| Weren’t both sides of the conflict totally immersed in their own tragedies, each one oblivious to, or even antagonistic toward, the narrative of the other? Isn’t this inability to imagine the lives of the ‘other’ at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? - Sari Nusseibeh, a Palestinian philosopher, in his autobiography, Once Upon a Country, writing about Israeli Jew Amos Oz's book, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Oz's book was recently translated into Arabic for the first time due to the efforts of Palestinian lawyer Elias Khoury, who lost his family's land near Nazareth to Israel, and whose father and son were killed in separate Palestinian terrorist attacks. (Source: The New York Times) + Sign up to receive "Verse and Voice" - our daily quote and Bible verse e-mail 
Tell Glenn Beck: I'm a Social Justice Christian Glenn Beck says Christians should leave churches that use the word “social justice.” He says social justice is a code word for communism and Nazism. But since the Catholic Church, the Black Churches, the Mainline Protestant churches, and more and more Evangelical and Pentecostal churches including Hispanic and Asian-American congregations all consider social justice central to biblical faith, Glenn Beck is telling all those Christians to leave their churches. Of course, Christians may disagree about what social justice means in our current political context -- and that conversation is an important one -- but the Bible is clear: from the Mosaic law of Jubilee, to the Hebrew prophets, to Jesus Christ, social justice is an integral part of God’s plan for humanity. Beck says Christians should leave their social justice churches, so I say Christians should leave Glenn Beck. I don’t know if Beck is just strange, just trying to be controversial, or just trying to make money. But in any case, what he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show. His show should now be in the same category as Howard Stern. Stern practices pornography and Beck denies the central teachings of Jesus and the Bible. So Christians should stop watching the Glenn Beck show and pray for him and Howard Stern. Beck also said that if his church was about “social justice” he would report his church to the church authorities. What authorities? Church bodies as diverse in their theology as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Association of Evangelicals have explicitly endorsed social justice as a biblical imperative. So here’s an idea: how about reporting ourselves to Glenn Beck as church members and pastors who practice and preach social justice. Since Sojourners’ mission is “to articulate the biblical call to social justice,” I’ll be the first to turn myself in. And I invite you to join me in turning yourself in to Glenn Beck as a Christian who believes in social justice. Let’s send him thousands of names. BREAKING UPDATE: Our message to Glenn Beck is getting through. This morning on his radio show Glenn responded to our challenge with further distortions of the gospel and smears against Jim Wallis. Rather than respond to personal attacks, Jim would like to invite Glenn to a conversation about whether or not social justice is, as Glenn claimed this morning, "a perversion of the gospel." +Click here to tell Glenn Beck: "I’m a social justice Chrisitan"
Voices of Immigration
These accounts are taken from Voices of Immigration, a campaign of Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CCIR) aimed at highlighting the stories of immigrants in our country. Believing that every person is made in the image of God, we seek to restore the human element to the conversation around immigration reform. Each day this week we're highlighting a story on God’s Politics, with additional stories posted throughout March at CCIR’s Web site: www.faithandimmigration.org. Border Fence Limbo
by Jill Holslin Video: A Father’s Sacrifice
by Eileen Mignoni God is Going to Change Hard Hearts
by Juan Daniel Espitia 50,000 Pesos for Jorge
by Rob Neighbours
| INSIDE SOJOURNERS MAGAZINE |
How to Green Your Church (In Six Easy Steps)
The award-winning environmental ministry of Haygood United Methodist Church in Atlanta got started in 2007, when the climate gave congregant and stay-at-home mom Willa Paton-Smith a wake-up call. “We were experiencing a level-four drought and record temperatures, and it just felt like this is something we should be concerned about,” she told Sojourners. +Learn how she “greened” her church just six easy steps in this month’s Sojourners.
| ON THE GOD'S POLITICS BLOG | + See what's new on the blog of Jim Wallis and friends Glenn Beck Responds: Social Justice 'Is a Perversion of the Gospel'
by Ryan Rodrick Beiler
"Where I go to church, there are members that preach social justice as members -- my faith doesn't -- but the members preach social justice all the time. It is a perversion of the gospel ... You want to help out? You help out. It changes you. That's what the gospel is all about: You."
