In an ongoing series of prison-related stories from around the world, this article will take us to Pakistan, one of the several countries in the Indian Subcontinent of South Asia located between the Himalayas in the north and the Indian Ocean to the south.
As you might expect when sitting down with a seminary president, Wednesday’s edition of “Leading Theologically” was wide-ranging, touching on hot yoga, online education, gun violence and justice.
The rooms we occupy — those places where breath is taken, words are spoken and memories are made — are often taken for granted. They have four walls and a ceiling, reflecting the personality of the occupant or the traditions of an organization. But can rooms be more?
A recent article published by Vox titled “Everyone wants forgiveness, but no one is being forgiven” captured our attention. “Modern outrage is a cycle,” the subhead reads. “Could a culture of public forgiveness ever break it?”
For the past five decades, the Rev. Jim Wallis has been exploring the complexity and possibility of two of his favorite words, “justice” and “faith.” On Wednesday, Wallis, the founder of Sojourners magazine who now directs the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University, delivered a talk at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., exploring whether American democracy is even possible given the threats to voting rights, civil rights and any number of other challenges Americans are facing.
Indigenous communities have been struck by the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit people (MMIW) for decades. This epidemic is a systemic failure where Indigenous women are going missing and being murdered at alarmingly high rates with minimal justice. Within the past several years, the MMIW movement has brought awareness of this violence to the public’s attention. Still, there is much work to be done.
Had he been told in advance about the death and heartache wreaked by the pandemic, the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol and the killings of people of color over the past months, “I’d be tempted to run away, to cower in anxiety and fear,” the Rev. Eugene Cho, president and chief executive officer of Bread for the World, said during a sermon featured in the recent Festival of Homiletics. “I’m grateful that God, out of God’s goodness and grace, has invited all of us to be leaders in a church that serves through humble servant leadership.”
Presbyterian World Mission’s Office of the Middle East and Europe brought together representatives from global partners in Southern Europe virtually recently to discuss the interconnections of justice, solidarity and mutual ministry.