Government and Politics

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Skutniks and Samaritans

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Keywords

Scripture

Luke 10:36-37, 1 John 3:18, Hebrews 13:16, Proverbs 14:31, Matthew 22:39

If you have ever watched the President of the United States deliver the State of the Union Address in recent years, you know that at some point in his speech, he will point to the balcony and introduc...

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Constantine and the Move of Worldly Power with the Power of God

Author

David Fitch

Keywords

In AD 312, the Roman emperor Constantine became a Christian. On the night before he led his army into the massive Battle of the Milvian Bridge, he had a vision of the Christian God. They won that batt...

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Power is Present Everywhere

Author

David Fitch

Keywords

Power is present in almost all social situations we find ourselves in. Whether it be the corporation you work at, the village zoning committee, the street crew you work on, the neighborhood, the playg...

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Author

David Fitch

Keywords

The standard account of power says there’s only one kind of power in the world and we, the good people, must get on the right side of it, using it to bring justice into the world. Power is power. It i...

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Author

Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro

Keywords

Peacemaking doesn’t mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that ...

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Author

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

James 3:18, Micah 6:8, Matthew 5:9, Isaiah 1:16-17, Proverbs 16:7

Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of justice.

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Systems Can’t Fix Us

Author

Dallas Willard

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:20, Romans 14:17, Luke 17:20-21, Matthew 28:18-20, Philippians 2:14-15

T. S. Eliot once described the current human endeavor as that of finding a system of order so perfect that we will not have to be good. The way of Jesus tells us, by contrast, that any number of syste...

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Author

Walter Brueggemann

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 19:1-10, Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-47

The purpose of that empire, like every empire, whether Babylon among the Jews, Rome in the time of Jesus, or the US empire . . . is to coercively extract wealth for the sake of the center. Zacchaeus s...

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Learning Peacemaking Through the Dishes

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 2:4, Matthew 5:9, Romans 12:18, Ephesians 2:14

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells a true story in one of his books about peacemaking in what is arguably one of the world's most difficult places to achieve it: the Middle East. One evening in the early ...

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Paul Miki’s Testimony

Author

Ben Lansing and D. J.Marotta

Keywords

Scripture

Daniel 3:16–18, Daniel 6:19–22, Acts 7:54–60, Matthew 5:10–12, Psalm 116:15

Christianity first reached Japan in 1549, due to the heroic missionary work of the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier and his companions. In the next sixty years, over three hundred thousand Japanese citize...

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Author

Lesslie Newbigin

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17, Amos 5:24, Proverbs 21:15, Psalm 33:5, Isaiah 61:8, Psalm 106:3, Zechariah 7:9-10, Psalm 82:3, Jeremiah 22:3, Hosea 12:6, Deuteronomy 16:20, Jeremiah 7:5-7, Matthew 23:23

If we acknowledge the God of the Bible, we are committed to struggle for justice in society. Justice means giving to each his due. Our problem, as seen in the light of the gospel, is that each of us o...

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Author

Kenneth E. Bailey

Keywords

Scripture

Mark 11:25, Matthew 6:12-15, Matthew 18:21-22, Luke 6:37, Luke 6:27, Luke 17:3-4, Luke 23:34, Matthew 26:28, Matthew 5:23-24, Matthew 5:44

Jesus is a reconciler of people, not a divider. He wants to bring people together, not finalize separations.

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A King Sat on the Rocky Brow (Summit)

Author

Lord Byron

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 14:, Daniel 5:, Isaiah 40:22–24, Luke 1:51–52, Revelation 18:, Psalm 33:16–17

In this poem by Lord Byron, the poet re-imagines the ancient battle of Salamis, in which Xerxes, king of Persia was defeated by a Greek coalition in 480 B.C. The poem highlights how quickly the fortun...

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The Cruelty of Caligula

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 1:8–22, 1 Kings 21:, Daniel 5:, Luke 22:24–27 , Acts 12:20–23, Psalm 2:

Gaius Caesar, more commonly known as Caligula (AD 12–41), was a Roman emperor notorious for his cruelty. He developed an insatiable appetite for gladiatorial games and other violent spectacles. On one...

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Ash Wednesday - Turning to God in Crisis

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

A World in Chaos At the risk of sounding dramatic, both the U.S. and the world seem to be reaching a level of chaos unmatched since 9/11. The confusion and shifting loyalties, not to mention the 26,0...

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Luther's Stand at Worms

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Acts 5:29

Luther's stand at the Diet of Worms is legendary. Having written blistering indictments of the abuses of the Catholic church and theological treatises which challenged its teachings, Luther was su...

