There was a raid at a meat-packing plant in Postville, Iowa, yesterday, in which about 300 people were detained. Please keep them in your prayers. The Des Moines Register ran a moving article about the role of a local church in helping the community deal with this crisis:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant scattered the Hispanics of Postville. About 400 found their way to St. Bridget's Catholic Church, waiting for information. Some filled out G-28 forms that allow a lawyer to represent their detained children or minors in their care.

A woman who would identify herself only as Judy said she and her husband work at Agriprocessors. The last time she saw him was before his shift Monday, about 5:30 a.m.

"No, I don't know where he is," she said in Spanish.

Judy said she and her husband came from Mexico illegally. Like many others at St. Bridget's, they regard the church as a haven from law enforcement.

Asked whether the church would indeed be a safe place, Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget's said, "That is our belief and hope."

...

Standing outside the Agriprocessors plant, Adolfo Calderon said he tried to put himself in the shoes of someone here illegally.

He has friends who work at the plant, he said, most of whom are in America legally, but he feared for the families who might be separated.

"They shouldn't do this," Calderon said. "I understand it's a legal (issue) and they're trying to do their job, but what happens to these poor families?"

Adolfo Calderon, 15, said his father manages apartments in the town. With the raid, those apartments could be cleared out and his father could be put out of business.

Hidie Roach, a teller at Citizens State Bank in Postville, said the raid gives the town a bad name.

The town needs the packing plant, Roach said. "I think a lot of people will leave."

At St. Bridget's on Monday night, Real, the lay pastor, fielded calls, answered questions and handed out pamphlets advising immigrants of their rights while trying to keep about 400 people clothed, sheltered and fed.

His wife, holding the phone to her ear, said a caller was offering food. Did they need it?

Real, without looking up from his desk, answered quickly.

"Say yes."

Sojourners and Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform is working with religious leaders in the state to release statements denouncing these tactics.

UPDATE: Bishop Gregory V. Palmer of the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church has released a statement in support of the workers and their families. You can download the full statement as a PDF or listen to an audio verion. Here's an excerpt:

We are called to stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers whose lives were disrupted today at the Agriprocessors, Inc. plant and who are facing unknown challenges and likely separation from their families, friends, and loved ones. As Iowa United Methodists we want to stand in partnership and community with the workers in Postville who are experiencing hardships of unknown proportion. It is our belief that we are all deeply connected to one another through Christ without regard to one’s nationality or legal status. I believe today’s raids create fear and chaos that is detrimental and harmful to communities here in Iowa and around this nation. We cannot allow the pattern of history to repeat itself where the newest migrants to our nation become criminalized and become the target of our animosity, fear, racism, and anger.

Patty Kupfer is the Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform campaign coordinator at Sojourners.

If you thought socially conscious music in the mainstream was a thing of the past, turn your ears to what Australia is listening to. A song about justice and reconciliation in Australia was the highest new entry in the charts two weeks ago - starting out at #2 on the Australian charts and #2 after Madonna on the digital track charts - and remains in the top 50. As The New York Times reported:

A song about racial reconciliation with the Aboriginal minority has become the fourth-biggest-selling recording in Australia, even though it is available only as a download from the Web.

The song "From Little Things Big Things Grow," written more than 20 years ago by Australian artists Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly, tells the story of Australian nonviolence hero Vincent Lingiari. Under the name "GetUp Mob," they have collaborated with other Australian musicians, such as Missy Higgins and John Butler, to sing of this historic moment in Australian history. And (to my knowledge) they have launched the musical career of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by sampling his historic apology speech:

As prime minister, I am sorry. On behalf of the government, I am sorry.

Both Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly's music is richly submerged in themes of justice and in biblical poetry, from Paul Kelly's song "The Lion and the Lamb," to Kev Carmody's "Comrade Jesus Christ." In "From Little Things Big Things Grow," you can hear the mustard seed of racial reconciliation and dignity spreading. As Ambrose, one of the kids in my neighbourhood, said about the song, "It's boss!"

It seems along with little Ambrose, Australian listeners are agreeing.

