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We tend to forget that in his famous “Beyond Vietnam” sermon at Riverside Church, 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that the US is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government.” The older he got, the deeper his analysis of the causes of poverty and violence became, the more often he talked about the need for our country to “be born again.” This is the kind of born again faith we need to herald. — Ken Sehested

When Jesus speaks about the world, he is very realistic. He speaks about wars and revolutions, earthquakes, plagues and famines, persecution and imprisonment, betrayal, hatred and assassinations. There is no suggestion at all that these signs of the world’s darkness will ever be absent. But still, God’s joy can be ours in the midst of it all. It is the joy of belonging to the household of God whose love is stronger than death and who empowers us to be in the world while already belonging to the kingdom of joy — Henri Nouwen

When the King puts the poet on the payroll, he cuts off the tongue of the poet. — Arabic proverb

I imagine in the future there will be a million little things that will save us. — Pete Seeger

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. — Howard Zinn

In response to critics who label him a Marxist, Pope Francis responds: No, my critique of capitalism is not because I'm a Marxist—it's because I'm a Christian. Since his election last March, the pope has been offering a critique of what he has called "unfettered capitalism" and the "idolatry of money." Just days after the papal conclave, the new pope declared, "Oh, how I would like a poor Church for the poor," and in May he slammed the global financial system for "tyrannizing the poor" and turning humans into expendable consumer goods. And he has consistently been articulating the critique ever since. But it was the pope's more recent comments that really freaked some people out—and even drew the labels "radical" and "Marxist" from detractors. In his recent apostolic exhortation called Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis wrote: "As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems." — Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a question whether faith can or is supposed to be emotionally satisfying. I must say that the thought of everyone lolling about in an emotionally satisfying faith is repugnant to me. — Flannery O’Connor

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 to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. — Martin Luther King Jr.

When six corporations control more than 90% of media communications, the media does not inform, it indoctrinates. Corporate media provides selective information, often unreliable, for the express purpose of controlling public opinion, rather than informing it. The mainstream corporate media giants cannot be trusted to accurately report political corruption or collusion. — Egberto Willies and Keyan Bliss