Last Wednesday morning, on the way to a meeting, my car stopped accelerating. Then the engine died altogether. I was able to direct the car into the central turn-lane of Roosevelt Road, the major thoroughfare on which I was driving, but I was stuck. My gasoline gauge had been near empty for several days, […]Continue Reading →
Last week, my alma mater, Wheaton College, announced it was joining the Catholic University of America in a lawsuit over a provision of the new health care reform act that, they feel, would force them “to violate their deeply held religious beliefs by providing access to abortion-causing drugs or paying severe fines.” The […]Continue Reading →
For the literally millions of American evangelicals who say that they want to stop the evil of human trafficking, there’s an urgent need to move from passionate sentiment to specific action. The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a bill this week, H.R. 4970, that would dramatically limit the relief available to foreign-born victims of human trafficking and other violent crimes, and in the process hinder law enforcement’s efforts to prosecute traffickers. Continue Reading →
Having coauthored a book entitled Welcoming the Stranger, my interest was piqued by the similar title of a book I spotted on a bookstore shelf recently: Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity (Eerdmans, 2009) by Calvin College professor David I. Smith focuses on the intersection between biblical faith […]Continue Reading →
Alabama made headlines last week by becoming the most recent state to pass a tough immigration law that supporters hope will drive undocumented immigrants out of the state. The bill, which one of sponsors called “an Arizona bill with an Alabama twist,” actually goes well beyond the scope of the controversial SB 1070 […]Continue Reading →
Tabitha defies a lot of the most common stereotypes about undocumented immigrants: she didn’t enter the country illegally, she’s not from Mexico, she speaks English fluently—and she’s certainly not a menace to be feared. To the contrary: she’s teaching the rest of us how to faithfully extend hospitality, even to strangers. She reminds me of Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10: Jesus could have made the Samaritan the guy beat up on the side of the road to Jericho and the Israelite the noble neighbor who models love and compassion, but Jesus challenged his listeners’ assumptions. It was the Samaritan, a member of a despised group of outsiders, whom Jesus puts in the role of a neighbor. And he calls us to “go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).Continue Reading →
