Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

I plan to turn in my ballot today. I would be willing to wait in line for 12 hours to do so, just like so many in other states have been forced to do as a result of voter suppression efforts. There is a lot riding on this election, and I see it as a right and a responsibility to add my voice to that of so many. I will fill out my requested ballot in the comfort of my home and then do whatever is necessary to take it in to be counted. If that means standing in a line for half a day wearing a mask, so be it. I am energized to vote, and so will I do. On the other hand, I find that the candidates on the ballot to be a major indictment of our current political system. There is too much riding on this election to throw away my vote to a third-party candidate. The question I keep returning to, however, is, "Out of a population of 331 million people, how are these the best candidates our political parties have been willing to put forward?" The second question is, "Why a...

We like to talk about others being violent. We discuss urban violence as an issue of another’s sin. We discuss the seemingly endless conflict in the Middle East as a moral blight based on the otherness of the actors in that far away place. We discuss corruption and oppression in other nations and cultures as though our own hands and history bear none of the stains. When Jesus talked about seeing the speck in the eye of another while there is a log in one’s own eye, he reminds us that we often rush to make ourselves feel better by tearing another down. That is an act of violence that dissociates us from those we cast as “other.” Meanwhile, we are called to love one another without distinction. Why, then, do we seek to tear others down, taking pleasure in the suffering of others? Such is not of God. I repeatedly hear claims that God is presented in the Hebrew Scriptures as wrathful and vengeful. As I read those Scriptures, however, I find something very different. Sure, they tel...