Christianity

The Fast We’ve Chosen: Begging with Our Friends

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Today Christians in Durham join sisters and brothers around the world to begin the season of penance that we call Lent. Pastors and priests call us to “remember you are dust and to the dust you shall return.” Recognizing that our sinful inclination is toward hubris, we dedicate forty days to the imitation of Christ’s humility through the practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
But this year, Christians in Durham face a challenge: we cannot give to the beggar on our city’s streets because panhandling has been outlawed in Durham.

Christianity

Faith Among the Millennials

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Here’s a little video on living in community as a practice of Christian faith. Christian Community w/Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove from The Work Of The People on Vimeo. A few years ago my friend Dorothy Bass, who directs the Valparaiso Project on the Education and Formation of People in Faith, wrote to ask me if I’d help write a book presenting the Christian faith to “emerging adults.” At the time I didn’t know what an “emerging adult” was, but when I heard the description, I knew that it fit. This was me, in many ways.

General News

Giving Up Spiritual Journeys

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Don lived for years in the Chicago area, working hard and trying to keep up with the fast pace of his profession. Several years ago, he left the city and took a job on a somewhat remote college campus run by Benedictines. While visiting on the campus once, he and I walked the carefully cared-for grounds, talking about our faith. “Since coming here,” Don said, “I’ve given up my spiritual journey.” I could tell from his smile that he had a point to make, so I asked what he meant.

General News

Face Time for the Movement

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A friend told me a story about visiting her son during his first semester of college. She took him to dinner (a chance to eat something other than cafeteria food) and sat across from him, eager to hear how school was going. After looking at the menu, she looked up to see his head hanging down across the table. “Oh, what’s wrong honey?” she asked with motherly concern.

Christianity

My Education in Wake County Jail

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I got locked up once when I was in seminary. It was the dead of winter, and for some months a group of Christian peacemakers in North Carolina had been organizing civil disobedience to public executions at the state prison in Raleigh. Four or five times they had arrested and booked us, then let us out in the night on a promise to appear in court. Finally, the DA had enough. He asked the magistrate to set our bonds at $5,000 each.

Inter-Culturalism

Interdependence Day

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A few years ago I was invited by an evangelical campus ministry to speak on the campus of a liberal arts college. My topic was Christian peacemaking, and the Christians advertised my talk on campus by sharing the story of how I learned what God’s love looks like when Muslims in Iraq offered me and my friends life-saving hospitality just three days after our country had bombed their hospital. This story caught the attention of a Muslim group on campus and they invited me to meet with them for a meal before my talk. After telling my story, I asked the Muslim students to share about their own experiences of practicing their faith in America. “We have a lot in common,” one of the students said to me.