Commentary

Greta Lapp Klassen 7-01-2024

animation from 'Join or Die'

Join or Die is described in promotional materials as, “A film about why you should join a club...and why the fate of America depends on it.” Featuring heavy-hitters like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, along with many influential scholars, the film argues that the loneliness epidemic is a threat to democracy and the public health of the nation.

Sara Augustin 7-01-2024

Trucks transporting detained undocumented leave an immigration detention center in the Dominican Republic to be deported on May 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Henry Romero

Despite the familiarity of home, Haitian citizens are attempting to leave their country to flee to the United States and neighboring countries in hopes of a better life. Some Haitians are doing this illegally. But what does it mean to enter a country illegally? What are we to make of borders and those who seek to cross them?

People watch the first presidential debate between U.S. President Joe Biden and Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, from a tavern in San Diego, Calif., on June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

When election season rolls around, both politicians will no doubt hope to have the votes of people living at or near poverty, particularly those living in the urban centers of swing states. But what hope can people experiencing poverty have that their government has their best interests at heart when most candidates only seem to acknowledge their existence as voters rather than as people with inherent dignity and very specific and urgent needs?

San Antonio residents sign a petition in the hallway while waiting to enter a political rally on Nov. 22, 2013. Photo: Bob Daemmrich / Alamy via Reuters Connect.

It’s easy to be skeptical, even cynical, about the value of sign-on statements as vehicles for achieving any true progress. The key criticism I hear is that these statements and resolutions don’t actually do anything. To some folks, signing on to statements might seem performative or even harmful: a way to soothe our consciences over the brokenness we see all around us by making us feel an illusory sense that we have done something, a sense that creates the permission structure for us not to take any real action to solve the issue in question. To others, these statements aren’t useful because they don’t change anyone’s mind on the issue in question, and instead merely “preach to the choir.”

Then-President Donald Trump and then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participate in their first 2020 presidential campaign debate held on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 29, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

With presumptive Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee President Joe Biden preparing for their upcoming presidential debate on June 27, what do Generation Z Christians hope for in the 2024 election?

Simón Cázares 6-17-2024

Local residents take part in the first church service after Tropical Storm Harvey at the Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal M.I. El Triunfo church in east Houston, Texas, U.S., September 3, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Walking into Iglesia La Gloria de Dios Internacional, a Latino Pentecostal church in the heart of Hialeah, Fla., I felt nervous to be on church grounds. I’m Mexican American, but I don’t speak Spanish; I’m an autistic person who really doesn’t like new situations. And even though it’s now been a year since I moved back home to Miami from Minnesota, I am still a bit self-conscious of my Midwestern accent. But most importantly, I am an atheist and an openly queer and trans person living in Florida.

Jim McDermott 6-14-2024

'Sabbath Queen'

Early in his adult life, Lau-Lavie is outed in a news article as gay, prompting him to move from Israel to New York in search of a spiritual life that makes more sense than his Orthodox heritage.

A monument in Richmond, Va., to Barbara Johns, a young Civil Rights activist who fought for equal education. Image by Traveler1112 RM / Alamy via Reuters Connect

You don’t have to be a civil rights history nerd to understand why these milestones matter today: In case you haven’t noticed, we’re currently in the midst of a major backlash against racial justice, including many of the rights and freedoms that inspired civil rights leaders. These include book bans, assaults on DEI programs, the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action programs in higher education, and forestalled efforts to transform our justice system and end racialized police violence. These courageous actions taken by our predecessors aren’t just a milestone to celebrate with a nice speech and a historical plaque; these actions reverberate through time, offering us inspiration and resilience for the unfinished cause of freedom and justice.

Maria J. Stephan 6-13-2024

A sign for a prayer service in Bedford, N.H., in advance of the 2016 presidential election. Andrew Cline / Alamy via Reuters Connect.

Commitment to democratic norms is not a matter of political partisanship. The vast majority of Americans believe in, practice, and defend democracy — but there are partisan elites with powerful antidemocratic impulses gaining a foothold. People of faith have values rooted deeper than any political ideology and have led powerful pro-democracy movements around the world. In Hope and History, Vincent G. Harding reminds us that history, like our democracy, is not a spectacle but a task; it’s “a destiny that is still ours to create.”

Ryan Duncan 6-13-2024

Photo by Michele D'Ottavio / Alamy via Reuters Connect

This June, I’m anchoring myself in a spirit of gratitude by focusing on the people who’ve left a meaningful mark on my spiritual journey. The list of people below is not an exhaustive one, but I hope that by sharing the way they’ve impacted my life, I can impart a small portion of their courage, kindness, and wisdom to others. Some of the people I mention below identify with the LGBTQ+ community while others are simply allies and advocates. What matters is that regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, each of us was created by an incredible God who delights in our presence, and who invites us to join them in beloved community

Katherine Pater 6-06-2024

Rev. Nicole Berry, a United Methodist pastor, holds a sign that blocks off conservative Christians who protested at the August 12, 2023 Pride celebration in Eugene, Ore. Photo by Paul Jeffrey / Alamy via Reuters Connect.