Watch the music video.

Jarrod McKenna is seeking to live God's love. He's a co-founder of the Peace Tree Community, serving with the marginalised in one of the poorest areas in his city, and is the founder and creative director of Empowering Peacemakers (EPYC), for which he has received an Australian peace award in his work for peace and (eco)justice.

China earthquake,Burma, Immigration raid, Immigrants, Ohio-Poverty Summit, McCain-global warming, Racism, Housing, Rep. Barney Frank, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and Op-Eds.

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

If Christ were coming again tomorrow, I would plant a tree today.

- Martin Luther

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

This weekend Zimbabwe's opposition party announced that it would take part in the next round of presidential "elections." Violence, harassment, and intimidation of unarmed citizens continue as part of the government's preparation for the "elections." In my understanding, there are three basic rules that qualify a process to be described as a legitimate election (election 101!):

1. Elections are part of a democratic package that includes freedom, democracy, and peace. Without this package or context, elections cannot be expected to achieve their intended function -- namely, to elect a party or candidate of choice.
2. Elections presuppose political maturity, which understands that to participate in an election a party could:

a. Win or
b. lose but
c. cannot be both (a) and (b)

3. Acceptance of results is part of the election process. In the event of losing a party should not resort to political tantrums and attack the winner. This is a serious violation of the first election principle above and therefore constitutes a violation of human rights.

In the case of Zimbabwe, none of the above apply. Despite these serious constraints the opposition and the people are determined to use this window of opportunity to fight for democracy. The international media has played a significant role in ensuring that Zimbabwe is on the "big screen," visible for all to see. This effort needs to be supported by active participation by the international community in the "election" process as it happens. This support is critical. Violence cannot be allowed to triumph as a political tool that overrides the election process. This is our prayer and plea for support.

Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.

Dear Israel,

Wow, you're turning 60. Incredible. Happy birthday to you!

I feel a little bit like I'm showing up at your birthday party without a gift. The truth is, you and I don't really know each other. I know we're related, but we don't have much of a relationship. That's been my choice, I realize. I wasn't sure how to feel about you, so I turned my attention elsewhere for a while.

I get frustrated sometimes by how much attention we lavish on you. I worry that an overfocus on you means we don't pay enough attention to Jewish education in the diaspora, or to the many other human dramas unfolding around the globe. Often it has seemed to me that American Jews perceive you're the only place that can be truly holy -- which does a disservice both to you and to us.

But this is a big birthday. And I've been feeling increasingly like it's time for me to reach out. As a rabbinic student and as a Jew, I need to know you better than I do. So here I am, saying hello. I'm even coming to spend the summer with you. I'm excited about that -- and nervous, too.

Many people I love tell me the moment they touched your soil they knew they'd come home. They tell me that one Shabbat in Jerusalem, one desert sunrise, one rousing round of "Hatikva" will be enough to bind me to you for life -- indeed, that we're already bound together, whether I know it or not.

Others look at me askance when I mention that I'd like to get to know you in a more nuanced way. They remind me about your insular religious establishment; they point to the security barrier, to the painful realities of Palestinian life, to your decisions that make me angry or sad.

I often feel caught between people I know and love who adore you, who support you without reservation -- and people I know and love who find your choices problematic at best. And, of course, everyone in between. I experience cognitive dissonance where you're concerned. To your detractors, I want to defend you fiercely; to your defenders, I want to point out every way in which you fail to live up to my hopes and dreams.

And maybe that complicated welter of mixed emotions is precisely how I know we do have a relationship after all. I wouldn't be so emotionally invested if we weren't family.

I suspect that the better I get to know you, the more I will love you -- and also the more I will question you and disagree with you. It's going to take work to make our relationship whole and holy. Maybe that's the gift I can offer: my desire to know you well enough to know what about you I want to celebrate, and what about you I want to work to change.

So hey, Israel, happy 60th birthday. I don't know what the years to come hold, but I look forward to finding out -- together.

