From the “sobering and upsetting” file: there’s a new book out by investigative reporter Benjamin Skinner that lays out the horrifying prevalence of human slavery today. (In addition to the NPR story, read the excellent reaction and further commentary at On the Square.)
The book (a short excerpt of which you can read at the NPR [...]

Well worth watching. The message of this speech is timeless:

How have you been remembering MLK today?

How do you redeem ground that’s been tainted by an evil history? Cathleen Falsani writes about a church in Zanzibar that was constructed on the site of an old slave market. The result is an amazing symbolic statement, made not with costly monuments and elaborate architecture, but with the church’s physical location:
The Anglicans purposely built [...]

This comic from ASBO Jesus has been bouncing around my mind for the past few days.

Most people do care about social justice; however, so often our indignation turns into paralysis due to the magnitude of the world’s problems. Personally, I’ve found it much easier to be incensed about how bad off the world is [...]

The American Center for Law and Justice has filed a petition with the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that ordered a Utah city to allow a non-traditional religion to erect its seven tenets beside the Ten Commandments or to take down all such monuments.
Summum, which believes its Seven Aphormisms were also brought [...]

Liberty Counsel’s Matthew Staver is out with a “Naughty & Nice” list for stores this holiday—excuse me, Christmas—season.
If the store doesn’t specifically use the word “Christmas” in its store promotion, it goes on the “naughty” list and all God-fearing Christians are expected to boycott the business. Home Depot made that list by using phrases such [...]

Burmese Christians, many of whom have suffered severe persecution, are stepping forward to support the pro-democracy movement there:
Persecuted Christians in Burma are showing unequivocal support for Buddhist monks who have been leading pro-democracy marches against the country’s military Government, a leading human-rights activist who has just returned from the region has said.
Members of the predominantly [...]

Out of Ur has a good two-part essay asking how Christians should understand the call to do justice (link goes to part 1; here’s part 2). The suggestion? Christians should focus on local, person-to-person justice as a part of their everyday faith, rather than treating it like a political concept or a special church program:
If [...]

Donald E. Wildmon, of the American Family Association, recently sent out an email headed “A bill in Congress makes it a crime for pastors and churches to speak against homosexuality.”
He writes
If pastors and other Christians don’t aggressively oppose a bill now in Congress, in the near future they will be subject to huge fines [...]

First, I believe that homosexuality is a sin.
Second, I believe that the biggest black eye on the American church is how we’ve treated homosexuals.
So, I have a suggestion. This is really gonna tick off some folks, but you have a year to get over it and even prepare for it.
You see, on a Wednesday in [...]