I won’t impose my 21st-century language or conceptions on this person, and say that he was trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming, or queer, but it’s clear that he did not conform to the social understanding of gender binaries or sex in the ancient Greco-Roman or Jewish world. There’s no getting around that. He was also from one of the farthest-off places early Christian disciples had heard of. The Ethiopian in this text is likely not from the Ethiopia that we know today, and instead is likely from a place called Kush that today is now part of South Sudan.

Lexi Schnaser 6-03-2024

Members of local LGBTQ2S+ supporters and allies gather to counter protest street preachers from Rhema Faith Ministries Edmonton Church Canada. September 2021 in Ehyte Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto)

Queer people of faith have always existed. We are here, existing now, and we will continue to exist well into the future.

Demonstrators hold placards and flags outside the Manhattan criminal court following the announcement of Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump's verdict in his criminal trial over charges that he falsified business records to conceal money paid to silence porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, in New York City, U.S. May 30, 2024. REUTERS/Cheney Orr

I felt a sense of somber relief when I learned former President Donald J. Trump had been found guilty of 34 felony charges. Somber: It’s a sad moment when a former president is convicted of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged sexual encounter that could have hurt his presidential campaign in 2016 — a verdict that will inflame the deep divisions in our nation. Relief: This is a victory for the United States’ constitutional commitment that no one, not even a former president, is above the law.

Anna Piela 5-30-2024

Mahmoud Yousef, second from left, comforts Odai Alfayoumi after the burial of Alfayoumi's son, Wadee Alfayoumi, at Parkholm Cemetery in La Grange Park, Illinois, on Oct. 16, 2023. Credit: TNS/ABACA via Reuters Connect

On Oct. 14, 6-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi was stabbed to death in a Chicago suburb. Joseph Czuba, the 71-year-old man who stabbed Alfayoumi is a longtime member of a church and, according to the Will County sheriff’s office, was motivated by anti-Muslim sentiments and Israel’s war against Hamas. According to Joseph’s wife, Mary Czuba (who has filed for divorce), Czuba had been radicalized by conservative talk radio.

I live in a Chicago suburb and am the associate regional minister of American Baptist Churches Metro Chicago. When I heard Alfayoumi had been killed, I was horrified; as a mother, a Christian, a faith leader, and most of all a human, I took the news extremely hard.

JR. Forasteros 5-29-2024

'Furiosa' / Warner Bros.

Fury Road drew on Exodus imagery in Furiosa’s flight from the Citadel, leading her people to a promised land. No surprise, then, that the earlier beats of Moses’ story have striking parallels to Furiosa’s backstory.

Morehouse College graduates arrives ahead of a commencement ceremony in Atlanta, Georgia on May 19, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

Class of 2024, you are indeed overcomers, but you’re also no strangers to grief, doubt, and other emotions we don’t often acknowledge in commencement addresses. As you accept your well-deserved diploma, I don’t need to tell you that you’re graduating in an unsettling time: uncertainty around the most consequential election of your (and my) lifetime, uncertainty around the future of our planet amid an accelerating climate crisis, and uncertainty as to the outcome of horrific and intractable wars in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, and so many other places. You may be uncertain about your job prospects, whether Social Security will remain solvent by the time of your retirement, or whether you will ever be able to afford a home in this overheated housing market. If you’re a Christian, you may feel uncertain about how you can stay in a faith that has so often been distorted from the gospel.

Sara Augustin 5-22-2024

South Carolina Coach Dawn Staley celebrates with the team after the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament Championship at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C. Sunday, March 10, 2024. Ken Ruinard/USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters.

After the South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team won the NCAAW championship on April 7, 2024, the team’s deeply emotional head coach Dawn Staley attributed the historic win to God: “We serve an unbelievable God — we serve an unbelievable God.” Staley continued, “Uncommon favor, unbelievable.”

What does “uncommon favor” mean exactly? Typically, that phrase has been used in church spaces to denote an unexpected blessing. In Staley’s case, we find her crediting God for blessing her and the Gamecocks with a national championship.

Is this uncommon favor?

'Abbott Elementary' / ABC

In ABC’s workplace comedy Abbott Elementary, Barbara Howard (Sheryl Lee Ralph) provides one example of what it looks like for Black Christian women to live out their faith in their everyday lives. 

A voter leaves the First Methodist Church in Paradise, Texas, during the 2016 primary elections. Photo: J. G. Domke/ Alamy via Reuters Connect

The “how” of politics — engaging in ways that uplift civility, truthfulness, empathy, and integrity — still matters, particularly in a time in which our democratic norms and systems are being challenged. From a Christian standpoint, how we engage in politics should be rooted in the fruit of spirit, which in his letter to the Galatian church, the Apostle Paul describes as “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Obviously, these virtues are not the norm in our body politic. And while it’s easy to blame politicians, we must first remove the speck from our own eyes. 

JR. Forasteros 5-14-2024

Photo courtesy DC Comics. Graphic by Mitchell Atencio / Sojourners

In comic-book writer Tom King’s run on Wonder Woman, Diana has been fighting a battle not just of fists but of ideologies.