Days after the holy month of Ramadan began, shootings targeting an imam in Utah and an Islamic center in Pennsylvania have rattled Muslim Americans as they look forward to weeks in which they gather frequently and in large numbers.
Group documents 20 times ICE and CBP shot civilians in past year
The cruelty of U.S. immigration enforcement operations can be counted in rising body counts, attacks against children and families and in the dehumanizing rhetoric federal officials are using toward immigrants and American citizens, according a report by an immigrant rights…
This isn’t ‘their’ problem; it is ‘our’ problem
In June 2015, my wife and I were on a mission trip with students at a church where I previously served as a youth pastor. The trip had all the makings of a typical youth excursion; students leaving things behind,…
Our weekly gun massacres mark a devastating cultural failure
Our weekly gun massacres in the United States are shocking in the extreme. They set us apart from other nations in the worst possible sense. I have not yet been in or near one of these massacres. The closest I…
Another church shooting: Have we become ‘morally anesthetized’ to the horrors of gun violence?
Sadly, West Freeway Church of Christ will not be the last American faith community to endure violent trauma. Yes, religious communities must develop security strategies for protecting vulnerable worshippers, but people of faith must reject any idea that such horror is normative.
I was terrified. Guns were stashed everywhere, right next door to our home
Beneath this star-spangled net of red, white and blue, we are trapped by hate and violence – and entitlement to our weapons.
Firearm violence: America’s pre-existing condition
Firearm violence is more than a national problem; it a national disgrace that increasingly defines our national identity, our common humanity and our ‘witness’ in the world. If history is any indication, little or nothing will change in the land of the free and the home of the targeted.
Standing as loving accomplices on a front porch surrounded by police
It is a Friday night not long after I have moved to Enderly Park, which is located on Jesus’ side of the tracks. Our living room is filled with teens. We are playing cards, not because we like cards that…