Unsettling Advent 2023, Day 3
Rev. Carlos L. Malavé of the Latino Christian National Network contrasts our propensity for fear and fighting violence with more violence with an alternative reality revealed to us through this liturgical season.
Unsettling Advent 2023, Day 2
Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood reflects on how there is nothing pure about the death penalty process. It ensnares us all. So, where does hope fit in?
Unsettling Advent 2023, Day 1
Brian Kaylor reflects on state executions during Christmastime and the modern parallels with a biblical character we often leave out of our nativity sets and pageants.
The Return of Unsettling Advent
We’re excited to announce that Unsettling Advent is coming back again with new themes. Once again, we’ve assembled a fantastic group of writers to help us all consider Advent in light of issues from the news this year: state executions, political anxieties, and bloodshed in
Unsettling Advent 2022, Day 28
Brian Kaylor reflects on the 1914 “Christmas truce” during World War I and why it he does not find it to be an inspiring take on what “peace on Earth” could look like today.
Unsettling Advent 2022, Day 27
Social worker Sophie Day writes that this Advent, she has not had the luxury of looking away from the hurt in this world as an execution date looms for another one of her clients on the Tenth Day of Christmas. In her work, but especially
Unsettling Advent 2022, Day 26
This Advent, Rev. Dr. Kristel Clayville wishes this for all of us: that we feel the deep connection with each other, the energy that it creates, and that we use that hope to transform the world. Hope is not a sign of naïveté in a
Unsettling Advent 2022, Day 25
Professor Greg Carey writes that hope is an essential strategy for Christians. As the apostle Paul said, three things abide: faith, hope, and love. Love may be the “greatest,” says Paul, but hope stands in the top three.
Lessons from Unsettling Advent
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.
Unsettling Advent 2022, Day 24
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.