I'm still "down under" -- wrapping up my book tour in Australia.  The news from the U.S. reminds me of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s first act on the day after his swearing in as prime minister.  In a moving speech, he delivered a speech of apology to the aboriginal people.

Tuesday, for the first time, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an official apology for slavery and segregation.  Over the past few years, five southern states have apologized, but efforts in Congress had failed. Congress has issued apologies before, to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893. In 2005, the Senate apologized for failing to pass anti-lynching laws. But never for slavery.

It is appropriate, because ultimately it was government policies that were both complicit in and directly responsible for this great inhumanity and injustice. Nobody alive in America today participated in slavery, many have no ancestors who did, and large numbers of families came to this land only after slavery was officially abolished -- but all white Americans have benefited from the poisonous legacy of slavery and discrimination.

The language of the resolution is clear on the importance of apologizing as a step forward. After recounting the evil of slavery, it concludes:

Whereas a genuine apology is an important and necessary first step in the process of racial reconciliation;

Whereas an apology for centuries of brutal dehumanization and injustices cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs committed can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help Americans confront the ghosts of their past;

Whereas it is important for this country, which legally recognized slavery through its Constitution and its laws, to make a formal apology for slavery and for its successor, Jim Crow, so that it can move forward and seek reconciliation, justice, and harmony for all of its citizens: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) acknowledges that slavery is incompatible with the basic founding principles recognized in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal;

(2) acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow;

(3) apologizes to African Americans on behalf of the people of the United States, for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow; and

(4) expresses its commitment to rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.

I hope the Senate will quickly pass a parallel resolution and that President Bush will publicly endorse it.  It would be an important day in U.S. history.

Kosher law forbids you from boiling a calf in its mother's milk. But how are human mothers who work in slaughterhouses being treated? In the wake of revelations about the working conditions at kosher slaughterhouses, some rabbis are demanding a higher standard of worker treatment -- and they're willing to lay down the law. It is estimated that more than 350,000 U.S. households keep kosher, or follow the strict set of dietary laws outlined by the Hebrew Bible. Before the May immigration raids in Postville, Iowa, the Agriprocessors plant there run by an Orthodox family supplied 60 percent of the nation's kosher beef and 40 percent of the kosher poultry.

Stories are pouring out of Postville about the inhumane treatment of the immigrant workers. Underage workers were arrested in the raids, some as young as 13. Many workers were forced to put in overtime without extra pay or breaks. Vulnerable people were exploited by religious business owners who systematically violated immigration and workplace laws. Rabbi Morris Allen had firsthand experience with the workers and their conditions in Postville and decided a moral response was necessary.

His alternative certification philosophy is rising in popularity and has been endorsed by several progressive Jewish groups. Hekhsher Tzedek, which means "certificate of righteousness" in Hebrew, goes a step beyond current kosher guidelines. An additional seal of approval on existing kosher meat products would mean it was processed and packaged in compliance with a set of social justice criteria in keeping with the teachings of the Jewish faith, including wages and benefits, workplace safety, environmental impact, and corporate transparency.

Many people may not have known about the worker injustices at a meat plant in a small Iowa town, but the raid has sent aftershocks felt by those who keep kosher at the dinner table. The Boston Globe published an article about the differing opinions of Orthodox and Conservative Jews on the issue and responses to Rabbi Allen's proposed certification. If anything, the Postville raid has opened up conversations about how people of faith look at the products they consume and the value we place on the treatment of those who prepare it. We should not allow this issue to focus on just the kosher meat industry. Rather, we should be compelled to look at where all our food comes from and explore ways to spend our dollars that support businesses that treat their employees with dignity and value justice in the workplace.

Allison Johnson is the policy and organizing assistant for Sojourners.

Tragically, the culture war crossed over fighting words to shooting bullets. Once again, a community of faith was caught in the crossfire. While 25 children sang songs from "Annie," a gunman fired three shotgun blasts inside the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. The seven people shot and two people murdered on Sunday morning are the latest victims of the culture war.  

