Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/religion-spirituality/christianity-religion-spirituality/page/4/)
“Environmentalism is just another religion” say some seeking to rebut people who link climate change to human activity. What about organizations such as Jesus People Against Pollution, which cite Scripture? Are their views grounded in the Bible?
The Christian response to nonviolent direct action in 1963 sounded similar to many critiques of Baltimore’s uprising today: yes, injustice is wrong. But we must be patient. Don’t stir up trouble. But when you come to a dead end, nonviolence teaches you to look for a resurrection.
The poor aren’t the ones marching in the street for climate action, driving a Prius, or installing solar panels on their roofs; they drive old cars and live in rented homes and trailers because that’s what they can afford. After finding out that some of them were paying a large portion of their income for heat and electricity because of basic energy inefficiencies, Good Shepherd Episcopal Church took action.
Jewish liberals and progressives reacted with enthusiasm to the announcement today that the Vatican will recognize the Palestinian State. Rabbi Michael Lernner, editor of Tikkun Magazine, released the following statement.
Violence in the face of hate only brings about more hate, thus creating an unending cycle. How could Pam Geller and the AFDI justify their perverse event as free speech?
The United States of America was founded on Christian justifications for oppression. But when clergy and lay people pronounce their conservative dogma on sexuality and gender expression, race, women, on other religions and on atheists, they must expect opposition to their ideas and to their dominant group privileges, to their interpretations of scripture, and to their constructions and revisions of history.
Now we are faced with the problem of so-called radicalization. How are young people from Europe and the United States indoctrinated with and by the glamor and mythology of the Islamic State and its promise of a caliphate? The way to counter the indoctrination of young Muslims is to stop associating their religion with terrorists. We ought to challenge the discourse that makes them the dangerous Other.
This weekend, Christians will remember the last week of Jesus’ life. If you ask Christians what the significance of Jesus is, they will tell you that Jesus “died for our sins,” paving the way for our souls to go to heaven after we shed this mortal coil. This common view is really a rather odd answer.
While we at Tikkun do not feel it’s fair to blame Christianity or imply that all Christians somehow implicitly support the kind of Christianity that leads some American Christians to feel that their murdering of Arabs or Muslims is doing Jesus’ work, we do think that Hedges’ powerful critique of the move American Sniper should be read by those who are too willing to forgive the American media for its implicit and sometimes explicit glorification of the US military.
There’s a new threat on the climate change front, and it’s a big one. The recent midterm elections not only put Republicans in charge of the Congress, but the party of science deniers made dramatic gains at the state and local levels. This impressive victory was made possible by huge infusions of cash from oil, coal, and natural gas interests.