Another World Is Possible: Repealing the Death Penalty

March 1, 2013 By 2 Comments
Collage at UU Cherry Hill, NJ

Inconsistency: Since 1978, less than 1% of Maryland’s 13,000+ murders resulted in a death sentence. Are those individuals truly the “worst of the worst” or simply those with the worst lawyers, wrong skin color or wrong geographic location? Most capital prosecutions occur in Baltimore County, which is more than 13 times more likely to seek the death penalty than Baltimore City. However, only 6% of Maryland’s homicides occur in Baltimore County. Racism: Blacks charged with killing a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Death Penalty, Nonviolent Activism, Sermons, Unitarian Universalism Tagged With: , , , 2 Comments

Zero Dark Thirty: Torture, Disavowal, and the Oscars

February 19, 2013 By 1 Comment
metta-meditation

This is what should be done by those who are skilled in goodness, and who know the path of peace: Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways, peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful, not proud and demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise would later reprove. Wishing: in gladness and in safety, may all beings be at ease. Whatever living … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Gandhi, Nonviolent Activism, Sermons, Unitarian Universalism 1 Comment

From Independence Day to Interdependence

July 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Reborn

(Logan Mehl-Laituri, Reborn on the Fourth of July: The Challenge of Faith, Patriotism & Conscience, 2012, 239 pages.) This book review is a sponsored post that is part of the Patheos Book Club. One of my heroes is Clarence Jordan (1912-1969). In college, he began to experience cognitive dissonance between his patriotic love of country and his religious beliefs. He had been studying Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), and unexpectedly during ROTC calvary practice, Jesus' command … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Church and State, Conscientious Objection to War, Ethics, Nonviolent Activism Leave a Comment

Standing on the Side of Love for Immigration Justice

June 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment
standinglove

Last week I had the privilege of attending the Unitarian Universalists' annual General Assembly, which was held this year in Phoenix, Arizona. The focus of this year's gathering was social justice around the issue of immigration. I live tweeted the event from my iPhone, and the following are some of the highlights: Peter Bowden ‏@uuplanet: Supreme Court sides with U.S. in Arizona immigration case -http://CNN.com http://ow.ly/bO8Oj #UUAGA #SB1070 "It is possible to move from a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ethics, Immigration Reform, Nonviolent Activism, Politics, Unitarian Universalism Leave a Comment

Ron Sider: An Evangelical Christian Worth Listening To

March 20, 2012 By 1 Comment

(Ronald J. Sider, Fixing the Moral Deficit: A Balanced Way to Balance the Budget, InterVarsity Press, 2012, 171 pages.) The title of this post could be seen as flippant, callous, arrogant, or all of the above -- implying that an "Evangelical Christian Worth Listening To" is such a rarity as to be worthy of remark. Well, in an age in which many conservatives exclusively watch Fox News (read: "Faux News"?) and read The Wall Street Journal, whereas many liberals watch MSNBC and read The New … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Ethics, Nonviolent Activism, Politics 1 Comment

#OccupyChurch: Jesus Threw out the Moneylenders for a Reason

October 24, 2011 By

Andy Lester was one of the most important professors I had in seminary. I took two classes from him: Introduction to Pastoral Care and Pastoral Care Confronts Anger and Conflict. As part of the latter class, we helped edit his book A Pastoral Theology of Anger, which cuts against the grain of the tradition that anger is always a sin. Perhaps the most important reading assignment in that class was an essay by Beverly Wildung Harrison titled, “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love.” She … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Empire-Critical, Ethics, Nonviolent Activism, Occupy, Sermons