Originally posted Nov 25, 2015 by Drew G. I. Hart on his blog Taking Jesus Seriously at ChristianCentury.org The struggle has come near, so what should we do? When is it the right time to take sides, standing with those that live with the daily threat of violence, suffering, and death? Who decides? In the midst of 400 years of white supremacist terrorism many Christian communities still do not want to take sides. Neutrality and the middle way has always been a tempting option for those not directly violated by the concrete death-dealing forces taking people’s lives away quickly through bullets […]

Likely to be a major winner at the Academy Awards, Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight is not only a great film but a vitally important one. That importance has less to do with the specific story it tells than with the film’s general subject matter: investigative journalism. I believe risky investigative journalism is the most important prophetic work of our time. The specific story is based on true events, so I will take the liberty of describing more of the plot than usual, with a spoiler warning for those who don’t know the facts and might want to watch the film without […]

The serious countdown until Christmas is on. It is always hard for pastors and columnists to find or write new material for big special days as they roll around. But there are stories that grab us and stop us in our tracks to say, yes, yes, this is what Christmas is truly about. But when he said his line, he simply could never get it right. The first story comes from a present-day Hutterite colony. Yes, people still live in communities where they share possessions based on the practice of the early Christians in Acts 2: “All those who had […]

By Charissa Zehr The quilts were hung with care and pride at the front of the open-air pavilion where the graduation ceremony was to take place. The vivid colors and detailed piecework narrated the story of a community that was ripped apart and has worked their way back towards wholeness, piece by piece. On one side, the quilt portrays a rather idyllic scene – children at play, animals, vegetation, and people going about their daily tasks. The opposite quilt stands in stark contrast. The mountain backdrop is similar, but one house is engulfed in flames; armed people in fatigues line […]

The Hunger Games series slogs to an end with the second part of the Mockingjay. If you have seen the previous three films you need to see this film to bring resolution, which is what the producers were counting on when they split the third installment into two. That seems to be the standard approach with these epic stories, which in essence is what Katniss discovers as the series draws to a close and understands how both sides in this battle have attempted to manipulate her for their own purposes, just as we are manipulated to pay for one more […]

By Rebekah Sears, MCC Ottawa Office policy analyst I love watching our Canadian political processes unfold: elections, tracking the promises, critiquing the results, the whole game of politics. In a time of transition – a change in Prime Minister and also a change in the governing party – there are endless things to watch and monitor: who is in charge of what file, what are the governing party’s plans and promises, when can we expect results? For us at MCC’s Ottawa Office, some of the files in which we are especially interested include those relating to Canada’s role in the […]