Proverbs 13:12, Luke 24:13-35, Ecclesiastes 1:2-3, John 4:4-26, Psalm 42:11, James 4:13-15, Matthew 6:19-21, John 20:1-10, Matthew 28:1-10, Luke 24:1-10
Do you remember Geraldo Rivera's most famous fiasco? In 1986 he broadcast a television special entitled The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vault. In the publicity leading up to the live opening of Capon...
In imaginary works it is difficult to make virtuous characters as believable and attractive as bad characters. The villains of literature and screen–Captain Ahab, the boys who go bad in Lord of the Fl...
While I was sitting at a stoplight a few blocks from my [Emerson’s] home in Minneapolis, reflecting on the recent rash of drive-by shootings in the area, three African-American teens clad in the urban...
Matthew 25:40, Jeremiah 22:3, James 2:1, Psalm 82:3-4, Micah 6:8
Frederick Douglass describes how the evils of slavery and racism acts as a sap on the integrity of both our country and our faith in a God where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free: Fello...
Luke 18:14, Proverbs 29:23, Isaiah 2:11, 1 Peter 5:5, Romans 12:3, James 4:6, Proverbs 16:18
Up until the twentieth century, traditional cultures (and this is still true of most cultures in the world) always believed that too high a view of yourself was the root cause of all the evil in the w...
Robinson's Winsome Faith I’ve been reading Marilynne Robinson's novels and essays for some time now. Of her fiction, I’ve read Gilead , reflections of a retired minister written for his ...
A Great (and Weighty) Work of Literature That Will Delight Like Moby Dick and War and Peace , Les Misérables is a hefty novel. Affectionately known as the ‘Brick’ for its formidable length, it c...
Daniel Kemmis provides a political model for seeing redemptive possibilities in our cities. Kemmis, a former mayor of Missoula, has noted an increasing cynicism about political life in this country. T...
The following article was originally written for the author’s denominational newsletter as part of the celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. It is meant to provide some insights into t...
In Words We Live By, Brian Burrell tells of an armed robber named Dennis Lee Curtis who was arrested in 1992 in Rapid City, South Dakota. Curtis apparently had scruples about his thievery. In his wal...
When Frederick Douglass asked his famous question, “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” he didn’t simply ask a question about the United States of America . He asked a question about Amer...
The ultimate challenge of Jesus' ministry was to go to the city, the city of Jerusalem. This city, which was the center of education, religion, and politics, was also the place where corruption an...
The ways that social structures and institutions systematically work against the interest of people of color is called institutional racism. Institutional racism and historic racism are not unrelated ...
Did you know that apartheid in South Africa was based in large part on theological doctrines that were formed at Stellenbosch University in the 1930s and 1940s? Isn’t that chilling? Many of the intell...
In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson describes what has become a reality of modern-day life-scandals happen every day, and no-one...
Whenever I have encountered any kind of deep problem with civilization anywhere in the world—be it the logging of rain forests, ethnic or religious intolerance or the brutal destruction of a cultural ...
Romans 2:11, James 2:1-4, Psalm 82:3-4, Zechariah 7:9-10, Proverbs 21:15
Robert H. Richards and Ethan Couch illustrate how opportunity bends toward affluent white males. Richards was found guilty of raping his three-year-old daughter, but because of his connection to the D...
My husband, Jeff, is an excellent driver. He has never had an accident, excepting two incidents in high school which hardly bear mentioning— Several years ago, I was driving across town to get to a sp...
It is a mark of the essential morality of fairyland (a thing too commonly overlooked) that happiness, like happiness anywhere else, involves an object and even a challenge; we can only admire scenery ...
People know about the Klan and the overt racism, but the killing of one’s soul little by little, day after day, is a lot worse than someone coming in your house and lynching you.
Lying is the misuse of language. We know that. We need to remember that it works the other way round too. Even with the best intentions, language misused, language used stupidly, carelessly, brutally,...
When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to ...
Almost all heroic individuals face grave crises while they are still on the road to reaching the ultimate decision that they will remain faithful to their selves, whatever the cost.
Matthew 25:40, Leviticus 19:15, Galatians 3:28, James 2:8-9, Amos 5:24, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17
When did the topic of justice become important to you?” Gideon Strauss posed that question to two dozen people crammed into our living room one fall evening in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Some of us wer...
Hebrews 13:6, Matthew 7:15-16, Matthew 10:28, Ephesians 6:12, 1 Peter 5:8, 2 Corinthians 11:14, Proverbs 14:12
Editor’s Note: This story is often told as a true story, when in fact it is probably fictitious. Nevertheless, there is a significant illustrative point: sometimes the things we fear most may in fact ...
Matthew 7:1-2, John 7:24, Proverbs 3:5, Ecclesiastes 7:9
A man named Jack was driving on a dark country road one night when he got a flat tire. He saw a cabin in the woods and began to walk towards it. He told himself that the person who answered the door w...