We are simply asked to make gentle our bruised world. To be compassionate of all, including oneself. Then in the time left over to repeat the ancient tale and go the way of God's foolish ones. . . . — Jim Strathdee
by Ken Sehested
“Why stand ye gazing . . . ?" (Acts 1:11)
My Dad wasn’t the least bit athletic; nor were others in his family. So we’re not sure where my sporting interest and coordination came from. I played every kind of ball available, whether organized or sandlot ad hoc. (And, last I heard, I still own my high school’s record in the discus throw.
Read more ›Selected by Ken Sehested
Dispute over the fate of immigrants is at least as old as ancient Israel’s covenant documents,
though the word is commonly translated in English as “strangers” and “aliens.”
Below is a sampling of relevant biblical texts.
Deut. 10:19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested,
Text: 2 Kings 6:8-23
The text we’ve just read is one of my favorites. The king of Aram—basically what is today modern Syria—is frustrated because his army’s maneuvers seem to be anticipated in every instance by the Israelite army. He’s losing every strategic advantage. Before he thought his generals were simply losing their edge. But the evidence now is overwhelming: He’s got a security breach; a spy in their midst; a mole inside his intelligence operation. Hackers have penetrated his firewalls. Wikileaks is broadcasting his campaigns.
So the King calls together the joint chiefs of staff. He demands to know the source of this security breach.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
In the surge writing following the massacre at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, the most significant may be Roxane Gay’s “Why I Can’t Forgive Dylann Roof.” (Stacey Patton has a similar piece in The Washington Post, "Black America should stop forgiving white racists.") I think it most significant not because I agree but because it states what so many feel because of a culturally-warped reading of Scripture.
Gay realizes that this counterfeit forgiveness is a form of cruelty to victims. All she says is true—but not true enough.
Read more ›“New faces: Charlotte’s Growing Interfaith Community” sponsored by Mecklenburg Ministries, Programa Esperanza, Community Relations Committee and International Ministries
Tuesday, 13 November 2001, First United Methodist Church, Charlotte, NC
by Ken Sehested
In the 19th chapter of the gospel of Luke, in the Christian Newer Testament, is this brief transition narrative as Jesus approaches Jerusalem. He’s near the end of his career and is prepared for a showdown with the ruling elites of the age. And you should know that Luke purposefully arranges this episode immediately before the story of Jesus’ outburst in the Temple, where he turns over the money-changers’ tables, a notorious racket whereby corrupt religious authorities colluded with unscrupulous entrepreneurs to exploit poor and working-class people during their expression of religious fidelity and devotion.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested, Lynn Gottlieb, and Rabia Terri Harris
In the early weeks of 2011, during the Arab Spring uprising, Egyptian blogger Nevine Zaki posted a photograph from Cairo’s Tahrir Square. It showed a group of people bowing in the traditional style of Muslim prayer, surrounded by other people standing hand-in-hand, facing outward, as a wall of protection against hostile pro-government forces. Zaki affixed this caption: “A picture I took yesterday of Christians protecting Muslims during their prayers.”
Similar scenes—some ancient, some as recent as yesterday’s newspaper—have been arranged in a host of ways with a variety of religious identities. No religious tradition can claim a monopoly on compassionate courage. And yet such snapshots remain rare.
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
“Stingy spenders hold back growth.” So reads the title of a recent USA Today business section story reporting that “penny-pinching consumers tainted” otherwise robust economic indicators.
Is it a trivial matter to complain about such screamer headlines?
Read more ›by Ken Sehested
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation:
everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ,
and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them,
and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
2 Corinthians 5:17-19
Few things are more uniform among Baptist churches the world over than Sunday school. Many are surprised to learn that this organized form of Bible study began in Britain in the 18th century. And its specific purpose was to provide literacy training for poor children. It was a ministry of reconciliation in an age when industrialization was deepening the chasm of poverty.
Read more ›My hometown paper, the Asheville Citizen-Times, recently ran an editorial arguing that poverty is not inevitable. The following was my response, printed as a letter to the editor.
Wednesday’s AC-T editorial (“The cycle of poverty is not inevitable”) offers a compelling rebuttal to the notion that poverty is preordained. One reference, however, repeats a popular misreading of ancient authority: “Many who are not poor accept the biblical maxim that the poor will always be with us. . . .”
The “maxim” in Deuteronomy 15:11 (referenced by Jesus, in three of the Gospels, for other purposes) is the premise for this conclusion: “I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy.’”
Read more ›by Ken Sehested, Memorial Day 2015
The Al-Fanar Hotel restaurant was bustling when I walked in. I sat with a new friend, Charles, a professional photojournalist and fellow Iraq Peace Team member. There were about 40 of us, split between three hotels in downtown Baghdad on the banks of the Tigris River. This was February 2003, in the weeks leading up to the “shock and awe” invasion.
We were monitoring the effects of U.N. sanctions and providing an alternative account to that of the mainstream media’s war promotion. The trip was not undertaken lightly, given the impending invasion, along with the threat by our own government of prison sentences and steep fines for breaching the U.S. travel ban.
Read more ›Subscribers receive full access to the entire prayer&politiks site. It’s free. Each week you will receive an automated email with a link to the new edition of the Signs of the Times column. All you provide is you name, email address and city, state or province, and country. This information is never shared with any other party. The only other agreement you make is to receive two solicitation letters per year, one in the spring, the other in the fall. (Which you are free to ignore. Your subscription is still free, and you may “unsubscribe” at any time.) This is our modern begging-bowl. Contributions are our sole source of support.