My presence at the birth was completely unexpected.
In the giddy yet seemingly endless days leading to the birth of our first grandchild on Nov. 9, our daughter, Elizabeth, and I talked about everything under the sun. Whether I had stretch marks after pregnancy. Who would drive her to the hospital when her labor pains began. Who would walk the dogs while she was in the hospital. How much paternity leave would her husband, Ryan, get. When could her father, John, and I share the news on Facebook.
Human rights violations are far too common in our world today. These violations come in the form of exploitation, discrimination, violence and many other horrors. These rights are God-given by our nature of being human and being God’s children. However, they have been simultaneously named by society and have been declared human rights by documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and countless examples of legal repercussions for those who have violated the rights of others.
During the past two years of Covid and other global crises, progress against the HIV pandemic has faltered, resources have shrunk and millions of lives are at risk as a result. This year, UNAIDS is challenging us to tackle the inequalities and inequities in HIV prevention and treatment. Inequity exists between countries and within countries. In Madagascar, only 15% of those infected with HIV know their status, while in the U.S.A., 87% of those infected know their status. Both countries are striving to reach at-risk populations.
For more than 52 years the Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People (SDOP) has helped communities recover from the legacy of racism and structural inequality infecting every nation around the world. The focus on community comes into focus when our story is shared in Spanish, El Comité Presbiteriano del Autodesarrollo de los Pueblos.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day to name and mourn the many transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people murdered each year because of their gender identity. On this day, we raise awareness of the extreme violence committed against transgender people simply for existing as they are. On this day, we commit to the work of creating a healed world where all gender identities and gender presentations are met with not only respect but celebration.
Roughly 421,400 people were unhoused in the U.S. last year, and 127,750 of them were chronically unhoused, meaning they didn’t have a place to stay for a year or more, according to National Alliance to End Homelessness data. Unhoused rates have been climbing nationally by about 6% every year since 2017, the alliance said. The increase in the number of unhoused people comes when housing costs are soaring and prices for essentials like food and transportation continue to rise.
Church and state. Faith and politics. Religion and government. What a charged “and” links these oft-contested realities. Amid such flurried contests of identity, borders, meaning and structure, what do intercessory prayers, active participation and prophetic critique look like? How, when so many institutions — political, cultural and religious — appear to be fraying at the edges, are we to pray, participate, and critique in ways that heal and transform? These are pressing queries that resist simple answers. And yet perhaps a partial answer rests in the realization that there are numerous ways to engage in the life of faith and the civic realm.
World Community Day began in 1943 as a day for church women across denominations to study peace. After World War II, leaders of denominations felt that they should set aside a day for prayer and ecumenical study. The leaders thought that while many denominations were performing peace and justice work by themselves, having a day when they could study together would be beneficial to all. The theme for this year’s World Community Day is “Labor with Love, Hands to Heal.” “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10 NIV). As Christians, we are the hands and feet and heart of Christ in this world. Let us do all we are called to do in love.
Forty years ago, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in South Africa adopted Belydenis van Belhar — the Confession of Belhar — in its first reading. Belhar was an outgrowth of the DRMC’s effort to grapple with the church’s participation in and defense of apartheid and touches prominently on themes of unity, reconciliation and justice. The DRMC adopted Belhar in its final form in 1986.
By the end of World War II, there was a great urgency and need for global peace, and from that the international organization the United Nations was founded. Today we come together to celebrate the creation of the United Nations as the world’s only global organization and the one place where the world’s nations can come together to discuss shared problems and find solutions that bring peace and prosperity that creates a better world and future for all people.
