Not since the Civil War has the United States faced such ill winds as we experience this Independence Day. The very idea of American democracy is under assault from internal forces convinced they are the lone defenders of democracy. The…
70 years ago today, ‘under God’ was added to the Pledge of Allegiance
George Docherty was a progressive Presbyterian minister serving in the nation’s capital. In 1965, he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., in a civil rights demonstration after Bloody Sunday. Docherty later criticized the Vietnam…
Praying in a time of war
The intense polarization around the Israel-Hamas war reminds me of a story from another polarizing Middle East war that occurred 20 years ago. In the spring of 2003, soon after United States launched the Iraq war, a retired Army officer…
Christians, we have an older glory
“Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents …, let’s fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith and freedom, and never forget that, ‘where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,’…
Why claims of many ‘evangelical Christians’ to be followers of Jesus ring hollow
Following Jesus is incompatible with being a bully. Following Jesus involves using power to do justice, love mercy and live humbly in oneness with God and others. All Christians should condemn and denounce white supremacy and religious nationalism in the name of Jesus, not validate them.
Christian flag breaking
An excited patriot handed me one of those 10-inch flags that you stick into your lawn on July 4th.The plastic red, white and blue was intact, but the pole that once held it together was broken three stripes from the…