+ Click to continue How Obama's Faith Council Worked: Six Points of Consensus
by Jim Wallis
As some of you may know, I served on President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships for year one of his administration. Our one-year term is almost up, and yesterday we issued our final report to key members of the administration. The council joined together across religious, political, and ideological lines and achieved a remarkable amount of consensus in six different areas on how the federal government can form better partnerships with faith-based and other nonprofit organizations.
+ Click to continue Two Words for Glenn Beck, Five Thoughts for the Church
by Eugene Cho
Please don't leave your churches just because they have the words "social justice" on their Web site. If you want a good reason to leave your churches: Leave if the gospel of Christ isn't being preached and lived out.
+ Click to continue World Vision Staff Killed in Pakistan: The Cost of Courageous Compassion
by Heather Wilson
We often read numbers of soldiers killed in combat, but do we consider the blood-price paid by aid workers, both foreign and national?
+ Click to continue A Torture Apologist's Flawed Theology
by John Gehring
Marc Thiessen, the second George W. Bush speechwriter contributing to the Post, is in good company with several other professional pontificators who have argued that a little roughing up of the enemy is morally justified and an effective way to gather intelligence. Recent disclosures that abusive practices went even farther than previously known should give pause to some of the most committed torture apologists.
+ Click to continue The Jewish Roots of Christianity
by Julie Clawson
I was intrigued recently over a story I saw on the news about a Chicago man who faces possible jail time for taking his daughter to church. Apparently in the custody settlement with his ex-wife (a Jew), Joseph Reyes (a Catholic) was barred from exposing this daughter to anything but the Jewish faith. He then very publicly took his daughter to church and is now facing potential jail time for that act.
+ Click to continue By Fearing Churches that Speak out for Social Justice, Glenn Beck Fears the Gospel
by Ernesto Tinajero
While others have taken him to task for denying the very gospel, I take the time to look at the word justice. I have a feeling he does not understand Justice and he fears the word "social." I wonder if he would run away from a Ice Cream Social as a closeted gathering of Marxists?
+ Click to continue My Morning with Daniel Berrigan
by Jennifer Svetlik
As a Sojourners intern last year, I, along with my community-mates, had the opportunity to request speakers to invite to address us during weekly seminars. Peace activist and poet Fr. Daniel Berrigan was on the top of my list.
+ Click to continue Racism on Campus: UC San Diego's Struggle is Every Community's Struggle
by Rachel Burton
The deeply troubling events over the last month began with a weekend off-campus themed party called the "Compton Cookout," which encouraged party-goers to come experience a night of "life in the ghetto," dress in cheap clothing, speak loudly, and start fights in "celebration" of Black History Month. Females were encouraged to come as "ghetto chicks," and the event organizers proudly promised chicken, watermelon, and Kool-Aid to its attendees.
+ Click to continue A Pastor's Response to Glenn Beck's Call to Leave 'Social Justice' Churches
by Michael Hidalgo
Everyone is entitled to have his or her opinion, slant, or spin on any particular office, legislation, or politician. Each person also has a right to make his or her ideology known to whoever will listen. However, when you speak as a churchgoer, and when you begin roping the Church into your rhetoric, things get a little more serious.
+ Click to continue Hurt Locker Can't Contain the Reality of War
by Logan Laituri
What happens when our hurt lockers aren't big enough for what we need to jam in there? We had all kinds of training in boot camp how to pack efficiently, so I know we have put everything in there that we possibly can. Maybe that explains last year's epidemic of soldier suicides that have surpassed any year we have on record. I wish it were as easy as stuffing something in a box and shoving it somewhere out of sight.
+ Click to continue Maybe It's Not Supposed to Feel Right
by Eugene Cho
We wanted to live faithfully, dangerously, and passionately. But what we've learned is that it's easier said than done, which is why in recent years, we found ourselves slowly gravitating towards complacency rather than the "vision, mission, passion trajectory" we had agreed on years ago.
