Other Opinions

(RNS) — The choices Americans make now about faith in public life will help to determine our course. With hate crimes and hostility toward certain faiths soaring, Americans have to decide whether we will tolerate this state of affairs or act to change it.

On Rosh Hashanah, my Conservative synagogue put out postcards addressed to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, protesting the Trump Administration's immigration policy and calling on her to support a "framework" of pro-immigrant policies. 

(WW) — Nationalism always leaves us more enslaved, not more free. This is true because tribalism always shrinks us — a smaller world, more selfish goals, deeper fears and more distrust of the other.

(RNS) — More than 100,000 kids are currently waiting for foster homes in this country, while another 20,000 will age out of the system this year. What awaits those who age out is very often not a happy situation.

(RNS) — Sometimes it can feel like you are better off being white and guilty in America than black and innocent. We live in a world where black lives are too easily extinguished and white lives are too easily excused.

(RNS) — Christians, in other historical moments, have often remembered, rediscovered, returned and gone back to their obedient discipleship to Jesus Christ — both personal and public — in times of crisis. It’s called coming home.

Divorce numbers, down. Teen pregnancies, down. Rate of out-of-wedlock births, about the same. So, why are religious Americans more likely to believe social ills are on the rise?

"A compass will point to true north from where you’re standing," says Abraham Lincoln's character in the Steven Spielberg film. "But it’s got no advice about the swamps and the deserts and chasms that you’ll encounter along the way."

(RNS) — Netflix's docudrama "The Family" puts forward a false thesis based on a brief anecdotal experience of one of the filmmakers, shares communicator A. Larry Ross, spinning conspiracy theories about political power and international intrigue to fit a biased and pejorative agenda.

Like health or saving for retirement, a key component of any type of successful ministry boils down to a basic understanding, sometimes forgotten: Humans can be educated and encouraged to accept Christ, but we cannot be forced into that decision.