Grace Over Greed
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It's finally happened – after four years of dodging a life-threatening virus, our household has finally been invaded by COVID-19. Our multiple vaccinations against the disease appear to be holding the discomfort to a minimum, and we're told we may have the latest mutated strain that settles more in the head than the chest. Nonetheless, we feel like death warmed over, so this column will be bare bones without the usual snappy patter.
Advocating 'Grace Over Greed'
If you don't get the General Board of Church and Society's newsletter, you're missing out on good information about U.S. social issues and opportunities to help others. Currently the board has collected its efforts under the theme "Grace Over Greed." Here are excerpts from the latest issue:
Environmental Justice: Action Alert: Tell Congress to Fund Climate Justice
Economic Justice: Action Alert: Tell Congress to Expand the Child Tax Credit Important Update! Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith just announced a bipartisan agreement to expand the Child Tax Credit. The CTC proposal will make meaningful progress toward the goal of ending child poverty.
Civil and Human Rights: Action Alert: Protect Vulnerable Youth and Religious Workers . Throughout the United States, many migrant children are having to live in limbo due to the visa backlog. This has and is creating great harm for the security and protection of children, as well as for religious workers, who are protected under the same rules and subjected to the same backlog.
Peace with Justice: Action Alert: Tell Congress to Call for a Ceasefire in Israel and Palestine As the violence continues in Israel and Palestine, call on your Members of Congress to support ceasefire, de-escalation, and restraint by all involved. We pray for the innocent civilians, many of them children, who have been caught in the crossfire. As we pray, we must also remain steadfast in our witness for peace.
Suffering in Gaza
NPR reports that four months into the Israel-Hamas war, the suffering in Gaza has worsened severely. Its Jan. 22 newsletter said: "As the Israel-Gaza war continues for a fourth month, more than a million Palestinians are taking shelter in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city. Many have fled violence for the fourth or fifth time. Demand for shelter and skyrocketing prices for materials have made finding even a tent difficult."
"Some badly needed tents are waiting on the other side of the Gaza border. They've been rejected at Israeli inspection points due to fears Hamas could use the metal poles to make weapons.
"Nighttime temperatures can dip into the 40s. Fresh water must be purchased, and there are no bathrooms. "These are not conditions meant for human beings," a U.N. spokesperson says.
Check out npr.org/mideastupdates for more coverage and analysis of this conflict.
Save the planet with love
Michael J. Coren, the Washington Post's Climate Coach, wrote Jan. 11:
"If you want a winning climate message, try love.
"That’s the takeaway John Marshall is trying to spread after three decades advising marketing executives at big brands such as General Motors."
Marshall's PR firm has found that one argument over all others — “protecting the planet for future generations” — proved to be most effective at spurring action on the climate crisis. So when we talk with our fellow church members about supporting climate change actions, appeal to love for children and grandchildren.
Doomsday Clock 2024
Illustration Courtesy of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
It's 90 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists unveiled this year's Doomsday Clock, and the world remains in serious peril from multiple sources, according to the announcement. The Doomsday Clock was invented by the Bulletin 75 years ago when the publication was founded as a way to highlight the dangers from the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In the years since, especially as threats mounted in the 21st century, the publication now includes four categories of risk that humanity will self-destruct: nuclear, climate change, biological threats and disruptive technologies.
" The members of the Science and Security Board (who set the Doomsday Clock's time) have been deeply worried about the deteriorating state of the world," reads the Bulletin. "That is why we set the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight in 2019 and at 100 seconds to midnight in 2022. Last year, we expressed our heightened concern by moving the Clock to 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been—in large part because of Russian threats to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine."
To our mind, the rationales for the Doomsday Clock's current setting bring us back to the kinds of activism urged by the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society. We may disagree on how, under God, we should respond to the world's peril, but it's certain that the worst will happen if we do nothing. We must "put feet on our prayers," as the saying goes, by acting as Jesus taught, loving our neighbors as we love God, because God loves us.
Media Mentions as of Jan. 22, 2024
Historic Methodist rift is part of larger Christian split over LGBTQ issues - USA Today
Vote on clause that split Methodist churches to happen soon | News - Tahlequah Daily Press
African asylum-seekers recount 'humiliating' conditions at Tukwila encampment – Real Change
Volunteers work to help over 100 people staying at warming shelter - WECT
St. Paul & St. Andrew Church Lands $250K Grant to Help With 'Crucial Repairs'; 1 of 16 in the U.S. – West Side Rag
New conservative Methodist denomination eyeing expansion in the Southwest – The Christian Post
Southington United Methodist Church damaged after fire breaks out in office - WFMJ.com
Congregations 'splintering' in United Methodist Church - The Herald Star
United Methodist Church: Most disaffiliations from UMC in the South - The Tennessean
Local United Methodist Churches Plan Another “Operation: Home Repair” - The Mountain Eagle
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An award-winning religion journalist who has reported on The United Methodist Church at all levels for 36 years, Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, an online journal she founded in 2011. "Crisis Watch" forms part of Insight's participation in Covering Climate Now, an international collaboration of some 600 news outlets around the world committed to enhance climate coverage. To reproduce this content elsewhere, please email Insight for permission.