Sadly, this wasn't the first shooting to occur at a house of worship in the U.S. and not likely to be the last. Do we remember the four teenagers and three adults who were murdered at Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1999? Two more died at New Life Church in Colorado Springs last December. In each case, the shooter turned his frustration with particular religious expressions into an occasion to kill. (And as a nation we continue to support the right to shoot others over sane gun control policies -- but that deserves its own separate conversation).  

While many evangelicals celebrated Cassie Bernall and Rachel Scott as martyrs who died for their Christian convictions at Columbine High School, I wonder if we will extend the same heroism to the victims in Tennessee? Evidently, usher Greg McKendry shielded the children performing selections from "Annie" and took the brunt of the shotgun blast. A retired schoolteacher, Linda Kraeger, also died from gunshot wounds. She was merely visiting the church. In both Columbine and Knoxville, the cowardly shooters took out their grudges upon innocent victims. Those with a conservative faith died at Columbine. Those with liberal beliefs perished in Tennessee. We mourn for them all.

The shooter in Tennessee, Jim Adkisson, has been identified as an unemployed divorcee. A four-page note found in his car described his contempt for liberals. When the system failed to work (evidently, his food stamps had just run out), Adkisson took up arms, aiming at those he had been trained to hate -- gays and liberals. 

Why did he single out Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalists? Evidently, the church recently posted a sign welcoming gays to their congregation. It set off a firestorm on conservative and Christian talk radio in East Tennessee. I found this online:

The specific chain of events that brought Jim Adkisson to the TVUC sanctuary was a recent decision to erect a sign specifically welcoming LGBT people into the congregation. That choice evidently set off a firestorm in the local right-wing community with the specific church and its location named repeatedly on right-wing and evangelical radio. The gunman, already looking for someone to take out his rage on, evidently took the path of local least resistance.  At any rate, while I'm not sure it's even worth assigning blame, it's not likely that Jim Adkisson would have driven the ten miles from his exurban hovel to my family's church if he hadn't learned what he needed about where to go on the radio.

While ultimate responsibility resides with the shooters, we can also connect these deaths to too much toxic talk radio. Both the left and the right play the blame-game all day long. On talk radio, my problems are always somebody else's fault.

This is the kind of tragedy that occurs when we adopt war rhetoric, turning our fellow Americans into enemies. Both sides have effectively demonized the opposition, laying blame for our problems at others' feet. Would it "kill" talk radio announcers to tone down their tenor for the sake of the common good? Could they sacrifice a few ratings points by refusing to serve the red meat their most radicalized listeners relish? Can we discipline ourselves to change the channel when the scapegoating begins?

I still recall my shock and horror when Paul Hill murdered Dr. John Britton in the name of "life." How could a graduate of Reformed Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church of America take up arms, killing in the name of God? I recently saw the chilling documentary Lake of Fire, which illustrates all the tragedies surrounding the fight over abortion. Director Tony Kaye captured early footage of Paul Hill, boldly proclaiming death sentences upon abortion providers. Lake of Fire also presents the horrors of an abortion procedure, including the emotional trauma that also follows. This even-handed movie leaves you with an enormous amount of sadness. There are no winners in Tony Kaye's bold documentary (or in our current culture war).

In response to all the overheated rhetoric, I created a documentary, Purple State of Mind, with my college roommate, John Marks. As I was entering the Christian faith 20 years ago, John was exiting. We revisited that crossing as an example of a constructive dialogue across the religious and political divide. Purple State of Mind is rooted in the profound hope that we can co-exist despite our differences. But plenty of patient listening must precede that fragile peace. We will not get there by burying our differences, but by bearing one another's burdens enroute.

I write this with a fair amount of trepidation. To promote peace to a war-mongering people can get you in trouble. I don't want to be placed on anybody's hit list. I do not want to put my children in the line of fire because I extend an olive branch toward atheists, homosexuals, or anyone else deemed "other" by the conservative Christian community. Churchgoers in Fort Worth, Texas, Colorado Springs, and Knoxville want to worship in freedom rather than fear. When something your pastor says or your congregation does can get you killed, we live in decidedly dangerous times. Heaven help us all to cease fire.

