Within the Bible’s many pages are texts that sanction military violence, impose limits on its use, and imagine a world beyond it. Given the diversity of social settings—and the more than thousand years over which these texts were composed—this should hardly surprise us. The Bible’s reflections on war are every bit as complicated as our own.

God is good and everything God created is good. Take some time to engage with cultural expressions that are similar or different from your own.

…I saw bitter fruit in all its forms of pain and hurt. How contempt for those unable to pull themselves up by their bootstraps leads to making decisions based on interpretations of efficiency rather than care.

I've become convinced that if Luke had chosen a picture of the gospel instead of 24 chapters of writing... [he] would have drawn for us a big table, wooden and worn and homey.

"God’s abiding among us happens precisely amid, alongside, within the complexities of our experiences with home and with belonging."

Jeff Chu wears several hats, including writer, reporter, and editor. He's also the co curator and co-host with Sarah Bessie of Evolving Faith. He's an occasional preacher. Some days, Jeff says he believes in God. Other days, he wants to believe in God.

Let’s revisit Chu’s talk from our 2022 Enfleshing Witness gathering.

The Reverend Ranjit Mathews preaches because God has called him to prophetic and embodied witness to those with ears to hear. His vocation is to love extravagantly, and to invite the shedding from systems of white supremacy, purity culture, patriarchy, and the gospel of production. Let’s revisit his talk from our 2021 Enfleshing Witness gathering.

Dr. Christine Hong usually mostly writes and teaches, instead of preaches, as a seminary professor. But after her writing and teaching slips into sermon mode, and she's mostly sorry about it, Christine mostly teaches and preaches to seminary students and their loved ones at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia. Christine preaches among an amazing group of colleagues and friends with the spirits of her ancestors.

Jesus embodies a different kind of knowing, a different ministry and witness that comes with stiff social and economic penalties. His visions of an end to evil and dehumanizing systems so that all might flourish. Those were both popular and exceedingly disruptive.

I believe we are in another “what we tell our grandchildren” moment with Afghans, Ukrainians, Haitians, Venezuelans, and so many more, fleeing war and violence around the world and seeking protection in the U.S. What will tell our grandchildren when they ask us how we responded?