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 name of Trump, some 1000 or so extremists invaded and occupied the Senate and House chambers for several hours on January 6, prompting many Republicans
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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. Gun violence is up in cities across the country. On Independence Day Weekend, violence broke out in cities nationwide, including two shootings in my hometown
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“Don’t just do something, stand there.” The first thing to do in a crisis or even disaster is not to panic. This is not “fight, flight, or paralysis,” but steadiness, rooted in the inner security of faith. A national or international crisis is something that it helps to have a
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On March 23, 2020, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a global ceasefire because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war…That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is
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In his December 12, 2018 article, New York Times Opinion Columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about a single child, Abrar, who was 12 years old and weighed only 28 pounds. The starvation of this single child tells the story of the misery wrought by war. This horrific proxy war between Iranian-backed
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Here goes Lee again, asking uncomfortable questions! Yet he has read anthropology about our culture and reads it in real time in the tragic, self-destructive struggles we almost all—in the 99%– see around us. As one raised in a progressive form of Northern Presbyterianism, I do not see what Lee
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The Committee on the General Assembly (COGA) has a very weighty set of decisions in front of it. The General Assembly, currently scheduled for June 20-27, 2020 in Baltimore, MD, likely cannot be held physically during that time frame. Yet the church is mandated to have one in 2020, and
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During this moment when COVID-19 has sent some of us to our homes surrounding us with the need to Zoom our days away and sit in front of eye-damaging screens, I ponder the pros and cons of a technological age that could possibly become the new normal for many folks.
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Catholic Social Thought (CST) gives us a measuring stick to assess our elected leaders and societal power structures: whether they enhance the life and dignity of the human person, especially the poor, vulnerable, and marginalized. In fact, we all will be judged based on how we respond to the hungry,
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Early last week, the County Department of Health mandated the 48-hour closure of the church where I work because one of the (then) handful of confirmed cases of COVID-19 was the parent of a child who attends our church’s day care center. I spent a lot of time thinking about
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