Craig Detweiler directs the Reel Spirituality Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary. He blogs at www.purplestateofmind.com. His new book, Into the Dark, searches for the sacred amidst the top-ranked films on the Internet Movie Database.  

"Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

- Matthew 18:10-14

+ Sign up to receive our social justice verse of the day via e-mail

The latest news on Immigrants, Housing bill signed, AIDS bill signed, Consumer safety, Low-income workers, Olmert to resign, Darfur, Iran, Iraq, Terrorism, Brazil, Food crisis, Pakistan, Canada, E-mail, and Opinion.

+ Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »

I know how very hard it is to be rich and still keep the mild of human kindness. Money has a dangerous way of putting scales on one's eyes, a dangerous way of freezing people's hands, eyes, lips and heart.

- Dom Helder Camara
Brazilian archbishop

+ Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail

Some compelling quotes from a recent Rand Corp. study caught my eye in today's Washington Post -- the emphasis is added:

The Bush administration's terrorism-fighting strategy has not significantly undermined al-Qaeda's capabilities, according to a major new study that argues the struggle against terrorism is better waged by law enforcement agencies than by armies.

The study by the nonpartisan Rand Corp. also contends that the administration committed a fundamental error in portraying the conflict with al-Qaeda as a "war on terrorism." The phrase falsely suggests that there can be a battlefield solution to terrorism, and symbolically conveys warrior status on terrorists, it said.

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors," authors Seth Jones and Martin Libicki write.

I was immediately reminded that the law enforcement approach was a position Jim Wallis took in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 -- long before the Bush administration's failures had created the political space for such concepts to be found in mainstream media. Jim wrote (emphasis added):

I’ve advocated the mobilization of the most extensive international and diplomatic pressure the world has ever seen against bin Laden and his networks of terror—focusing the world’s political will, intelligence, security, legal action, and police enforcement against terrorism. The international community must dry up the terrorists’ financial networks, isolate them politically, discredit them before an international tribunal, and expose the ugly brutality behind their terror. ...

I am increasingly convinced that the way forward may be found in the wisdom gained in the practice of conflict resolution and the energy of a faith-based commitment to peacemaking. For example, most nonviolence advocates, even pacifists, support the role of police in protecting people in their neighborhoods. Perhaps it is time to explore a theology for global police forces, including ethics for the use of internationally sanctioned enforcement—precisely as an alternative to war.

An I-told-you-so attitude is unseemly when it comes to the thousands upon thousands of lives lost in this conflict -- and not just those of U.S. forces and those killed by U.S. forces, but also those killed by continued terrorist attacks. Here's a sobering fact from the Rand study:

Addressing the U.S. campaign against al-Qaeda, the study noted successes in disrupting terrorist financing, but said the group remains a formidable foe. Al-Qaeda is "strong and competent," and has succeeded in carrying out more violent attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, than in all of its previous history.

The point is not to say "I told you so," but to continue to press for a smarter and more effective response to the very real threat of terror. Now that groups with such Beltway insider credibility as Rand are on record, perhaps future administrations can pursue such strategies with new courage.

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web Editor for Sojourners.

The Dark Knight, unlike many summer blockbusters, is actually an astonishing movie -- a stunning fusion of craft and entertainment, which manages to be both gripping in an edge-of-your seat fashion, and philosophically interesting. It's a violent film in which none of the brutality is played for the audience's pleasure, and although it's a comic book story, it takes place in a world that feels authentic -- one of phone books, champagne glasses, and real crime happening to real people.

