Those (military members) who have served through the ages and have drawn inspiration from the Book of Isaiah, when the Lord says: “Whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?” The American military has been answering for a long…
Love ’em and leave ’em: America walks out on Afghanistan
I’ve been trying to write a country song that people in Afghanistan can sing in the days to come. It also applies to lots of other folks America has pledged eternal love for, only to disappear when the thrill is…
On Afghanistan, there were no innocent choices available
There were no morally unambiguous options, no innocent choices, facing President Joe Biden when it came to deciding what to do about the 20-year U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan that has cost the lives of nearly 2,500 U.S. troops, 3,800…
Afghanistan and America: Bloodlust and the failure of prophetic imagination
It is hard to be dispassionate when people have died fighting for a cause. Objectivity seems especially hard when it comes to the outcome after 20 years of United States-led war in Afghanistan. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan after Al Qaeda…
Afghanistan: A tragic example of an unjust war
I was born in the waning years of the Vietnam War. I don’t recall the war itself, but one of my earliest childhood memories dates to about 1970 and, for some reason, it is remarkably vivid. I had tagged along…
Bush calls for religious revival to help all Christians welcome immigrants
Healing the divisiveness of immigration in American politics and society requires a view of immigrants as vital cultural and economic contributors and as fellow human beings made in God’s image, former President George W. Bush said during a May 6…
Biden administration skewered for keeping Trump-era cap on refugee resettlement
Immigration advocates — including numerous faith-based groups — reacted harshly to the Biden administration’s April 16 announcement that it would not, after all, raise the ceiling for admission of refugees this year. The blowback was so swift and harsh that…
Telling the truth or creating our own realities? (And the wisdom to know the difference)
Today, in the land of the free and the home of the tribal, “discernable truth” seems tenuous at best. Americans are locked collectively in a truth-crisis so perilous that distinguishing “fictional” from “actual realities” has become a 24/7 confrontation across every segment of our national life, churches included.
A tale of two commencement addresses
By Executive Director J. Brent Walker School is out, and summer vacation is here! Congratulations to our graduates – not just high school, college, seminary and graduate school but, nowadays, all the way down the line. My five-year-old grandson even…