Aliança! Aliança! That’s the word the hooded young men wielding guns kept saying. How did they know that’s who we were, I wondered? We were the Aliança de Batistas do Brasil. How could these strangers know that?
Sense of hopelessness, as mother takes kids to homeless shelter
It was 6 p.m. when Leticia Harley, her 2-month-old son and 2-year-old daughter could re-enter the emergency homeless shelter in Dallas. They would file in line early, three among many, looking for a safe place for the night.
The gift that is missing in our talk about affordable housing
In my city, Charlotte, N.C., we have reached a general consensus concerning housing and affordability: we all agree that there is not nearly enough of affordable housing, and we would all like for someone else to do something about it.
The world is getting more religious, because the poor go for God
Far from being the century in which religion went away, for both Christianity and Islam, the 20th century was numerically the most successful century since Christ was crucified and Muhammad gave his farewell sermon on Mount Arafat.
When religious groups do what the government won’t
Are faith-based programs for the poor a problem when there’s no secular alternative?
Embracing the hopelessness of Holy Saturday
Why are we in such a rush to get to Easter Sunday? In our efforts to make Easter celebrations the most extravagant Sunday of the year, when church attendance is expected to be beyond the norm, we forget — if not…
Jesus and brain science agree: money kills empathy
Although you would never know it from listening to American preaching, Jesus linked poverty with the kingdom of God and affluence with sin. The text of the first sermon Jesus preached was taken from Isaiah 61: The spirit of the…
Let justice roll
But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! Amos 5:24 NIV During our recent vacation Bible school I observed our students standing attentively as they belted out , “I pledge allegiance to the flag…”. We…
My Christmas Eve epiphany
I have been driven to a startling conclusion: the God who burns with compassion for the outcast is our salvation. That simple message fueled the ministry of Jesus. Jesus’ solidarity with the poor wasn’t stressed much in the churches I…