However, it has been difficult to find interpretations of this new Batman film that delve beneath the surface sheen of sexy black vehicles and leather tights, or the morbid fascination with the late Heath Ledger's performance (admittedly extraordinary -- and so obviously based on Tom Waits that that growly-voiced minstrel deserves the Oscar too, even though he's not in the movie) as the Joker. For most people, The Dark Knight simply tells an archetypal story of a hero who loses (or mislays) his own soul in the attempt at bringing justice to the world. Gotham City in this film feels like many Western urban capitals -- oversized, noisy, with a slightly sinister edge, and the site for a battle of wills between criminals, local government, and the police.  The citizens watch in horror as the newly-anointed godfather of the most ethnically diverse Mafia in cinema history plays games with their lives, and they rely on the man in the cape with the really cool gadgets to "clean up the streets." Mix in some typical comic book stuff about good guys and bad guys being two sides of the same coin (almost literally, in the case of DA Harvey Dent), a couple of spectacular action sequences, a love interest, and there you have it: the blockbuster hit of the summer.

But The Dark Knight is much more than this. It's one of the most politically interesting (and provocative) films of recent years -- but it seems that only The Wall Street Journal has noticed. Only half-marks to the WSJ, I'm afraid, for although they recognize the fact that this film relates nothing less than the story of the "war on terror," they go on to suggest that it is a "paean of praise to President Bush." I beg to differ, for although it's impossible to tell whether or not the movie is pro-neocon without getting inside the head of co-writers Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, just because Batman does something doesn't mean we're supposed to like it.

Oh Batman, Oh Batman, how shall I compare thee to a Fox News Talking Points memo? Let me count the ways.

The film takes place in a world where ordinary rules don't apply. There is an irrational evil threatening the good people of Gotham City/New York/USA, in the form of the Joker/al Qaeda (never mind the fact that those who claim to speak for al Qaeda do not generally present their political aims as anything other than rational). Mainstream methods of law enforcement (jury trials, accountable policing) have failed to prevent acts of terror, and to bring the perpetrators to justice. Early on, Batman travels to Hong Kong and kidnaps a criminal banker, carrying out a rendition so extraordinary it involves putty explosives and an airplane with a human scoop attached (he gets the idea from his mentor, Lucius Fox, who himself says he got it from an experimental CIA program from the 1960s). Questions of prisoner abuse and the use of torture are raised explicitly -- with the Joker waving a bat-mask in front of the face of a terrified captive in a manner that can only evoke the images of Abu Ghraib; Batman beating a suspect into revealing the location of -- wait for it -- not one, but two ticking bombs; and the judicious placement of dozens of men in orange jumpsuits being ferried from an island jail. Beyond the allusion to the post-9/11 icons of Iraq, waterboarding, and Guantanamo Bay, The Dark Knight also manages to take in the relationship between the U.S. and China, where, lest we forget, the political class is currently engaged in discussions about how to manage America's decline.

But ultimately this film is about society's desire for a scapegoat. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain," say at least two of the characters, and it climaxes with Batman on the run from the authorities because people have started to blame him for what is wrong with their lives. In this regard, the film ends on a note that either satirizes or endorses the view that George W. Bush has been a shining hero, defending the free world from masked evil. I tend to think that the film comes down on the side of the angels rather than the hawks, in the way it raises the prospect that violence meeting violence produces only more violence. Indeed, the most hopeful and heroic act in the whole story comes from one of the men in an orange jumpsuit. But these things can be read a number of ways, and I could be wrong. In fact, I'm pretty sure that in spite of the film's extraordinary quality, the politics of The Dark Knight are so subtle that this movie will be a great comfort to President Bush in his retirement.
 

Dr. Gareth Higgins is a writer and broadcaster from Belfast, northern Ireland, who has worked as an academic and activist. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul: Finding Spiritual Fingerprints in Culturally Significant Films. He blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com and co-presents "The Film Talk" podcast with Jett Loe at www.thefilmtalk.com

On March 19, Israeli forces rounded up Assad Salach and his sons, Fahmi and Salach, and Assad's brother Sa'id and his son Ghassan -- along with more than 300 men age 16 and above -- along its northern border with the Gaza Strip. It is not the first time Israel has arrested the male members of the Salach family.