Love, Cousin Rachel

Rachel Barenblat is a student in the ALEPH rabbinic program who blogs at Velveteen Rabbi. She's a contributing editor at Zeek, a Jewish journal of thought and culture, and author of three poetry chapbooks, most recently chaplainbook, a collection of poems arising out of hospital chaplaincy work (Laupe House Press, 2006.) She co-founded the Progressive Faith Blog Con, a gathering of bloggers of progressive faith that took place for the first time in the summer of 2006. She lives in western Massachusetts.

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand.

- Romans 7:15-21

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

Knowing one's self, finding one's self, and expending one's self for another are intertwined activities. Love of self, love of God, and love of neighbor are interdependent.

- Sidney Callahan
With All Our Heart and Mind

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

The Latest news on Work & poverty, Veterans, Domestic spying, Presidential campaigns, Congratulations, Voter ID, Mideast, Burma, Iraq, Sudan, Nuclear proliferation, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, and Op-Eds.

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

There are plenty of times I miss running a legitimate ministry organization like Mission Year. Like when I'm breaking down my "office" every night so my family can eat at the kitchen table, or hand-addressing the envelopes for our donation receipts. (Don't get me wrong; I love having to send out those receipts). Or when I'm desperately bribing Roman and his buddy with combo meals at Wendy's to help me move yet another apartment-load of stuff for yet another family in crisis, instead of simply assigning the job to some interns. Trust me, being small-time is hard on the ego.

But then there are those magical moments when being small-time means you get to make things up as you go along.

A few months ago I found myself sitting in the sparsely-furnished, HUD-subsidized apartment of our beloved Bobbie Williams, trying to figure out how such a tough and strong-minded woman got into such dire straights. I won't trouble you with the details, but suffice it to say that in her nearly 50 years, Bobbie has seen more than her share of bad breaks and worse men. Indeed, she feels quite certain she's better off hungry and alone in this little place than cared for and abused in half a dozen others. Still, she knows she could do better.

On that day I visited her, while Bobbie was wearily describing her latest attempt to land a minimum-wage job at a restaurant downtown, I noticed a brochure lying on her coffee table, advertising one of those big-rig truck driving schools. "Where did you get that?" I asked casually, hoping she wasn't back to entertaining men.

"Oh that," she said, her voice brightening as a big smile crossed her face. "That's my dream, which I've been dreaming from the time I was a child. All the other girls wanted to be singers or actresses, but all I've ever wanted is to be a long-haul trucker."

I laughed at first, and Bobbie laughed too, but before long we were deep in conversation about the hard life of a trucker, and about her father forbidding her to pursue it after high school, and about what kinds of resources it would take for her to pursue it now. She told me all about it, the way a lifelong sports fan tells you all about their team, but I didn't mind. In this kind of ministry, genuine dreams are few and far between.

Over the next few days, I kept thinking about Bobbie Williams and her dream of earning a secure living by driving a big rig all over the country. The more I thought about it, the more impossible it seemed.

Bobbie couldn't even pay her rent most months, let alone save $4,000 for tuition. When she wasn't taking care of her grandson, she was out hustling food for herself. She didn't even have a driver's license, for crying out loud.

You know where I'm going with this, don't you? You know Bobbie's in trucking school right now, almost ready to test for her CDL, and you know who loaned her the money (or gave it, if it turns out she can't pass the test). A ghetto grandmother with a GED and a sketchy past might not be a good enough risk for a legitimate ministry organization, and trucking school might be too expensive to build into an ongoing employment program. But none of that matters because we're just the small-time Walnut Hills Fellowship, and Bobbie's been with us since the beginning, and this feels like as good a time as any to take what any lifelong sports fan would recognize as a Hail Mary shot at giving a dear sister a much better life.

If you haven't yet stopped to ask whether or not Bobbie is a certified Christian, or to calculate the chances of us actually getting paid back even if she gets the job, then I think you're connected to the right little faith community. If what you're wondering about instead is how she felt about finally getting behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler ("Incredible!"), or whether everyone else in our fellowship is excited about her opportunity ("Hey, did you hear Bobbie got three out of four on her straight-line backing test?"), or if we're all feeling the pressure as the test day draws closer (Absolutely), well, maybe you should start thinking about moving to Walnut Hills yourself.