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Politics and the Resurrection

Author

Rachel Clark

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 15:1-28, Romans 13:1, 1 Timothy 2:1-2, 1 Peter 1:3, Revelation 21:5

It seems that every four years, the American people come through another exhausting political season. No matter who “wins,” there are feelings of frustration and disgust on all sides as we observe the...

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The Darkness of Epiphany: Herod’s Murdering of the Innocents

Author

Fleming Rutledge

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 1:15-22, Jeremiah 31:15, Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:1-18 , Revelation 12:1-6, Psalm 10:17-18

Presentations of the Matthean narrative that have had such an illustrious life in art and imagination are not complete without the disturbing involvement of Herod and the political killings that resul...

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I will be Good

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 3:10-12, Esther 4:14, 1 Samuel 16:12-13, Luke 15:17-20, 1 Peter 2:9, Psalm 139:14, Matthew 1:

On March 11, 1830, a young English girl was studying a lesson on the royal family with her tutor. As she examined the genealogical chart, she suddenly realized the astonishing truth—she was next in li...

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A Successful Book & A Failed Political Campaign

Author

Ryan Holiday

Keywords

In his famous 1934 campaign for the governorship of California, the author and activist Upton Sinclair took an unusual step. Before the election, he published a short book titled I, Governor of Cal...

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In the Midst of Abundance

Author

Adam S. McHugh

Keywords

Scripture

Deuteronomy 30:19-20, Joshua 24:15, Matthew 6:24, Luke 10:41-42, Matthew 7:13-14 , Psalm 16:11

I had a memorable lunch a few years ago with my friends Mike and Claudia, who had recently returned from Malawi, a small country in southeastern Africa. We were sitting in a booth at one of those chai...

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Author

Justin Giboney

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 2:10-11, John 18:36, Matthew 5:13-16, Jeremiah 29:7, Micah 6:8, 1 Samuel 15:22

We can’t separate what we believe in the political arena from who we are in Christ and what obedience to God demands...That said, not every tenet of Christianity should become the law of the state. We...

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Defining the Separation of Church and State in the U.S.

Author

Justin Giboney

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 82:3-4, Romans 13:1-4, Matthew 22:37-40, Deuteronomy 16:18-20, Isaiah 1:17

Many people have misinterpreted the separation of church and state to mean that religious views shouldn’t play a role in public discussions and lawmaking. Someone might say, “We shouldn’t restrict abo...

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Virtue Over Victory in Politics

Author

Justin Giboney

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 24:10-12, Proverbs 16:8, Romans 12:17-18, Psalm 72:1-4, Micah 6:8, Matthew 5:13-16

When in conflict we should demonstrate that our public witness is more important than winning a political battle. This means that if our side has to do something unloving or corrupt to win, then it’s ...

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Indian Removal Act's Tragic Consequences

Author

Justin Giboney

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 3:7-10, Micah 6:8, Matthew 25:40, Galatians 6:2, Psalm 82:3-4

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act led to what’s known as the Trail of Tears, in which almost fifty thousand indigenous people were removed from the southeastern United States and relocated west of the M...

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A Jagged Symbol of Equality & Inequality

Author

Tony Evans

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 59:1-3, Micah 6:6-8 , Ephesians 2:13-18 , Galatians 3:26-28, Romans 12:4-5 , Psalm 85:10

My friend Ray McMillan introduced me to the Liberty Bell as a perfect object lesson for America’s racial divide. In addressing why “the bell won’t ring,” Ray describes the crack as a perfect illustrat...

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Author

Reinhold Niebuhr

Keywords

Scripture

Leviticus 25:10-17, Deuteronomy 15:7-11, Amos 5:11-15, James 82:, Luke 4:18-19

There is no social evil, no form of injustice whether of the feudal or the capitalist order which has not been sanctified in some way or other by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervio...

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Devoting Time to Impromptu Speeches

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Churchill’s extraordinary powers of oratory became legendary; his broadcasts to the nation and speeches in the House of Commons during World War II are still widely celebrated. Yet, not everyone was c...

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Even the Almighty took seven

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 15:23, Proverbs 16:1, Ecclesiastes 3:1, James 1:19, Proverbs 25:11, Genesis 1:

Franklin D. Roosevelt had hoped the Yalta conference (which discussed the future of Europe and Germany post-WWII) wouldn’t last more than five or six days. Winston Churchill, however, remarked, “I do ...

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Put Your Hand into the Hand of God

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

King George V of Britain, who was king during the tumultuous years of World War I, shared a New Year’s card with his friends that featured a drawing of an open gate. Below the image, he included thi...

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