A Desperate Need for Imagination
The world is desperately in need of imagination.
I will never forget the words of an Iraqi doctor I met while I was in Baghdad as a peacemaker in 2003, protesting the “shock and awe” campaign. As the bombs ...
A Post-bin Laden Reflection on Violence
In the spring of 1999, during NATO’s bombing of Serbia, I was in the "Tent City" in Tirana, Albania. Floods of Kosovar refugees were pouring into the camps, telling horrific stories of rape and ethnic ...
The Cross Destroys Evil (Not Killing Osama)
My favorite t-shirt (a gift from my mates at “On Earth Peace” ) simply reads “When Jesus said, “Love your enemies, ” I think he probably meant, don’t kill them.” I put it on this morning and stepped out of m...
Violence in the Name of Faith
I received a question from a reader recently that asked: You write a lot about the plight of the Palestinians. Do you have anything to say about the murder of the Fogel family in Israel this past month, an...
Redemptive Poetry on a Night of Violence
It is Sunday night, and I am suddenly awake at the crack of too-close gunfire. I creep to the window without turning on the light, more curious than afraid until I remember I don’t know if my daughter Miran...
What Does Violence in the Bible Tell Us About God?
I recently received a note from a pastor and missionary we’ll call Pete. It went like this: “I have read most of what you have written, including A New Kind of Christianity … I would say I am in agreement with...