There is a lot of noise before an election. The advertisements begin. The signs go up. Our phones fill with messages. Social media grows louder. Candidates make their cases, commentators offer their analysis, and friends and family sometimes discover that they see the same world very differently. In the midst
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Earlier this year, a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian aid, symbolizing the shared struggle to provide resources to Palestinians was recently intercepted by Israeli naval forces. Much international outrage has been directed at Israel’s treatment of the detainees, especially after Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security, was seen taunting
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On the volcanic, sunbaked island of Tanna in Southern Vanuatu, there lives a group of people who worship the British Prince Philip as a deity, even after his death. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited Vanuatu in 1974, and the reverence shown to them made a lasting impression. The Yaohnanen
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As I look up and down my street I see a handful of US flags. One flies from the home next door. One leans off the wall of a large Hispanic family across the street. There is another a few houses down, too. As much as flying a flag is a
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Many years ago, as a wide-eyed and open-hearted student, I spent a year in France. In that long-ago era of cheap Eurail passes and Europe on $10 a Day! guidebooks, I traversed the continent, absorbing the history and culture, the art and architecture, the scenic beauty – all wildly new
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The poem is a lament in light of current events that engages themes of public violence, political power, religious authority, and moral repetition, framed through a faith-rooted lens attentive to justice, mercy, and communal responsibility. It draws on biblical imagery and liturgical language to explore how cycles of harm are
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As America delves into a deeper abyss of right-wing ideology and authoritarianism, the Christian faith continues to be co-opted by Christian nationalists to theologize and justify hate and greed. Following Jesus demands and mandates us to call out the sin of hate and to understand the demonic forces that distort
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The first time I voted was a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Everything about that day felt strange. I remember standing six feet behind my mother, the first woman who taught me the importance of voting. We walked into the old Presbyterian church I had driven past my whole
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Many today worry about the disappearing church in the Holy Land. In recent meetings with Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a broad coalition of 36 member denominations and organizations representing more than 88 million American Christians working towards a comprehensive resolution to conflicts in the Middle East, another profound
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Each year on the Fourth of July, Americans gather to commemorate the birth of a nation founded on ideals of liberty, equality, and democracy. Fireworks illuminate the sky, parades fill our streets, and grills sizzle in backyards from coast to coast. But as people of faith, particularly within the Reformed
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