In this issue of A Public Witness, we want to share some of what we’ve learned from our Unsettling Advent series this year. We hope these insights will be meaningful in these last few days before we celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Terrell Carter writes that unfortunately, mass shootings and other acts of violence have become an ordinary experience in our world. Some might say that this upward trend in violence epitomizes the “ordinariness of suffering,” the fact that violent things regularly occur in the world.
Adriene Thorne of Riverside Church writes that God’s people can choose to care for one another with lavish love and justice. That is the better world we dare to anticipate during Advent.
Thomas Lecaque writes that the AR-15 has been claimed as the sword Christ will wield in the Apocalypse. It is not a tool for revelation, but it is certainly a tool of Armageddon. It is a gun that ends worlds.
Jeremy Fuzy writes that it is an American tradition to believe in the myth of redemptive violence — the idea that we can get violence under control by using more violence. But state-sanctioned killings, whether by police or the death penalty, do nothing to stop
Brian Kaylor writes that ten years ago today an armed man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and opened fire. This massacre at Christmastime evokes memories of part of the biblical story we tend to leave out of our nativities and pageants.
Lisa Sharon Harper writes that here, in the darkness, we acknowledge all the deaths that have occurred from gun violence. Here, in the darkness, we say to each fallen soul: We see you. The dark is clarifying. Isn’t it? When we allow ourselves to sit
Michael Martin, founder and executive director of RAWtools Inc., writes that Christians are both one of the largest gun-owning demographics in the country and are consistently labeled as judgmental, especially toward the LGBTQIA+ community. This Advent, let us reflect on the inclusive ministry of Jesus
Bekah McNeel writes that Advent affirms we are right to wonder. It sighs, “not yet,” in reply. Advent reminds us that the Prince of Peace is coming to a wounded, fearful people, but he is not here yet. Peace is still twisted and detoured by
On Sunday evening, a man opened fire in a shopping mall in Greenwood, Indiana, killing three people and wounding two others before also being shot dead. What city officials said in response sparked some odd headlines.