When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working t… — Martin Luther King Jr.
Today we leave behind the bold drama and bright colors of the church year’s mountain range—Advent to Christmas, Ash Wednesday to Easter, all setting the stage for yesterday’s Pentecostal flames. (See the special artwork at bottom.) Now we descend to the plains of “ordinary” time and muted earth tones.
Not mundane or insignificant by any means. Even in his fantastical imagination, William Blake knew that “whoever would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars.”
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
Text: Proverbs 8
Sunday, 6 June 2004
Circle of Mercy Congregation
I think it was last Monday, or maybe Tuesday. Nancy was ready to start putting this Sunday’s service together, and she asked if I had decided on a text and theme.
Read more ›Ken Sehested
Ever since Pope Francis was selected to lead the Holy See three years ago, the Roman Catholic Curia watchers have had a field day with his many uncommon statements and actions. The most recent bustle had US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaking at a Vatican conference on economic inequality, just days after the issuance of Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), a papal exhortation reframing the plight of divorced Catholics and “all those living in any ‘irregular situation.’”
Almost lost in news coverage was the groundbreaking conference, “Nonviolence and Just Peace: Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence” (11-13 April), jointly co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pax Christi International, the unofficial global Roman Catholic peace network. What’s at stake—with an unclear outcome—is the Church’s 1,700 year-old “just war” doctrine, traced back to St. Augustine in the 4th century and systematized by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. It outlines precise criteria as to when violence can be morally justified in opposing oppression.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
On this, my 65th birthday, I’ve made a new vow. From here on, whenever some public figure says “we need more boots on the ground” in any of our nation’s 134 theaters of conflict, I shall write them to say,
“Sir/Madame (bloodlust increasingly an equal-opportunity villainy), please come out from behind the dishonesty of your words: When you advocate for more “boots on the ground,” have the courage to say “we need more of your sons and daughters.”
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
Circle of Mercy Congregation, 20 May 2007
Ever since Easter the principal lectionary readings have been excerpts from the books of Acts which records the story of the birth of the church after Jesus’ resurrection and then the subsequent missionary journeys of Paul and other church leaders.
Today’s story is actually two stories: a short one, which I just read—about Paul healing a “slave girl”—which sets up a longer one, which Nancy told to the children—when Paul and Silas are dragged into the marketplace of the city of Philippi, A city on the Aegean Sea coast of what is now the modern country of Bulgaria, in what was then a Roman colonial region. There they are accused by the slave girl’s owners of unlawful activity, and the city magistrates convict them toss them into prison.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
Texts: Isaiah 5:7-8; Luke 24:44-53; 1 Peter 3:13-22
Circle of Mercy Congregation, Sunday, 5 May 2002
Before I begin, permit me one brief aside. It was on this day—5 May 1773—that Baptists in Boston agreed to refuse payment of taxes due to support the state-sponsored pilgrim-puritan church of the region. Such historical memories help us remember who we are and thus more able to account for the hope that is within us.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
It’s daunting to sit on this stage alongside the talent assembled for this presentation. Obviously I cannot speak of women’s experiences from the inside; but I have consciously, most of my life, attempted to stay close to both the pain and the promise of women’s voices. Not as a moral gesture or generous heart, but for the sake of my own soul. In the end, this is our mandate as followers of the Way, to locate ourselves in compassion proximity to the cracks, attentive to wherever life is unraveled. In the prophetic words of Leonard Cohen, “There’s a crack in every thing. That’s how the light get in.”
Over the course of my life I’ve frequently been asked how I ended up where I am. Raised in a small West Texas town, then in South Louisiana, in traditional Southern Baptist congregations shaped by pietist-revivalist religious currents (which is very different from fundamentalism), to then evolve into a career as an outspoken advocate for justice, peace and human rights.
Read more ›Shortly after President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Cuba, Rev. Eduardo Gonzalez, pastor of Iglesia Enmanuel in Ciego de Avila, Cuba, wrote a letter to his congregation’s “partner,” Northminster Church in Monroe, Louisiana, and copied others here in the US who have visited. Here is the text, along with a brief response of my own.
“Dear brothers and sisters
“For many years our brothers and sisters from Northminster Church have been asked by their fellow citizens what kind of mission work they come to Cuba to do. It has been hard for their inquirers to understand that they do not come to build schools, because we have schools and education, available for everyone, that they do not come to do medical work, because we have free medical service, that they do not come to evangelize, in the traditional sense of the word, because we have pastors and preachers that can do that.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
Introduction: On 27 November 2005 a group of four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) were kidnapped by a jihadist group following a meeting in a mosque in Baghdad, Iraq. One of the four was a personal friend, Norman Kember, a 74-year-old 
peace activist from England. I wrote the reflection below the next day. Having traveled in Iraq twice, once with CPT shortly before the 2013 US invasion, I took the news pretty hard.
I NEARLY GAGGED ON MY GRANOLA when I saw your name, about 10 paragraphs into a story summarizing the weekend’s violent episodes in Iraq. Having been among the references for your application some months ago to join the delegation, I knew, but had almost forgotten, you were there.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
Two things distinguish the “Jesus Prince of Peace” icon (displayed below). One is the sheer fact of the hand-drawn images of brutality and violence surrounding the central figure. This isn’t normal iconographic practice.
The second distinctive is that the iconographer is a Baptist—not your usual religious affiliation for such artists. And he is 
from Georgia, but not that Georgia.
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