Jake Meador: Let’s get right into a topic you’ve written about recently: why violence and corruption continue to plague so many countries in Africa. In your book The Sacrifice of Africa, you argue that the reason for this is not the failure of the nation-state in...
Portland: On the Ground
Patrick Tomassi
“Liberal friends wondered if we were being rounded up by the Gestapo. Conservative friends wanted to know if Antifa were burning our houses down. I decided to see for myself.” One Portland native’s account of the city’s summer of struggle – and the moral messiness of policing, protests, riots, and responses.
Principles for a Just Pandemic
David Henreckson
Crises—whether arising from politics or pandemics—give us circumstances that seem utterly complex. Lack of control characterizes moments like ours. Technocrats and idealists find themselves in the same flailing position, struggling to find a quick fix. Elected...
Know Justice, Know Peace
Adam Carrington
The opening remarks from Eric Hutchinson and Myles Werntz helpfully establish order and justice as central issues in today’s protests and the sixteenth century’s Peasants’ Revolt. Hutchinson declares justice a higher good than order, but order a prerequisite for...
Whose Justice? Which Peace?
Myles Werntz
In 1525, Martin Luther addressed the peasants of Swabia who were protesting (and rioting) in response to unjust government. Was his response reasonable, or did it sacrifice justice for order? Thinking through the issues involved is a valuable way to consider what our response might be to civil unrest today. Here is Part 2 of our three-part series on the Peasants’ War and protests today.
No Justice, No Peace?
E. J. Hutchinson
In 1525, Martin Luther addressed the peasants of Swabia who were protesting (and rioting) in response to unjust government. Was his response reasonable, or did it sacrifice justice for order? Thinking through the issues involved is a valuable way to consider what our response might be to civil unrest today. Start here with Part 1 of our three-part series on the Peasants’ War and protests today.
Reading While Black
David Emmanuel Goatley
Black people often do not fit easily into popular Western European or North American paradigms. Widely accepted patterns of thought and being have for too long now been conceived and constructed by those who presume their particular worldviews to be normative for all....
Deepening the Interwoven Life
Sarah Hemminger
A few years ago my father and I were in an argument and he said to me, “You are like the sun. Beautiful. Warm. Necessary for life. But up close your intense energy and heat are deadly.” I admit that I am a person of intense energy. For much of my life that energy has...
Solidarity in Forgiveness
Peter Mommsen
Pandemics, whatever else they do, show us we are not alone. “No man is an island,” runs the much-quoted John Donne line, and that never seems truer than when you’re trying to be an island and failing: not keeping six feet of distance when meeting a friend, fighting to...
Fatherhood in the Mourning Time
J.L. Wall
A new father, his daughter’s surgery delayed by COVID, experiences the limits of his own power to protect those he loves. The poetry of Robert Hayden provides a counterpoint to the rhythms of the Jewish liturgical year as he seeks to live in faith.