General Assembly 2018, A Drama in 3 Acts Act I. The Prophetic March to End Cash Bail It was a glorious moment: hundreds of General Assembly commissioners marched down to the St Louis jail to support bailing out persons unable to post bail, and to oppose the cash bail mechanism
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Collective nonviolent action in Palestine lives, and it helps account for the steadfastness of Palestinian endurance under the occupation. Though little known, the events of July 2017 in Jerusalem provide an example of successful nonviolence rooted in the core religious and communal identity of Palestinians, particularly in Jerusalem. After two
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The affirmation of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was a “grievous mistake,” to quote the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). His statement reflected long church policy. Jerusalem is “not a thing to be grasped,” because it can never be simply an earthly capital. Jerusalem still has a mystical value,
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Christians need to be careful with the phrase “bully pulpit,” a phrase often applied to the presidency. One is tempted to say, “bully, yes; pulpit, no.” It is hard to see any “pulpit” of stable moral authority undergirding the current Administration. Rather, we see the marketing of assertions and even
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Past and Future Measures to Challenge Coercive Sexism. An earlier piece by Managing Editor Henry Koenig Stone addressed the call of Christians to engage individually with the MeToo movement and fight to reduce sexual harassment and abuse in the United States through critical self-awareness: “Choosing Vulnerability in the Wake of
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Resisting the Creed of Greed (Part II) Click Here for Part I’s indictment of those pushing through the current tax plan. The short answer to the current Administration’s tax cut proposal is: “No.” The plan is just a way to reward greed and not to build up our country’s economy.
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Resisting the Creed of Greed (Part I) This piece largely treats the House and Senate versions of GOP tax redistribution as one “vision”. Click HERE for a breakdown of the House and Senate version differences as of mid-November.[1] At publication, each bill has passed its respective house—only the reconciliation process
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(Defending the Common Good, Part 1) Resuming our Bi-monthly Schedule with a New Managing Editor People of any faith strive to be “in the world but not of it.” Our values must stand in opposition to “the swamp” of greed, vanity, and hunger for power. For Christians, our faith has a
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Aren’t Christian stakes simply justice stakes? Not entirely. Christian ethics, and mainly Reformed Protestant and Enlightenment versions of those, shaped the U.S. Constitution. They defined what goods government was to serve, what constituted legitimate authority, and how power was to be exercised; where government power ended and individual rights began,
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A Closing Editorial Race is a word that points to massive dividing lines in the US (and elsewhere). Lake Woebegone is a fictional creation of a gifted radio storyteller, Garrison Keillor. Among Keillor’s strengths are his knowledge of the mainline church in small towns and his genuine affection for the
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