Andrew Hamilton April 08, 2008 The vehemence with which appeals to sentiment are rejected in public life is constantly surprising. Symbolic gestures that involve the heart, like the apology to the Stolen Generations, are often seen as a substitute for practical action. The vehemence with which appeals to sentiment are rejected in public life is […]

Trees that grow tall have deep roots. Great height without great depth is dangerous. The great leaders of this world – like St. Francis, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., – were all people who could live with public notoriety, influence, and power in a humble way because of their deep spiritual rootedness. Without deep […]

When I sprained my ankle last year, the doctors’ advice on gauging how quickly I could return to normal activities was “Let the pain be your guide.” Well, thanks be to God, I was never in such pain that I couldn’t walk (with an Aircast), drive, and concentrate on my work. Still, I was, for […]

God loves everybody equally, but has a particular concern for the oppressed. God’s concern for the oppressed expresses itself in a call to action. And this may involve God’s people participating in a bloody struggle for total liberation. God is passionately committed to democracy – as opposed to autocracy – and instructs his representatives to […]

1 Cor.1:26 “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to […]

Acts 4:18 “Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19But Peter and John replied, ‘Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. 20For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and […]

I will hazard a terrible guess: that we have lost Afghanistan as surely as we have lost Iraq and as surely as we are going to “lose” Pakistan. It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror – yes, our terror – of Islam that is leading […]

Gal5:22 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23nonviolence and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” It is a great irony to me that the greatest example we have in modern times of someone who did act on Christ’s advice, did not claim to be a […]

The ten items to think about list is at the bottom. But before I write it, I think I should express how I got to the point of thinking about and listing the ten ideas. This morning I attended a peace “action” in Berkeley. The issue has made national news recently as the government is […]

Generation after generation reject God’s agenda for love and justice. And generation after generation continue to construct political economies that enrich a powerful minority at the expense of the majority of the population. Till, one day, God steps onto the stage of human history, in the person of Jesus Christ, to show us the way […]

Jer31:31“The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, […]

Right from the beginning the organization of Israel as a nation was in stark contrast with the nation of Egypt that had enslaved them. They not only left Egypt’s “pyramids of stone” behind; but also left Egypt’s “pyramids of state” behind them. They sought to be a “holy nation” – “not like the other nations”. […]