We don't have a real office yet. We're always having to move stuff. But we get to make things up as we go along, and take chances on people that nobody else would take chances on, and hold our breath together. And we get to do all that with the almost giddy confidence that all the love in the world is on our side.

Bart Campolo is a veteran urban minister and activist who speaks, writes, and blogs (www.bartcampolo.com) about grace, faith, loving relationships, and social justice. Bart is the leader of The Walnut Hills Fellowship (www.thewalnuthillsfellowship.org) in inner-city Cincinnati. He is also founder of Mission Year (www.missionyear.org), which recruits committed young adults to live and work among the poor in inner-city neighborhoods across the U.S., and executive director of EAPE, which develops and supports innovative, cost-effective mission projects around the world.

The following is an interview with Abigail Disney, producer of the documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which recently won the award for best documentary feature at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

What sparked your interest in wanting to make a documentary about Liberia?

The fact that the newly elected president of Liberia was a woman was notable, especially since the continent had had so few women in leadership, and that women had been so peculiarly and sadistically targeted during their war. I knew there had to be a backstory. She hadn't just arisen spontaneously.

How were Christian and Muslim women able to come together for a common cause?

They were all so completely fed up with war that they were willing to overcome their reluctance. There was some mistrust at first, but the longer they spent time together in prayer and fasting the more they came to understand and empathize with each other. Friendships were forged on the field that will exist for a long time—it is quite possible that the nature of the relationship between Christian and Muslim was forever changed in Liberia.

Elaborate on the role that religious leaders played in helping to bring about peace to Liberia.

While it may seem unlikely, the fact is that the warlords and even Charles Taylor were quite religious. Religious leaders therefore were among the only people who could influence them, even in the chaotic atmosphere of war. But women were dissatisfied with the limited way in which the religious leaders wielded that influence. So the campaign really began with the women bringing pressure on the leaders via their religious confidants. This pressure ultimately was one of the reasons Taylor and the rebels decided to come to peace talks in Ghana.

How did prayer inform these women's social justice actions?

All of the women in this film were deeply, deeply religious and believed with all of their hearts and minds in the power of prayer to influence events and people. This was a critical aspect of their plan, and a big part of what made them so tenacious and persistent in their protests. But more than this, prayer was a source of personal strength to each of the women. They gained strength through their individual practice of prayer, but also the communal practice of prayer was an extraordinary glue that held the group together in spite of all kinds of pressures to pull them apart.

Explain the significance of the Lutheran church that you filmed for this documentary.

St. Peter's Lutheran Church was the scene of the first organizing meeting for the Christian Women's Peace Initiative, early in the film. In 1989, however, that church was also the scene of one of the most horrific massacres in the pre-war period. Samuel Doe's army, in anticipation of Charles Taylor's assault on Monrovia, went into the church and slaughtered more than 600 members of a rival ethnic group in a single night. The candlelight vigil in the middle of the film takes place on the church compound on top of the mass grave that contains most of those bodies. The church was and still is the church that Leymah Gbowee attended, and a source of great strength and counsel to her. It was also through the Lutheran Church that WIPNET, her organization, got offices and also got its first international donations.

Why is Leymah Gbowee the focal character of your story?

Everyone acknowledged her to be the leader and the face of the peace movement. But more than this, Leymah was so clearly charismatic, articulate, and genuine that I knew that a film with her at the center could not fail to be compelling. She is one of the most gifted people I have ever met.

What can we do to enable this change to continue without imposing our Western values on this culture?

I think you are precisely right here. Why do we insist on imposing "solutions" that are always at best temporary, and at worst impractical and even disrespectful to indigenous cultures? I think at heart we are sometimes deeply mistrustful of the competence of indigenous cultures to find their own answers. And when we impose programs, very often we do so in such a manner as to set them hunting for external money that is scarce, inadequate, and hard to get. The answer is to do some better listening. As people coming in from the global North we need to arrive in places with a little less confidence in our "answers" and a little more confidence in the people we are there to serve. People aren't poor because they don't have values, don't have smarts, don't have gumption—people are poor because they don't have money. We need to recognize that most of the "resources" needed to fight the world's problems are also the victims of those problems.

