Commentary

My Sling is That of David

US-Cuba Relations as an emerging agenda

This unpublished paper was drafted in 1992 in preparation for the Baptist Peace Fellowship board of directors’ consideration of several projects related to US-Cuba relations. Though dated, this material nevertheless provides useful background information related to the topic, including the thaw in church-state relations in Cuba.

by Ken Sehested
 

During a recent flight I took out the airline magazine to look at the map. Just before returning it to the seat pocket, something on the map jumped out at me. My eyes had wandered down through the Caribbean, especially the strong of Lesser Antilles islands, many of whose names serve as Columbian memorials to so many saints. (Who were those guys?) And there were the larger islands: Puerto Rico, the world’s oldest colony. (It’s still under U.S. “protectorate” status.) There’s Hispaniola, cohabited by the Dominican Republic and Haiti (site of the first successful African slave revolt and much in the news of late); the Bahamas; and . . .

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Chaos or community: Which way?

Advent commentary on grand jury findings

Ken Sehested. Posted 5 December 2014, commemorating Rosa Parks' historic bus ride.

Chaotic and kairotic are rhyming words that come to mind in these heavy laden days. The latter’s root word, kairos, means “opportune moment,” a pregnant occasion, with life promised but also danger lurking, an opening for truth amid founded fears of catastrophe—as in “apocalypse.”  But in the root word for apocalypse, the emphasis is on “uncovering” or “revealing” what has been hidden. Truth amid the rubble.

These surely are chaotic times, and we cringe at the destructive backlash threatening to rain down on urban and suburban streets. Within a week, police killings of unarmed black men are dismissed by grand juries in a St. Louis suburb and New York City—the latter case, of Eric Garner, by fatal chokehold caught on camera and ruled a homicide by the coroner.

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The Baptist Impulse: COEBAC

Notes toward a renewal of Baptist identity

On the 40th anniversary of the founding of La Coordinacion Obrero Estudiantil Bautista de Cuba (COEBAC, Coordination of Baptist Students and Workers in Cuba)
10-11 October 2014, Iglesia Bautista Enmanuel, Ciego de Avila, Cuba
 

by Ken Sehested

People of faith are continuously in the process of asking and deciding “what time is it?” and “who are my people?” When I ask, “what time is it?”  I’m not asking you to look at your watch. I’m not asking you to check your calendar. Rather, I’m asking “what is the Spirit doing in our day, in this place and in this season?” How we live and bear witness to the good news of the Gospel always hinges on this question.  And every age, every generation, every specific location must renew its response to this question.

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