(Part 1 of this review here, by proxy.) At the end of Ronald J. Sider’s most recent book, Fixing the Moral Deficit: A Balanced Way to Balance the Budget, there’s an appendix of “Action Steps” for readers. The first of these reads as follows: Read and reflect on a few dozen of the hundreds of biblical verses about God and the poor. Then prayerfully ask God to help you share God’s love for poor, hurting persons. If you need help... Read more
It’s International Women’s Day, so here’s another round-up of links on women in the church (and the world). Brooke Eikenberry: “Unbinding the Feet: Women in Ministry” To me, it is a question of injustice, and we as believers should seek justice for the oppressed and downtrodden. But it is more than that; it is also a desire to see the Church be all that it should be. In hindering some women from the fullness of their callings, we hinder the... Read more
The Consumerist brings us the entertaining story of a New Mexico man who picked the wrong restaurant to dine-and-dash: We certainly don’t condone the act of dining-then-dashing. It’s illegal and, more importantly, just plain rude to the people that prepared and served your meal. It’s especially rude when the servers are law enforcement officers working a fundraising event for the Special Olympics. And yet, a man in New Mexico stands accused of trying to feed and flee an Applebee’s during... Read more
Scott Paeth responds to the U.S. Catholic bishops‘ efforts to prevent insurance from covering women’s health care. Due in part to my own family’s recent interactions with that bunch, I particularly liked this part of Paeth’s post: In all honesty, my first reaction to any attempt by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to make any kind of moral argument, least of all one involving sexuality, is to want to say “Shut up, old man.” And no Bishop who is... Read more
Two recent stories that I find equal parts confounding and infuriating. First, from Raw Story/Reuters, “Miami students rally for valedictorian facing deportation“: A judge on Monday denied a green card request by Daniela Pelaez, an 18-year-old who was born in Colombia and brought by her parents to the United States when she was four. Her lawyer is appealing the decision. Pelaez grew up in the Miami area after she and her family overstayed their tourist visas. A high school senior,... Read more
Call it debt forgiveness, principle reduction, or restructuring, a hair-cut or a cram-down — call it whatever you like, but it increasingly seems as though some measure of Jubilee would be an immensely practical step for borrowers and for lenders and for the economy as a whole. At this point the idea of such a Jubilee still probably only rates as practical and prudent. Soon it will likely shift into the categories of — in order — “necessary,” “urgently needed”... Read more
“How many people really are so stupid that they don’t know how hormonal birth control works?” BooMan asks. Millions. Tens of millions. But, again, it’s not a matter of innate stupidity. It’s the same willful, voluntary, pretense of stupidity that permits them to pretend to believe in a vast conspiracy of scientists, insurance companies, wildlife and glaciers promoting the “myth” of climate change. The same deliberate stupidity that enables them to look at the night sky without questioning that the... Read more
Here’s the Civil Wars, Joy Williams and John Paul White, performing “Barton Hollow“: In case you needed any further reason to love the Civil Wars, Bread for the World notes that the duo also provided the score for Finding North, a documentary about hunger in America. Here’s Williams on the subject: Forty-four million people go to bed hungry in America and don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and so [Finding North] highlights food insecurity in the United... Read more
The “Beatitudes” — a list of blessings and woes attributed to Jesus — are listed in two of the Gospels of the New Testament. Well, sort of. The version in Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t include the woes. Matthew’s version is also fuzzier — less concrete and forthright — than the version in Luke. Here’s Luke’s version: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.... Read more
Lisa Sharon Harper: “Black Evangelicals, White Evangelicals and Franklin Graham’s Repentance“ I sat down for a pleasant meal in the home of two great friends — one of them a white evangelical faith leader deeply committed to social justice. Well into the evening’s conversation —when we’d dropped all our pretenses and our exchanges moved well past mealtime niceties — one friend asked me something that caught me entirely off guard. “Do you think Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian?”... Read more
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