Soul (and Brain) Food: February Edition
Winter is waning, Lent is warming up, and we’re still laughing about all the Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday memes that populated the internet during the year’s shortest month. Check out these must-reads that we shared on Sisterhood Facebook page during this time of transition:
Religious liberals capitulated to the same Niebuhrian realism and economic neoliberalism that came to dominate the Democratic Party. Any bold alternatives to the status quo could be dismissed as idealist and purist. This has led to predictable patterns in which religious liberals come out to denounce Republican wars, deportations and privatizations, but overlook Democratic ones as acceptable “lesser evils.””
“My trust in God has had to grow sideways. Instead of ballooning more securely in the idea that everything was definitely going to work out for me, I’ve had to seek God in the darkness and the brokenness. This is a Lenten book written for a Lenten people. Jesus’ witness requires that we learn to stare down the abyss and walk towards our own deaths. Take up your cross. He wasn’t really joking, though I like to think he had an evil sense of humor.”
For National Day of Prayer of Feb. 8, here was an excerpt from President Obama’s remarks at the National Day of Prayer breakfast in 2015:
“Our job is not to ask that God respond to our notion of truth — our job is to be true to Him, His word, and His commandments. And we should assume humbly that we’re confused and don’t always know what we’re doing and we’re staggering and stumbling towards Him, and have some humility in that process. And that means we have to speak up against those who would misuse His name to justify oppression, or violence, or hatred with that fierce certainty. No God condones terror. No grievance justifies the taking of innocent lives, or the oppression of those who are weaker or fewer in number.
And so, as people of faith, we are summoned to push back against those who try to distort our religion — any religion — for their own nihilistic ends. And here at home and around the world, we will constantly reaffirm that fundamental freedom — freedom of religion — the right to practice our faith how we choose, to change our faith if we choose, to practice no faith at all if we choose, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination.
There’s wisdom in our founders writing in those documents that help found this nation the notion of freedom of religion, because they understood the need for humility. They also understood the need to uphold freedom of speech, that there was a connection between freedom of speech and freedom of religion. For to infringe on one right under the pretext of protecting another is a betrayal of both.”
To coincide with the National Day of Prayer, the Aspen Institute Justice & Society Program released a new report, “Pluralism in Peril: Challenges to an American Ideal.” The report offers guidance on specific action steps to increase basic religious literacy, promote allyship and community resilience, and build bridges between youth of different faith traditions.
If you are a faith leader, this is a report for you!
“The first movie I remember seeing in a theater had a black hero. Lando Calrissian, played by Billy Dee Williams, didn’t have any superpowers, but he ran his own city. That movie, the 1980 Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, introduced Calrissian as a complicated human being who still did the right thing. That’s one reason I grew up knowing I could be the same.
If you are reading this and you are white, seeing people who look like you in mass media probably isn’t something you think about often. Every day, the culture reflects not only you but nearly infinite versions of you — executives, poets, garbage collectors, soldiers, nurses and so on. The world shows you that your possibilities are boundless. Now, after a brief respite, you again have a President.”
“How will we give up old institutional habits of racism, ableism, misogyny, religious bigotry this Lent? What does that wilderness look like? Join us.”
It’s Lent, and Kaitlin B. Curtice is wondering: are we even capable of giving up violence?
Are we even capable of undoing what we’ve done, of true lament, of true steps toward shalom?
“God in the White House”
From Washington to Obama — the presidents’ religious beliefs and their impact on politics
“Because even Jesus, when he walked this earth, saw institutions from the inside out. He watched them begin to fray at the edges. He overturned tables when injustice seeped from the deeds of the holy and powerful.
And the truth is, for America, the “us versus them” narrative isn’t working anymore.”
Have soul-changing books, articles, podcasts, songs, writers, speakers, etc. to share? Send them our way at spcsisterhoodchronicles@gmail.com!
