“You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’” Jesus said in one of his more head turning sermons. “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

As a professor, I always dread the class period where I return the first graded assignment of the semester. 

As a child at the movies, I always wondered what happened after the final embrace. Where did the drifter go after he rode off into the sunset? What does the bad guy in jail do for the rest of his life?

Buzzard, a darkly comic independent film about a callous and manipulative office temp, has been making the rounds in select theaters and streaming online, but it deserves a higher profile.

“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience.” –Edward Said

Imagine a man named Joe. He is 20 years old and lives in Michigan. Joe commits a misdemeanor. It doesn’t matter which one. For the sake of this story, pick any one you wish. Let’s imagine that Joe is caught, convicted, and is incarcerated for a time.  According to our system of justice he has paid his debt to society and thus returns to his community as a free citizen.  Right?

"Thus the most democratic country on the face of the earth is that in which men have, in our time, carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desires and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes. Is this the result of accident, or is there in reality any necessary connection between the principle of association and that of equality?"

Last month Becca McBride asked Are You a Culture Maker? This month she asks: Are you a culture shaper? 

Just last month, 21 Egyptian Christians, or Coptics, were martyred by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).  ISIS came into a Libyan village with a list of names; knowing who the Copts were by the ancient tattoo on their hands.

Why do bad things happen to good people? If God is real, why does He allow so much suffering in the world? These questions plague every Christian and non-Christian alike.

Al Gore recently made minor headlines by incorporating poetry into a speech at the United Nations Climate Summit in Lima, Peru.

Listening may not seem like the most practical of political tools.  It can appear far removed from critical policy-making.  But let me make the case as to why listening may be the most practical thing we could focus on right now.

Citizenship is a calling for a lifetime, one where generations build upon the work of previous generations. 

In the real world, justice is often achieved through mundane means: committees, courtrooms, conversation. In the movie world, however, it’s usually won by a guy in spandex and a cape.

A woman at the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, MA. 

We are in this together, I am through you and you are through me—we need each other to be human.

It is well past time for Congress to once again become a serious player in American politics.

We call them random, but I don’t think they are.

I believe a Christian cannot sustain the Orwellian, utilitarian, and nationalistic arguments that are made to justify these methods.  

"Realize that change is long, gradual and takes persistence."