Over the past month, a commentator declared that “transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” at a political action conference. The speaker threatened to sue Rolling Stone for running the headline “CPAC Speaker Calls for Transgender People to Be ‘Eradicated.’” The magazine changed the headline to say “transgenderism,” a word currently only used by those opposed to trans rights. The speaker said that he could not be calling for the elimination of transgender people because being transgender is “not a legitimate category of being.” The magazine ran a second story the following day with the headline “CPAC Speaker Calls for Eradication of ‘Transgenderism—and Somehow Claims He’s Not Calling for Elimination of Transgender People.” This debate occurred while state legislatures across the country are restricting access to gender affirming care, which is deemed as medically necessary by nearly every major medical association. Legislature in Florida seeks to remove children from homes where people are receiving or “at risk” to receive gender affirming care.
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My Indigenous heritage comes from the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the T’hono O’dham (Papago) of southern Arizona through my father and from the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) of north-central Idaho. Having grown up in Phoenix, Arizona, I can speak to the experience, a bit, about the desert (wilderness). Contrary to the biblical narrative, the desert is only a wilderness unless you don’t know where you are going or what provisions you should take along with you. It therefore strikes me as awkward that the Son of God is being seen as “wandering” or that “fasting” equals somehow starving and about to drop dead.
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We are living amid an existential and devastating climate crisis, demanding a moral and theological response across global institutions. The urgency of this crisis has only escalated since fossil fuel divestment was first introduced at the General Assembly in 2014. At that time and in the years since, there is one thing that Fossil Free PCUSA (FFPCUSA) and the Committee on Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) have agreed upon: the gravity of the crisis requires an urgent and robust response.
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I was recently at a book club facilitated by Abolition Apostles, a Christian abolitionist ministry, where we discussed the book The Fall of the Prison: Biblical Perspectives on Prison Abolition by Lee Griffon. Micah Herskind, a Public Policy Associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights and a Christian abolitionist, led that day’s session and said something that has stayed with me since. He was speaking about retributive justice and its connection to the Christian faith and said, “Do we believe in prisons because we believe in Hell or do we believe in Hell because we believe in prisons.”
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Moderate and progressive Christians have always found it hard to take Donald Trump seriously as a false messiah, much less an actual one. In the
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Our country is in the midst of twin pandemics. One, the coronavirus pandemic, is dominating headlines. The other is a nationwide spike in gun violence.
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