These days when militants launch homemade Qassam rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, they are usually launched from within the cities, not these border areas. Thus, it makes little sense for these men to be arrested solely for security purposes. Rather, it seems to be a method of pushing the families inhabiting the border areas into the cities and deserting their only source of income, their land. Israel is successfully destroying the potential of the fruit basket of the densely populated Strip. The once-luscious green land is now reduced to an arid no-man's-land, easily overseeable by Israel's security towers and drones overlooking it all. The economic crisis caused by this ongoing, intentional de-development of Gaza's economy is destroying the society's makeup.

The Salach's main family home was destroyed in 2001. Eight Israeli bulldozers crossed the nearby border and flattened the fields. Shortly thereafter, they came back and flattened the home with some family members still inside. That day Abu Assad, the Salach family grandfather, had a stroke, and he and his wife, Om Assad, were taken to the hospital. By the end of the day, Om Assad had lost her husband, her home, and the trees that had adorned the family's fields. She moved half a kilometer down the road to her other son's home. Today, Israel has taken him as well.

Despite a cease-fire, five of the Salach family members remain imprisoned without even a court case. Their fields still lie in ruin as the Israeli army fires at them when they try and approach it. Their old home remains demolished while the memories of the past continue to haunt them daily.

Assad and Sa'id used to collect the tank shells, things of ugliness, which Israel fired on them as they tended to their goats and fields. They would paint them, fill them with flowers, and turn them into vases -- things of beauty. "The day they started doing that the Israelis almost completely stopped firing at us," Assad's wife told me. As soon as the media spread pictures of their act -- turning death into life, ugliness into beauty -- the shells stopped falling. When the men were detained, so were the vases.

Philip Rizk is an Egyptian-German Christian who lived and worked in Gaza from 2005-2007. He is currently working on a documentary film, which is described at thispalestinianlife.blogspot.com.

Help me, O Lord my God! Save me according to your steadfast love.Let them know that this is your hand; you, O Lord, have done it.Let them curse, but you will bless. Let my assailants be put to shame; may your servant be glad.

- Psalm 109:26-28

+ Sign up to receive our social justice verse of the day via e-mail

We are going to render an account to God, not only for our idle words, but also for our ill-considered silence.

--John Trithemius

+ Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail

The latest news on Slavery apology, Sen. Stevens indicted, Homeless, AIDS-Black America, AIDS-global, Al Qaeda, Iran Afghanistan, Trade negotiations, Israel, Palestine, Karadzic extradited, Chile, and Opinion.

+ Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »

MoveOn.org pioneered the art of online political advocacy. As it celebrates its 10th anniversary, it can look at enormous successes and a host of new questions. Do politicians take mass e-mails seriously? Is advocacy by e-mail being replaced by text messaging and social networking? Can online activism be turned into on-the-ground organizing? They're questions that face every organization now using the same methods.

Duane Shank is the senior policy adviser for Sojourners.

All of us who choose to vote must base our vote on something.

For some people, it's party. They're Democrats or Republicans and from election to election, they support whomever the party serves up. For others, it's a litmus-test issue -- abortion, homosexuality, war, whatever. For others, it's fear or hope or some other "gut-level" appeal -- whoever scares or inspires them the most gets their vote. And for still others, it's a "group thing" -- they belong to a group (a race, a religion, an interest group, trade union, a social class, or whatever) that issues a statement on which candidate is most attractive to their group, and that's who wins their vote.

For many of us, none of these factors are satisfying.

My faith and commitment as a follower of Jesus won't let me decide based solely on party, litmus test, emotional appeal, or group affiliation. Rather than voting along party lines, I evaluate each candidate on his or her merits. I don't have a single litmus-test issue -- I see a wide range of issues that are all in play with varying degrees of weight. (More on this in a future post.) While I realize that both hope and fear have a role in all my decisions ... I don't want to be swayed by emotion alone. And because my faith commits me to a concern for "the common good," I can't simply let the interests of the groups I am part of determine my vote, but I must have a special concern for the poor and vulnerable, and must even take the needs of my enemies into account.