+ Click to continue A Disturbing Question and a Determined Conviction on the Treatment of Women
by Ken Fong
The Disturbing Question: When some Christian groups interpret the Bible as teaching that God created women to live in a male-ruled hierarchy, that they must obediently submit to male 'heads' or risk violating a divine mandate, aren't they also contributing to the oppression of girls and women?
+ Click to continue International Women's Day: 'Whom God Hath Made Equal'
by Julie Clawson
Of course, just mentioning the day's existence prompts some to ask "well, why isn't there an International Men's Day?" In response I'd echo my mom's reply when on Mother's Day I would ask her "why isn't there a kid's day?" and she would say "because every other day is kid's (men's) day."
+ Click to continue The Police Motorcade: A Sign of Change
by Jeannie Choi
Just 45 years ago police officers in Selma, Alabama, were standing on one end of the Edmund Pettus Bridge with clubs, tear gas, and whips waiting to unleash violence on the black women and men who were marching for the right to vote. Congressman Lewis was among the activists beaten on that day, known as Bloody Sunday. Today, police officers still surround John Lewis and his fellow civil rights activists, but this time, they are not out to harm them. Instead, they protect. Motorcades follow their every move -- not to hunt, but to herald.
+ Click to continue The Balancing Act of a Successful Woman
by Kathy Khang
We've come a long way, but it's still not a level playing field, which is in part why the length of the skirt, firmness of the handshake, and awareness of the hair flipping matters. You may not agree with the rules, but there are rules. Changing them means knowing them first.
+ Click to continue What Does the Civil Rights Movement Have to Do With Me?
by Jeannie Choi
When Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery on December 1, 1955, my parents were children growing up in South Korea. And when my parents immigrated to the United States in the mid-to-late '70s, the height of the civil rights movement had already passed.
+ Click to continue Committed: Family Values from Eat, Pray, Love Author Elizabeth Gilbert
by LaVonne Neff
In her current book, Committed , Elizabeth marries Felipe. This is not a spoiler: the cover gives away the ending. The interest lies in how she gets there -- kicking and screaming, apparently, but also interviewing everyone she meets as she travels in Southeast Asia; reading up on the history, sociology, and maintenance of marriage; and interweaving her studies with her own adventures and roller-coaster emotions.
+ Click to continue My Alter Ego
by Angela Batie
Sometimes, out in the world, I just want to be Angela the person, not Angela the minister. I don't quite understand it, because I love the work I do and am thankful every day for the privilege of working with students and sharing the Good News. But when I'm not at work, somehow there is a resistance to confessing this part of my identity.
+ Click to continue Why did God Create Women?
by Mimi Haddad
The quality of Eve's help is never that of an inferior or subordinate. Eve by definition was created to lend a vital form of power.
+ Click to continue + Sign up to receive our "Daily Digest" e-mail - the latest headlines on critical issues Top Stories:
Glenn Beck's Advice on 'Social Justice' Churches Sparks Outrage
The Christian Post
Glenn Beck, a Mormon, said the word “social justice” is code for communism and Nazism. “Beck says Christians should leave their social justice churches,” wrote the Rev. Jim Wallis, CEO of the social justice ministry Sojourners, in response to Beck’s comments. +Click to continue
Christian Groups Make Last-Ditch Health Care Lobbying Push
Charisma Magazine
Beyond Abortion: The New Debate Over the Health Care Bill Debate
Christianity Today blog
Obama Faith Council: Final Report and Recommendations
Religion and Ethics Newsweekly
Faith Council's final meeting
On Faith
Obama's spiritual cabinet
Religion News Service
Why Americans are so angry
The Christian Science Monitor
A Riddle of Life and Death Proportions: Why Conservative Christians So Often Fail the Common Good (Part I)
The Huffington Post
Rev. Wallis on Wisconsin Public Radio
Wisconsin Public Radio
Rev. Wallis speaks about the new economy at Harvard
Harvard University Institute of Politics
"Sojourners in the news" articles are the most recent news clippings that mention Sojourners in any way - whether favorably or unfavorably. Though we provide the text on our site for your convenience, we do not necessarily endorse the views of these articles or their source publications. | 
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