It’s not an exaggeration to say that the evangelical church saved me in every way a person can be saved. They introduced me to Jesus. They became the family my childhood family could not be. They loved and affirmed me. They educated me. They gave me a vocation. And they gave me exceptional opportunities of service. Although I left the evangelical church years ago for a more progressive expression of faith, I’ve always appreciated the gifts they gave me.

I would like to build on Carl Krieg’s recent essay in the resource section of the PC.org website entitled “The One You Feed.” His article reminded me of my past life as a political scientist studying public opinion and voting behavior.

It’s a scary thought, but true. To quote the Nazi, Joseph Goebbels, “If you tell a big lie often enough and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it.” A full 60% of Republicans today believe that Biden is not the President of the United States.

The attack on  the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was a low point in the ongoing struggle against dark forces in the American character. It was also another moment when leaders of Christian churches betrayed the message of Jesus while claiming to uphold Christian principles.

Jesus was best known for healing and exorcising. The crowds that came for medical help got more than they may have expected as they heard him speak about justice for everyone and love for neighbors and enemies. Spreading health and preaching compassion were at the heart of being the Prince of Peace.

Sermon: Rev. Mark Sandlin
Presbyterian Church of the Covenant – www.athinkingchurch.org
Music: Bruce Piephoff

We are all Americans – of all ethnicities, cultures, and political persuasions.  We won’t allow ourselves to be divided.  We stand up, speak out, and we vote for preserving our democracy through free and fair elections to express the will of our majority, so that we can secure liberty and justice for all.

The latest weekly episode of the Humankind on Public Radio podcast, which you can hear free when it’s released every Thursday, features our documentary, An Informed Republic. We explore the importance that America’s founders placed on the free flow of information for our participatory democracy to function.

This July 4th, America will celebrate 245 years of independence from British rule. However, when President Joe Biden signed into law Juneteenth as a  federal holiday, it forces Americans to take a sterner look at what this July 4th means. 

Over the weekend, the second annual Trans Resistance March (TRM) and Rally took place. Noticeably missing, guiding and participating in the march from Nubian Square in Roxbury to Franklin Park Playstead, was the presence of police and law enforcement. Numerous chants were heard along the route from marchers, revelers, and onlookers, bringing attention to many of the issues the black transgender community confront specifically. One chant was, “No racist police!”

When we talk about the reproductive justice movement, we mean the movement founded by Black women that is a part of the larger movement for reproductive health in the U.S. and globally.

I found some parallels between then and now in a nationalistic church with little or no interest in the Christian gospel, at least as I understand it, but what I was most impressed with was Bonhoeffer’s treatment of Christian ethics. The only thing that mattered to Bonhoeffer was how one lived.

In our thinking about God, God has great size. However, it is a size that can never be fully grasped because it is always enlarging–eventually becoming more than anything we can conceptualize or imagine. 

Can’t say I disagree on your article: A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, but it raises at least one question. When God’s people chased inhabitants out of the ‘Promised Land’ I don’t recall any discussion of reparations for the displaced people. Perhaps that is our rationale (excuse) for claiming reparations as a non-issue.

Are we “saved” together, or “saved” separately? It is certainly a living question for Christians to ponder, but it is worth asking in the context of other religions – or in that of no religion at all.  Are we “all in the same boat”, or not? 

In this new year – just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse — something dark and revelatory already happened on that day. Thousands of insurrectionists stormed the Capitol; wielding clubs, and bats, and – in one instance – a Bible.

Julian of Norwich tells us that in life we “experience a wondrous mixture of well and woe” and that “this mingling of both well and distress in us is so astonishing that we can hardly tell which state we or our neighbor are in—that’s how astonishing it is!”

There emerged out of the 2016 election a conspiracy theory that has been a catalyst for a growing and coalescing far right movement that is mainstreaming radical authoritarian nationalists, neo-Fascists, white supremacists, and anti-Semites in the United States.