Like many of us, I took time to reflect during the 9/11 quarter-century commemoration. That horrible moment understandably became a critical inflection point for U.S. politics and culture. Yet it is estimated that a third of the current U.S. population was born after that fateful day, and so do not carry its existential weight (right,…
     Elaine and I take an annual summer sojourn to Saskatchewan to visit with friends, family and colleagues. We write this blog from her home-town of Saskatoon, and share below two highlights from this year’s adventure. Hosting a Canadian Debut of Cynthia Welik-Salgado’s “Beyond Borders”     Central to our time in SK was curating an…
BCM board member John Parker, who’s been rolling with us since 1999, always has his finger on the pulse of faith and justice work in North Carolina. He alerted us to the May 18 issue of the Alban Weekly, which gave our work a shout out (emphasis ours): As ministers and congregations bask in…
Immigrant Rights through a Pentecost Lens:Divine Polyculture vs. Imperial Monoculture Publishing at the intersection of seminary, sanctuary, streets and soil has been at the heart of BCM’s work for almost thirty years. Because our books prior to HHH and HARP were similarly deep dives into faith and justice, they maintain their relevance, since threats to…
“Why do you stand looking into heaven?” (Acts 1:11) – Commemorating Nakba Day through the Lens of Taybeh Today (May 14) is Ascension Day, a Christian Feast Day not widely appreciated or understood. Readers of HARP can find a brief engagement with Luke’s account (p. 206), but I’d recommend a longer reflection from last year’s…
    Elaine and I returned a few days ago from a week back east, where we visited beloved elders in New England, then participated in a Public Theology & Public Policy Conference hosted by our friends Bishop William Barber and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at Yale Divinity School. It was good to catch up with colleagues we…
Friends:    I first took a retreat at Our Lady of the Redwoods Abbey in Mendocino County, CA in the late 1970s. There I met two Cistercian monks who had deep impact on me. One was Mother Myriam Dardenne (1920–2010) , the first Abbess, who offered me the liberating affirmation that my study of scripture was a form…
PODCASTS: Our friend Ragan Sutterfeld just released an hour-long interview he did late last year with the Ekklesia Project about the Bible, Christian Zionism and the war on Palestine. He talks with Ched and our Canadian colleague Sylvia Keesmaat (right). Check it out here. We’re getting to know young Sabeel activist theologian Thanh Nguyen; Ched…
Feast of Epiphany (January 6th, 2026) Thirty years ago, my then-young Jewish godson dubbed the Christmas season “the days of craze.” He wasn’t wrong: the consumer-industrial complex’s relentless seductive-compulsive huckstering drives us crazy by effectively drowning out the good (if subversive) news of Mary’s Magnificat and angelic pronouncements that God’s sovereignty trumps empire. Sadly, the…
23rd Sunday after Pentecost – Lk 20:45-21:36 I am tardy for this last in my series of blogs on Luke and HARP during this lectionary Year C. I was scrambling to shape this material for a Center & Library for the Bible and Social Justice webinar last night with Chuck Collins (right), a stimulating conversation…