First Sunday of Advent (Year A, RCL)

What comes first—your actions or your beliefs? Here's Paul's answer: neither one. What comes first is the love of God.

J. Denny Weaver is steadfast in his conviction that any conception of God found in the Bible must first be compared to the person of Christ himself.

Here in Chicago, reporter Rob Wilderboer found a compelling story last week:

The Chicago Police Department throws out about $2 million every year. It’s money that is forfeited by the city when police destroy the guns they seize rather than sell them to licensed firearms dealers. The decision is made for emotional, political and ideological reasons.

Wilderboer sets it up as a simple choice: money for the CPD/other City services? Or the satisfaction of destroying weapons?

There's a broad consensus that peace between the Israelis and Palestinians depends on a two-state solution. So why doesn't it happen?

I work remotely, out of my home office. As such I am dependent on the smooth and ready operation of computer equipment. Recently I encountered some hitches.

Working with this week's apocalyptic Gospel text evokes memories of childhood experiences and teachings in a Mennonite congregation with a fundamentalist understanding of Bible and life. Within that setting, however, my family was solidly Anabaptist in outlook and rooted in social justice concerns. My public school was, for a community in the middle of rural Illinois, a virtual hotbed of ecumenicity, with all the major and many of the minor denominations represented. All this made for some interesting tensions, especially in a family with an ethos of discernment rather than rules.

Christ as weapon, Paul?

Few things are more complicated than trying to erect a new monument in the heart of Washington, D.C., but on September 9, 1997, a gigantic crane cut through all of the red tape encircling Judiciary Square and lowered a four-ton sculpture to its permanent cement base. What made this particular installation remarkable was the biblical symbolism of the sculpture’s design. Titled “Guns into Plowshares,” this 16-foot-high steel plow blade consists of 3,000 handguns welded together to form the distinctive shape of the well-known farm implement. Artist Esther Augsburger and her son worked for two and a half years with the Metro Police Department. They molded handguns that had been surrendered by local residents.