Justice work constitutes more than simply reading a book or declarations on social media. Thinking about the work of justice must be backed, when pondered by people of faith, by a spiritual renewal and transformation. Soul work is critical to the work of compassion, empathy, equity, and loving justice. The
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Like millions of Americans who paid attention in seventh-grade Social Studies class, I was acculturated to believe that I descend from God-fearing people who came to the United States to live in an environment of religious tolerance and healthy capitalism. In the mid-19th century, my great-great-grandparents moved from eastern Germany
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Reconciliation is at the heart of the Gospel—a core value and a central commandment we find woven throughout our sacred texts as Christians. The stories of Ishmael, Esau, Joseph, and other spiritual ancestors set the pace, and Jesus makes reconciliation central to the message of the Gospel. Jesus embodied reconciliation
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We are now a few weeks past the violent insurrection and attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol. If you are like me, your social media and text messages started pinging early in the afternoon on Wednesday, January 6, 2021. Around 1:45 pm, I started getting frantic messages from friends and
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In 1967, Canadian radio invited Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to give a series of lectures on the issues he considered most pressing at the time. One such issue was the world's place in the conscience and social responsibility of youth. This series of lectures was then
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2020 has been some kind of year. We have experienced a pandemic, racial injustice, environmental disasters, massive amounts of death, and political unrest. So the new year, 2021, is a welcoming sight in the distance that many in our world are finding hope within. But as the pandemic rages, specifically
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I spent the summer of 1994 being trained as a chaplain at the largest Level I trauma hospital in Atlanta. I was twenty-three when I began the program. At that point I had only peripherally met one person who I knew was HIV-positive, and I questioned if my life experience
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In tossing a coin, the possibility of either heads or tails remain equally viable options as the coin remains suspended in midair. In this moment, there is no way to be sure which way the coin will fall. However, the moment the coin lands on heads, the possibility of its
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Before I became the Gun Violence Prevention Ministry Coordinator with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, I volunteered as a restorative circle facilitator at an elementary school. This elementary school was located in an area with the highest level of childhood poverty in the state and the highest level of violence in
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The Latin American community is not a single monolithic group; instead, it reflects the diversity of the continent’s colonization and is part of our past and present. Today in the United States, the Latin community demonstrates racial diversity and distinctive heritages. The native population is still strong with their traditions
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