Belated Thoughts on Martin Luther King Day In August of 1619, a shipappeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that…
Last Wednesday, January 19, in the pre-dawn hours, heavily armed Israeli occupation forces stormed two houses belonging to the Salhiyeh family in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah where they had lived for over 60 years (they bought their house in 1958), beating and dragging 15 residents, including many children, from their homes out…
Joan Didion, W. B. Yeats, and a Parable for Our Dystopian Times Stream of consciousness: “a narrative method that attempts to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings that pass through the mind of the narrator.” That’s how this week’s blog came about, my friends. American author, social commentator, and essayist, Joan Didion, died on December…
Desmond Tutu was badass. For the last week, from political and religious leaders, peace makers and activists, people of all faiths and no faith at all, accolades and tributes have poured out from all over the globe for the diminutive cleric with the infectious smile, a twinkle in his eye and disarming giggle, who often…
“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie,” the carol begins. Except it’s not so still in Bethlehem, and while the “silent stars go by,” the little town is surrounded by a 28-foot-tall wall, a concrete (in both senses of the term) metaphor of the Israeli settler-colonial ethnic cleansing of Bethlehem’s people. …
These are my opening comments, with a couple of additions, for the Indiana Center for Middle East Peace’s annual Commemoration of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Keynote Speaker for this year’s program was US Congressman, the Honorable Andre Carson, Indiana’s 7th District. On January 6, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt spoke before…
Emmaus Road Mennonite Fellowship, December 5, 2021 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tibe′ri-us Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturae′a and Trachoni′tis, and Lysa′ni-as tetrarch of Abile′ne, in the high-priesthood of Annas and Ca′iaphas, the word of God…
For the last six-and-a-half years, I have facilitated a class of about 25 on Tuesday mornings, what I call a “community of deep meaning,” where we discuss issues at the intersection of Religion and Culture, following Paul Tillich’s well-known comment from his book of the same name: “Culture is the form of religion; religion is…
Christians in churches around the world celebrated the last Sunday of their liturgical year today (next week begins Advent) as “The Reign of Christ” (formerly “Christ the King”). The Gospel of John places Jesus before Pilate; their conversation ends with Pilate asking Jesus, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a…
So Says the United Church of Christ; So Say We All Indiana Center for Middle East Peace has been invited by the United Church of Christ Palestine-Israel Network (UCC-PIN) to partner with them to host a series of webinars for the church based upon the UCC’s 2021 General Synod Resolution, “Declaration For A Just Peace…