?

Randy Woodley 10-09-2009
There's a joke that re-surfaces in Indian country every so often.
Lynne Hybels 10-08-2009
Nearly five years ago my friends, Hector and Gabby and their five kids, entered the U.S. legally from Mexico in order to join the pastoral staff at my church, Willow Creek.
Mimi Haddad 10-06-2009

Earlier this year I spent nearly one week at a Christian university.

Randy Woodley 10-05-2009
Last week Ken Burns unleashed his new series on America's national parks, subtitled "America's Best Idea." The cinematography is incredible and Ken Burns is known as a progressive thinker.
Diana Butler Bass 10-02-2009
This week, a friend sent me a link to a video from Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas titled "Taking the Hill." I thought it
Efrem Smith 10-01-2009
I was recently talking with a European-American friend of mine who is also an evangelical. I am African-American and evangelical.
Diana Butler Bass 9-29-2009

ABC's Nightline has been running a series on the Ten Commandments in which they explore the issues and dimensions of each commandment in contemporary society.

Diana Butler Bass 9-09-2009
I was too young to remember President John F. Kennedy. My mother worked on his campaign and hauled her baby (me) along with her to pass out literature.
Nontando Hadebe 9-09-2009
Last week the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) pledged to support the program on national healing in Zimbabwe.
Jim Wallis 9-03-2009
I have never really trusted those who are intolerant and condemning of other people's shortcomings. It makes me suspect they are likely hiding their own.
Brian McLaren 9-03-2009
Fans (and critics) of either man should read this speech -- from the late Sen. Kennedy, delivered back in 1983 at the late Jerry Falwell's (now) Liberty University.
Mimi Haddad 9-02-2009

Have you ever pondered the dangers of reading the Bible?

Marie Dennis 8-27-2009
They were a very diverse group -- students, a lawyer, Sisters of Mercy and Notre Dame, a union organizer, a teacher, survivors of the brutal 1980s in Honduras.