If Christians are going to be agents of change and representatives of the cross, then it is our duty to be aware of the injustices of the world.

"Please don’t forget.  Because I believe you have a beautiful role to play in the world."

"No matter the time or place, whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, or stay-at-home-parent; whether you’re 18 or 30; whether you have a high school diploma or a PhD; you can serve God through your vocation." 

Let’s approach the coming campaign season less like a battle and more like an opportunity to learn more about our government, ourselves, and those around us. 

"But whether we’re Millennials on the edge of survival or on the cusp of finally attaining full-time employment, the sinkhole in which we find ourselves trapped is more than a financial one; it’s a spiritual one, too."

Tens of thousands of children have fled poverty and violence in their Central American homelands and are now caught in a political dispute among the United States populace. 

Commenting on a recent New York Times article about a new study indicating a geographic regionalization of upward mobility in the U.S., James K.A. Smith pointed out that it failed to consider a key question.  “What are the features of these locations that correlate with upward mobility?”

A government appointing a poet laureate both confirms the art and suggests hope that it’s for everyone, not merely an educated coterie.

"Yes, Hobby Lobby is a business. But it is a family-owned organization comprised of individuals driven by faith to act in accordance to their conscience. Faith penetrates every aspect of how companies like this do business."

"Yet as we know from the real world, a pluralist society is a delicate one, susceptible to the reactionary instincts of the fearful."

"We are not shying away from our responsibility to seek justice for the victims and families of these crimes, but at the same time we are recognizing the humanity of the convicts.  We recognize that they bear the image of the same God whose image we bear as well"

 The local church is one of the best places in our society where there can be a deep interchange between the public and private worlds.

"Today’s grandstanding politics rewards pithy attacks and zingy one-liners but leaves little room for the diligent and complicated work needed to craft public policy and implement it well. Many partisans prefer the easy route of casting blame over the harder but essential path of working constructively to meet compelling needs."

"So let’s be angry about it.  Don’t do the nice Christian thing where we just soft-peddle as peacemakers (as holy of a calling as that is), but take our culture to task as prophets.  Let’s be harsh on ourselves, too, that we tolerate a world that laughs off this kind of language in commercials, movies, and beyond as “boys will boys.”

"Some of the most pressing questions we face as a country over the next decades will have to do with how we live together in light of our deep differences – and the LEGO movie affirms that life is multi-dimensional and interconnected, that authentic diversity is important, that both collectivism and individualism both diminish human potential, and that every person is “The Special” are all eminently worth remembering as we participate in public life."

"There can be no justice or progress in American politics until we can learn to agree to disagree in a way that works...This process of bridging the gap starts with each of us. If we open our minds, and agree that people at their core are all striving for the common good as Aristotle would proclaim, then we can begin the process of being better neighbors to one another."