social justice – Ordinary Time

Does Senator Warnock’s re-election testify to the transformative power and witness of the Black church? I think it does

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-oS1ycq9RM Segment on the 'Morning Joe' program, Dec. 7, 2022 Growing up down South in civil rights days, I was able to watch the transformative witness of the Black church in action. I watched it from a safe distance -- my home town was middle class and lily-white -- but when the high school in … Continue reading Does Senator Warnock’s re-election testify to the transformative power and witness of the Black church? I think it does

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWIvkGWmEVA Matthew 5 (NRSV). 5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut … Continue reading A prayerful reaction to the US Supreme Court’s facilitation of white Christian theocracy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHKf-9oPMO0 Posted to B'nai Jeshurun YouTube channel, May 23, 2022 Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, veteran Supreme Court watcher Dahlia Lithwick warned that the "fear of overzealous prosecutors" would set the tone of debate over the rights of women under strict abortion bans in "post-Roe America." Speaking a month before Dobbs v. Jackson Women's … Continue reading ‘Overzealous prosecutors’ and judicial chutzpah — threats to freedom of religion in post-Roe America

Debi and I recently finished co-facilitating a six-week book study on evangelism for our parish church -- over Zoom no less -- and it was a pleasant surprise. The book, Reclaiming the 'E' Word: Waking Up to Our Evangelical Identity, is by Kelly Fryer, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who … Continue reading Proclaiming the ‘E Word’ on the Z App — walking the talk as the SARS-CoV-2 variants shape an uneasy new normal

Two articles by scholars published in the wake of the mass murder at the Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo struck me like Thomas Jefferson's fire bell in the night. The scholars are Samuel Perry, of the University of Oklahoma, and Philip Gorski, of Yale; they have written extensively about white Christian nationalism -- the … Continue reading Buffalo massacre shows how widespread and dangerous white Christian nationalist conspiracy theories are becoming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJTAz5ux-c I just want America to be the America of my dreams, growing up as a boy in Canada. And that was the America of Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln and the Grateful Dead. -- Wade Davis, interview, PBS, Aug. 17, 2020 This video of an interview with an Canadian anthropologist popped up, courtesy of a … Continue reading ‘Unraveling of America’: Viral article in Rolling Stone on COVID, individualism and the inevitable decline of empires

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vjxWnFnKFo (YouTube, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Nov. 5, 2021) The power of God is present at all places, even in the tiniest tree leaf. Do you think God is sleeping on a pillow in heaven? ... God is wholly present in all creation, in every corner, behind you and before you. -- Martin Luther … Continue reading ‘Let’s take care of it’: (Mostly) Lutheran resources on Laudato Si’ and ELCA’s 1993 statement on Caring for Creation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT7DkOzeLaM Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow on Morning Joe, April 20, 2022 (MSNBC). Can I get a witness? Sometimes you see a flickering of light in the darkness, a little sliver of hope you can cling to like a rock in a weary land. And so it came to pass that a Michigan state legislator … Continue reading Preach, sister! Michigan state senator returns fire after GOP culture warrior’s rhetoric gets nasty and personal

Something to file away for when we do the book study on Reclaiming the ''E'' Word: Waking Up to Our Evangelical Identity after Easter at Peace Lutheran -- A recent Ipsos survey commissioned by the Episcopal Church shows the "popularity of Jesus’ teachings and the ways Christians are often perceived as failing to live up … Continue reading Episcopal survey research shows disconnect between gospel message and public perception of Christians

Слава Родине https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGXHw7sX4e8 Stephen Colbert's parody of Russian TV (Cyrillic letters spell the English word "Bestie"). When Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin claimed "the west’s 'cancel culture'” victimizes “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people” on March 25, American pundit Robert Reich of Cal-Berkeley noted it "was the third time in recent months Putin has blasted … Continue reading Putin, Trump, Fox News and white Christian nationalism — a common thread in Ukraine and US ‘culture wars’