[W]e can never know the ecstasy of true hope without attending to the tragic realities of the poor and forgotten. from The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement
Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity...
I am sure that God did not intend that there be so many poor. The class structure is of our making and our consent, not His. It is the way we have arranged it, and it is up to us to change it.------------------------------------Gender-neutral version: I am sure that...
One great reason why the rich, in general, have so little sympathy for the poor is because they so seldom visit them. Hence it is, that according to the common observation, one part of the world does not know what the other suffers. Many of them do not know because...
The reality of human society and acquisitiveness is such that the poor will always tend to be exploited; a society built on the competitive principle means that in order for there to be a winner, there must be a greater number of losers. In such a society, where law...
I reject the version of Jesus who would have told the rich young ruler, “you are blessed” instead of, “give everything to the poor and follow me.” Who would have pushed women to the fringes of the narrative, instead of empowering Mary to be the first preacher of...
Maybe more than ever before in my lifetime, my friends and I are aware of our brokenness and the deep crazy, the desperation for light, hope, food, and medicine for the poor. What helps is that we are not all crazy and hopeless on the same day.
The question is not whether we should mix Christianity and politics. To follow Jesus is to be political. The issue is whether our understanding of Christianity makes the world more gracious or less gracious. Do we work against injustice, oppression, greed, and...
God's Word teaches a very hard, disturbing truth. Those who neglect the poor and the oppressed are really not God's people at all--no matter how frequently they practice their religious rituals or how orthodox are their creeds and confessions.
The proper use of money is not for living high down here; that would be a very poor investment indeed. No, the proper use of money is for investing as much of it as possible in the lives of people, so that we will have treasure in heaven. Of course, we need to keep a...