Category: Ethics and Justice
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Power Problems and the Call to Service
Rehoboam traveled to Shechem where all Israel had gathered to inaugurate him as king. Jeroboam had been in Egypt, where he had taken asylum from King Solomon; when he got the report of Solomon’s death he had come back. Rehoboam assembled Jeroboam and all the people. They said to Rehoboam, “Your father made life hard…
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Jesus Changes Lives
Rev. Rami AlMaqdasi grew up in Basra, Iraq, and shared with us how his life as a Christian from Iraq has been marked and defined by war. His earliest memories are of fleeing the violence of the Iraq-Iran war, coming of age during the Kuwait War, and of serving the church in Syria as Iraq…
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You Are Enough
Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the…
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A Lament for Peace on World Communion Sunday
1 By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. 2 On the willows there we hung up our harps. 3 For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 4 How could we sing the Lord’s…
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Poison Ivy: God’s Great Leveller
For the lover of Nature, there is no end to the supply of theological and philosophical musings on the wonder of God’s creation. Whether it is Ralph Waldo Emerson or Anne Dillard, Michael Pollan or Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry or Barbara Kingsolver or even Mary Oliver, one does not have to look far to find…
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Ethical Health Care?
This afternoon I came across Peter Singer’s NYT Magazine article on rationing and health care. Now, as a philosophy major in undergrad, I was required to read Singer’s book entitled “One World” for Dallas Willard’s class on the history of Ethics. If you haven’t read him, I recommend it, because he certainly pushes the boundaries of what…
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Pardoning Turkeys?!
Just a quick thought…. I have been seeing more than a few articles online about turkey pardons, which of course made more headlines than usual when Palin did her interview in front of a man slaughtering turkeys after pardoning one. So there are lots of articles and photos of presidents pardoning turkeys, and to be…
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Church and State
Yesterday morning I read that the IRS is investigating the UCC because of a speech given by presidential candidate Barack Obama at general synod. It appears that the distinction between church and state may have been breached because Obama, who has always identified as UCC, accepted an invitation to give a speech to his…
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Ah Annual Meeting.
Long day at church today… because of the Annual Conglomeration’s meeting for budgetary and other administrative Issues. In other words, CHPC experienced an annual 2 hour recap of last year and the challenges facing next year. It was brutal (not as brutal as the session meeting on Wednesday) but it was also amazing to see…
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Economics and Ethics on Eating
When I was in college, my pastor (Ben) introduced me to the slow food movement. At the time, I was struggling with questions about the practice of eating intentionally, of what it would mean to engage in the food cycle and to eat well. I was immediately taken in by the movement, loving the philosophy and…
Deeper in me than I 