That, by the way, means I can't simply vote on what's best for Christians, or Protestants, or evangelicals, or whatever. My Christian commitment obligates me to ask what's best for Muslims, Jews, atheists, Buddhists, and others. And my understanding of environmental stewardship obligates me to ask what's best for birds of the air, flowers of the field, and fish of the sea too. Since they don't have a vote, I need to try to speak on their behalf. And as a citizen of God's kingdom, which transcends all national boundaries, I can't simply vote based on what's best for U.S. citizens: My vote has to have in mind the good of Mexicans, Canadians, Iraqis, Iranians, Chinese, and Burundians as well.

In this way, my faith doesn't make my voting easier ... it calls me away from a broad and easy highway to the voting booth to a rough and challenging path. Harder, yes, but for me, better by far.

Brian McLaren is an author and speaker and serves as Sojourners' board chair. You can learn about his books, music, and other resources at brianmclaren.net.

Andrew Berg, an International Monetary Fund African department policy adviser, is a nice man. I know this because he spent some time talking earnestly with me after an IMF press conference in which I'd asked a pretty confrontational question about Malawi, whose 2002 famine is often partly attributed to IMF (and World Bank) advice, and whose current bumper crops are attributed to ignoring it.

Berg looks a tiny bit like The X Files' Agent Skinner, but what this conversation brought into focus for me is that the IMF is not a vast conspiracy of evil, cigarette-smoking men. It's a large, overly influential group of people who earnestly push policies that are often disastrous.

While many civil society advocates insist the IMF is imposing its will wholesale on poor countries, it insists it's just inspiring them to choose sound policies. Given the huge power imbalance here -- very poor countries often need IMF approval to help get other international loans and aid -- many critics, like me, view the IMF's claim as a farce. Berg's and his colleages' earnestness, however, convinced me that they genuinely believe they're empowering government officials to do the right economic thing in the face of their citizens' political pressure to, say, raise the salaries of civil servants when the price of food shoots up.

And the IMF's critics, including me, are wrong sometimes in blaming the IMF rather than other challenges poor countries face. Take Malawi's 2002 famine. After talking with Berg, I did more research, and discovered that he was basically right: The famine really was caused much more by bad (and likely corrupt) national governance, bad forecasts, bad weather, and bad roads, rather than by the country's agreement with the IMF to partly reduce maize reserves. (I wasn't taking Berg's word for this, but rather frequent IMF critic ActionAid's.)

It was clear that folks at the IMF did care about the food crisis (and, at least somewhat, about years of criticism from advocates for the poor). Berg agreed that policies like grain reserves should be considered on a country-by-country basis, and he was strongly supportive of crop insurance for small farmers. The IMF panelists I heard said that governments should respond to the food crisis by spending money on social safety nets. This may signal a partial change from the IMF's traditional preoccupation with cutting government spending, partly so governments can make national debt payments and partly on the theory that government spending would somehow "crowd out" otherwise-eager private investment.

Overall, though, the IMF is still disastrously wrong in its unjustified overemphasis on "market signals." Take Malawi's current abundance of grain, which happened largely because the government decided to subsidize fertilizer. In recent decades, various international "experts" have advised many poor countries to stop helping their farmers with affordable loans, seeds, and fertilizer. The theory was that it would be better for farmers to buy these things themselves after selling their crops on the world market -- a great idea if it worked, which it really hasn't.

Malawi's fertilizer program ran directly counter to the advice of the World Bank (which has since repented). And this advice was seconded by IMF executive directors' brief expression of concern last year that Malawi's "government interventions in grain and fertilizer markets have continued to impede private sector development." (At the same time, the IMF assented to the need to "protect ... pro-poor spending," and a recent IMF report says its Malawi staff is now "generally supportive" of the fertilizer program).

Perhaps the most relevant kind of market signal is the way in which, over the last four years, almost all the middle-income countries who had borrowed from the IMF (including 90 percent of its loan portfolio) have run for the exits to escape the IMF's policy, um, advice -- so that it is now mostly the world's poorest countries who are dependent on the nice, but wrong, people at the IMF.

Elizabeth Palmberg is an asssistant editor of Sojourners.

