Poverty's lifelong damage
Decades worth of data have proven that poverty shortens lives. Will anyone respond?
economic inequality
Uniting the new working class
Today's laborers are more likely cleaning toilets than mining coal. But there's still a need to organize.
Need to confess
The whole church needs to encounter the courage and truthfulness of the fact that God created us good, to love and be loved.
American Christianity has faced theological-political crises before. Repeatedly, visions of what is possible for the nation have fallen short of reality. In the past, periods of change pushed faithful people to reconsider what they believed, not only about the nation but also about the meaning of God’s call to justice. In each critical moment, for good or ill, Americans altered their religious views, and the horizon of what was possible expanded or contracted. In revolutionary America, disunity resulted from debates over whether faith required obedience to the king or a revolt.
Cultivating equality
Even if increased equity were to involve a slightly smaller pie, the resulting social order may be preferred. When poverty declines, the social costs of poverty fall, and despair is replaced by hope.
Any attempt to counter Donald Trump's appeal needs to address the fundamental economic realities behind that appeal.
A new pope arrives in the United States. Expectations are high for this different type of papacy that brings fresh air from a land that has never given Catholicism a pope before. He comes to America as a media star, having energized not only Catholics, but many of other faiths or even no faith at all. His charisma and direct contact with people in the pews contrast starkly with the remoteness and intellectualism of his predecessor as pope. Catholicism has been in the doldrums for more than a decade, but his unexpected election has sparked excitement and curiosity. He gives voice to many who haven't been heard and have been yearning for leadership.
As the climb of upward mobility has grown steeper, our rags-to-riches entertainments have grown more garish, random, and humiliating.