Insecurity about Church Security

Last updated on: June 30, 2015 at 6:32 pm By Guest Contributor

By Dwight Lee Wolter. Recent events, including the massacre of nine people in a church Bible study, have inspired churches and other houses of faith to take a closer look at security issues. The Suffolk County (NY) police department, for example, provided a hastily convened “Security Training Workshop for Houses of Worship” with tips on “Protecting Your Religious and Communal Institutions” through “Security Best Practices.” Mosque, synagogue and church clergy and lay leaders were educated in “Operation Safeguard” sponsored... Read more

What Do I Do With My Confederate Flag?

Last updated on: June 29, 2015 at 10:45 pm By Shane Claiborne

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By Shane Claiborne. I own a Confederate flag. I grew up in East Tennessee, and the Confederate flag branded everything we looked at in our high school – even the cheerleaders had “butt-flags” that flapped over the back of their mini-skirts at football games. We were the Maryville High School “Rebels”. Growing up, the flag meant little more to me than school spirit, pep rallies, and Southern pride… until I left East Tennessee. I’ll never forget the moment things... Read more

Searching for the Buddha’s Climate Change Policy

Last updated on: June 25, 2015 at 10:12 pm By Guest Contributor

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By Danny Hall Last month, I joined some 130 Buddhist leaders, teachers and scholars representing over 60 major Buddhist schools and ethnicities in Washington D.C. for the first White House U.S. Buddhist Leaders Conference. Of particular interest to conference participants was the subject of climate change. The issue triggered questions for me about what a pan-Buddhist approach to climate change might look like and how the varying degrees of inner-orientation found within the diversity of Buddhist schools might mesh with the... Read more

But ALL Lives DO Matter…

Last updated on: June 25, 2015 at 8:22 pm By Guest Contributor

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By the Rev. Dwight Wolter There is a lot of angry blow-back against people who are responding to “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter.” It is unfortunate that “sides” seem to have been taken. My social media contacts, political inclination and religious affiliation predispose me to the “Black Lives Matter” voices; but I would respectfully like to offer a couple of insights to the “All Lives Matter” folk. I presided over the funeral of an Ecuadorian immigrant hate crime murder... Read more

Considering “Sanctuary” in the Aftermath of Charleston

Last updated on: June 23, 2015 at 10:36 pm By Aaron Todd

One of my favorite and in my opinion vastly underrated movies of all time is the 2011 film, Priest. Not only is it a fun movie that involves motorcycles, explosions, and incredibly cheesy dialogue the movie also depicts a somewhat imaginable (minus the vampires) reality. It depicts a militarized city ruled by the Church where the goal above all else is to be protected from outside threats. As a pastor, there are plenty of images and lines from that film that... Read more

“Lord, How Long?” (Habakkuk 1:2): Praying Through Grief While Confronting a Hate Crime

Last updated on: June 22, 2015 at 4:28 pm By Claudia May

Rev. Clementa Pinckney and his parishioners attended a Wednesday night Bible study in a church, Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a white man could walk through the doors of their spiritual home and be welcomed with open arms. They did not turn this stranger away. They did not treat him with the same indignity so many black people in America have endured. The gunman, now suspected to be Dylann Storm Roof, sat next to... Read more

Ambassadors of Reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:11-21): The Massacre of the Beloved in Charleston, SC

Last updated on: June 22, 2015 at 11:18 pm By Claudia May

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The evening began like any other Wednesday Bible study. Beloved parishioners and their pastor gathered to read scripture and pray together in church. Now they are dead. Nine black people, nine precious creations of God, nine cherished souls who were “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) by their Creator — six black women and three black men — are dead. Nothing and no one can bring them back. These beloved ones attended Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston,... Read more

Slow Living: Resisting the Need for Speed

Last updated on: June 17, 2015 at 11:02 pm By Deborah Arca

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“When do we ever find such deep permission, to stop, to see that it is good, this world, this life, this day? Just as it is, without our effort or interference? When do we hear the call, when do we allow ourselves to surrender so completely to non-productive time, to be allowed to be stopped, to rest, to allow things to be as they are, and to marvel at the unattended miracle of it all? — Wayne Muller, author of Sabbath... Read more

English Class Leaves Woman Speechless

Last updated on: July 6, 2015 at 8:50 pm By Guest Contributor

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By Ashleigh Joyner One woman couldn’t believe that a group of people who didn’t even know her would teach her English. They did and now her life has changed in so many ways. What happens when open hearts celebrate diversity and the value of all people? Rocio Martinez can tell you. Living in Nashville, Tennessee, she had no immigration status and was about to have her first child. She visited a church that offered a summer English as a second-language... Read more

What does Hebrews say is sharper than any double-edged sword?