The latest news on Budget deficit, Vice-presidents, Illegal hiring, Education, Bridge repair, Church shooting, Military execution, Israel-Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Peru, and Editorial

+ Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »

The job of the peacemaker is to stop war, to purify the world, to get it saved from poverty and riches, to heal the sick, to comfort the sad, to wake up those who have not yet found God, to create joy and beauty wherever you go, to find God in everything and in everyone.

- Muriel Lester
(1884-1968)

+ Sign up to receive our quote of the day via e-mail

So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
"This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines."

- Matthew 15:6-9

+ Sign up to receive our social justice verse of the day via e-mail

Though it is winter in Australia, the sun was shining on Sydney Harbor, one of the most beautiful urban landscapes in the world. With the dramatic architectural lines of the famous Sydney Opera House outlined against the sky-blue horizon and reflecting on the glistening sea, I couldn't wait to hop the ferry to Manley and from there walk to the crashing ocean to watch the surfers climb the waves. I love this place, and though I was suffering a bit of jet lag from the 18-hour trip from Washington, D.C., I knew this first day would be my best chance to get out on the water before the busy schedule began. I am here to do the Australian book and speaking tour for The Great Awakening -- which has a different title in both Australia and the U.K., Seven Ways to Change the World -- and to meet with the country's church and political leaders.

As the ferry headed across the harbor, I remembered fondly the first time I had seen these waters. I was rushing around the city of Sydney doing speaking and interviews, and I kept asking my hosts if we could go down to look at the harbor between appointments. Two of my guides were Aboriginals and began laughing at me. When I asked what was so funny, they told me that this harbor was a sacred place to the Indigenous People of Australia and that my attraction to it was spiritual. And, indeed, it still feels that way.

This time the ferry was packed with young people wearing backpacks. They were leftovers from World Youth Day, which had just concluded in Sydney. The event was highlighted with a historic visit from Pope Benedict XVI. Almost 300,000 young pilgrims had come to this land called "down under" from around the world, and the main mass had drawn 500,000 worshipers. This is a very secular country, but everybody was talking about the positive impact the presence of so many young people was having on the city of Sydney and all around Australia. Stories of warm welcomes, bright smiles, wonderful conversations, open spirits, and, most of all, a real sense of hope filled the streets and the massive media coverage of the event.

With all the problems of institutional religion, including in the Catholic church, many have been expecting that more and more young people would be turning "secular."

Indeed, my first media interviewers here asked about the attraction of the "new atheism" as a reaction against the failures of religion and of the American Religious Right in particular. But I kept getting nodding heads from reporters when I pointed out that the answer to bad religion isn't necessarily secularism -- it's perhaps better religion.

In the pope's homily, he addressed the challenges of secularism, greed, materialism, and injustice, while pointing to the alternative the gospel provides:

Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith's rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God's gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished - not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships.

In his welcome to the Pontiff, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, himself a confessing Christian, impressed the crowd with his own "homily":

Your Holiness, you are also welcome in Australia, a welcome guest for the wider Australian Christian community. You are also welcome in Australia on behalf of those Australians of other faiths and indeed for the general Australian community at large.

Your Holiness, you are welcome as an apostle of peace in an age where in an increasingly interdependent world peace is a much-needed voice among us all. You are welcome as a voice for the world's poor. You are also welcome as a voice of hope at a time in our planet's dealings when hope is most needed of all.

The kids on the boat were an absolute pleasure to watch and to be around, which isn't always the case with all aspects of youth culture. They were happy, even joyful, and thoroughly enjoying the spectacular harbor vistas before us. Apparently, my young Aboriginal hosts had been right decades ago about this sacred place.

I've often said that there are two great hungers in our world today: the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice. The connection between the two is compelling, especially for this new generation. You could see that in these young faces and hear it in their conversations. While the beauty of Sydney Harbor has been described as almost magical, this day's combination of God's stunning creation and the possibilities of the next generation seemed to me more spiritual -- and very hopeful.

The latest news on Immigration, Housing relief, Food banks, Federal deficit, Iraq, Iran, Darfur, Military humanitarianism, Bombings, and Commentary.

+ Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »