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Death in the Desert: Riding With the Samaritans

By Lauri Lebo

…the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that similar laws in Hazleton, Pennsylvania were unconstitutional. The number of deaths have increased even as illegal immigration has fallen dramatically in the past ten years. The economic downturn and high unemployment rates may have deterred immigrants from coming here, both legally and illegally. In addition, the federal government’s stepped-up border patrol forces, combined wi…

Celebrate Jesus with Weird Merchandise!

By Gwynne Watkins

…tween the bunnies-and-eggs version of Easter, and the church-service version. Merchandisers are wise to define Easter by marshmallow chicks and colorful baskets, rather than bring theology into it. But there are always exceptions. One is the Oriental Trading Company. Founded to create cheap plastic toys for carnivals, OTC is now a leading supplier of cheap plastic stuff for church groups and Christian schools. Their party supply catalog always con…

How Not to Support Obamacare

By Peter Laarman

…he Fred Upton bill, could do on Sunday’s Meet the Press: “If you had your plan before the enactment of the law in 2010, there is nothing in the law says you have to [change it] . “ And Stenny Hoyer, Pelosi’s Democratic Whip in the House: “We knew that there would be some policies that would not qualify and therefore people would be required to get more extensive coverage.” I leave it to you to judge how much ethical content you detect in the comme…

Updated: My Work on Confederate Monuments Leaves This Christian Ethicist Distrustful of Calls for Reconciliation and Healing

By Ryan Andrew Newson

…d—even if this meant abandoning the project of Reconstruction and leaving Black people relatively defenseless in the face of legal and extralegal attacks. Continuing to reckon with the immediate past was considered toxic, passé, and—industrialists pointed out—bad for business. These voices calling for reunion won the day, and what followed could not be genuinely described as a painful but necessary process of truth-telling and the material rightin…

The Economy is Racism: Ending Race-Based Economic Violence is the Real Challenge of This Moment

By Peter Laarman

…have been kept down at the very bottom in order for the American System of cheap labor to function. Although Henry Clay opposed slavery in theory, the need for this ongoing subjugation was most certainly in the mind of The Great Compromiser who coined the term “American System” during the expansionist years of ‘Indian removal’ and a related Second Middle Passage that took over one million people in shackles from the Chesapeake to the rich bottomla…

NC’s Gay Marriage Ban: “It’s Going to Hurt the Church”

By Nicole Greenfield

…,” Bakker said, noting conservative Christianity’s continued insistence on law and regulation and divisiveness. “I wish people lived life on life’s terms instead of turning the Bible into a cruel, old book.” Bakker’s emphasis on love and compassion has come under attack in light of his recent participation in the campaign against Amendment 1 in North Carolina. Referring to Bakker’s theological “feel-good stance” as “cheap grace,” Rev. Mark Creech…

Hookers for Jesus: Sex and Salvation on the Strip

By Nicole Greenfield

…to addressing. But Lobért’s own motive for employing the trafficking and slave labels seems just as much about a quest for personal absolution and recognition as it is about saving women from sin or raising public awareness. When it’s ‘prostitution,’ no one wants to talk to you, but it’s the same thing,” she told Salon writer Tracy Clark-Flory. “You’re being trafficked. You’re being enslaved. You might not see the chains, but they’re there.” The…

Are American Christians “Persecuted”?

By Eric C. Miller

…its less-than-real varieties. To his credit, Dreher has always balked at claiming membership in a persecuted class, though his concerns about the loss of religious freedom often toe a blurry line. Therein may lie a problem, or at least a source of confusion. While Dreher often explicitly disavows the suggestion that Christians are “persecuted” in America, he also claims that they are increasingly marginalized and discriminated against. This may b…

“Reconciliation” With Indigenous People is Comforting For Many Canadians, But is a Christian Concept Up To The Task?

By Pamela Klassen and Joseph Wiebe

…something that is over and done with, but rather to a persistent way of relating to places and people that obscures and denies Indigenous connections to land. As Starblanket and Hunt write, “it is not only Indigenous peoples’ physical bodies that are under assault in processes of colonial dispossession, but also our long-standing relationships to our ancestral lands.” Telling stories of settlers “fighting against nature” was an intentional ploy b…

Does War Make Sense? Science and Religion on the Battlefield

By Nathan Schneider

…ghanistan on the Pentagon’s payroll. Often impervious to both military regulations and local laws, these companies have operated with tremendous latitude, forging business and security relationships on the ground that will make them very difficult to extract should the politicians ever want to. Already outnumbering the regular soldiers deployed in Iraq, this highly adaptable force blurs the lines between business and warfare, military and civilian…