Fall 2017
Honest Patriots Take Responsibility
Henry Koenig Stone
“Whether it is a person or a nation that you love, it does not serve them well to ignore their mistakes. Honesty distinguishes actual love from pride.” In this opening editorial for Honest Patriotism, Henry introduces a desire to challenge widespread assumptions about what really it means to love one’s country.
Read Article
Draft Resolution on Honest Patriotism for GA 223,
Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP)
The following draft resolution is open to comment [HERE] through Thanksgiving Day, 11/23/2017. The Advisory Committee for Social Witness Policy will present a final version at the 223rd General Assembly of PC(USA) in 2018.
Read Article
Choosing Vulnerability in the Wake of #MeToo
Henry Koenig Stone
“Common decency, faith values, and any sort of love for each other—each of these demands that we accept common responsibility for and beyond our individual actions.” In light of the #MeToo social media campaign and recent revelations about specific abuses of power, Henry writes that men need to be willing to give up the sense of a right to power over others.
Read Article
Harsh Truths for Reformation Sunday
Shannon Craigo-Snell
“As the inheritors of the charism of Luther, of Calvin, of those young pastors who risked their lives in service to the Good News, it is our particular duty to lead the fight against the corrupt Christianity that has so much power in our nation today.” Shannon turns an honest eye toward the church, citing Reformed faith as a movement which must ever reject the religious abuse of power.
Read Article
Stop Overdosing on Bad Marijuana Policy
Alexander E. Sharp
“How much more evidence do we need for our political leaders to recognize that continuing to fight a punitive War on Drugs not only defies common sense about how drugs should be scheduled, but does so does in a discriminatory way, violating our most cherished national values?”
Read Article
Who Is Missing?
Barbara Newman
“We have so many groups with missing pieces, and we don’t tend to recognize it unless we really try. Look around your congregation or small group and ask, ‘Who is missing?'”
Read Article
Honesty in Sacred Spaces
Donna Schaper
“What do church buildings, nations, and marriages have in common? They all need to leave a sacred space for divergent opinions.” Donna writes about her own interfaith marriage, the expanding meanings and uses of sacred spaces, and the need for open-minded civic discourse.”
Read Article
When Immigrants Give Thanks: Seeking Honesty at Thanksgiving
Henry Koenig Stone
“And so I thought about the triple irony of those north-moving immigrants—perhaps even partly related to the Native peoples of this continent—hosting this descendent of early European immigrants, when some nativist US citizens wish to welcome no one further to “our” country.”
Read Article
Are Economic Traitors Betraying our Country?
Resisting the Creed of Greed (Part I)
Chris Iosso
“A fantasy of “trickle-down” economic growth fails to obscure the reality that the Administration’s tax plan almost exclusively favors the rich.”
Read Article
Increasing Tax Fairness
Resisting the Creed of Greed (Part II)
Chris Iosso
“We do public policy because individual charity has never been enough—a clear teaching going back to the community codes of Deuteronomy.”
Read Article
Vietnam and the Spirituality of Protest
Dave Brown
“My theological understanding of Jesus, his life and particularly his death would change over the decades, but what has not changed is my belief that loving my enemy meant not fighting in war.”
Read Article
“God” is Dead and We Killed Him: Remembering that God is Love
Taylor Tate
“I wonder: at what point would the meaning of the words “Christian” and “God” be so distorted by the actions of some Christians that I could no longer use the word to describe myself?”
Read Article
A Seat at What Table?
Sue Smith
“Climate change has become a story driven by politics, and not by science or faith-driven stewardship.”
Read Article
Resisting Harassment in the Church
Chris Iosso
“It is long past time to carve out the space for this conversation in our sermons, in our congregational dialogues, and in our public witness as a national church.”
Read Article
Bully yes; Pulpit no—Honest Patriotism in the Era of Trump
Chris Iosso
“God is not a bully, and neither should we be—whether as believers or, to the best of our influence, as US citizens.”
Read Article
Links,