What's been the response when you've shown this film?

The response has been overwhelmingly emotional, connected, and positive. And this is not just from people in the U.S. We have already shown the film in many countries to women's groups and the response has been so moving. Women in Iraq wept when they saw it, and immediately asked how many copies they could make so as to make sure that it is shown in people's homes all over the country. Women from Sudan e-mailed us to say that they felt sure that lives were being changed by the dialogues the film had sparked. In Tblisi, Georgia, women sat down immediately after the film and wrote up a Peace Agenda that is now making its way around the country for women's signatures. What is remarkable is the way that so many women were already poised to work together for peace—all the film does is remind them how powerful they are when they work together. It is a spark of faith in dark times.

What are the future plans for this documentary and how can interested churches and nonprofits arrange for showings of this film?

We hope to work with churches and other religious organizations along with youth groups, women's organizations, and other interested partners to get the film seen far and wide. At the moment we are still forming distribution plans, but churches that are interested in seeing the film should go to our Web site and give us their information so that when we are set up for distribution we can get in touch with them.

Becky Garrison will be featured in the upcoming documentary The Ordinary Radicals, directed by Jamie Moffett, co-founder of The Simple Way.

Now that I appreciate God's anger more, I find that I trust my own much less.

- Kathleen Norris
Amazing Grace

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

- Jeremiah 7:5-7

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

At the Associated Church Press conference two weeks ago in Ft. Worth, Texas, I heard Phyllis Tickle, founding editor of the religion department at Publishers Weekly, speak about Christianity's every-500-years growth spurts. In her talk (and forthcoming book The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why), Tickle emphasized that Christianity is going through one of these "spurts" right now.

Tickle calls our present historical moment (read: the last 100 years) "Emerging Christianity." (This is not precisely the same thing as the self-identified "emergent church" networks, but there may be similar characteristics.) Historically, these great emergences are sometimes symbolized by a rose blooming forth from the rubble.

"Emerging or emergent Christianity is the new form of Christianity that will serve the whole of the Great Emergence in the same way that Protestantism served the Great Reformation," she said.

Emerging Christianity, posits Tickle, brings together – rather than divides - the best practices of the Christian traditions, practices that have been divided in the church and held within denominations for 500 years. It also looks back at ancient church practices and tries to apply them in fresh ways in the post-modern era.

Brian McLaren's newest book Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices, also examines Emerging Christianity as a "way of life" rather than a "set of beliefs." McLaren reclaims ancient Christian spiritual practices -- fixed-hour prayer, fasting, observing the Sabbath -- for use today. Dallas Willard has been playing with this same idea in his call to move the Christian church away from "sin management" and toward "discipleship" (see The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God).

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams took up a similar theme in an April lecture titled The Spiritual and the Religious: Is the Territory Changing?

Williams opens his remarks by quoting U2's Bono: "I'm not into religion. I am completely anti-religious. Religion is a term for a collection, a denomination. I am interested in personal experience of God."

Williams brilliantly unpacks the "spiritual, not religious" conundrum:

The Christian alternative to the post-religious spirituality outlined earlier is not simply "religion" as some sort of intellectual and moral system, but the corporately experienced reality of the kingdom, the space that has been cleared in human imagination and self-understanding by the revealing events of Jesus' life.

 … Faced with the claims of non-dogmatic spirituality, the believer should not be insisting anxiously on the need for compliance with a set of definite propositions; he or she should be asking whether what happens when the Assembly meets to adore God and lay itself open to his action looks at all like a new and transforming environment, in which human beings are radically changed.

I've been at Sojourners for 22 years. At its best, Sojourners (in all its manifestations as ministry, Christian intentional community, church, magazine, Christian communications nexus, movement mobilizer, etc.) has been an experiment in Emerging Christianity.

We are evangelical in our roots and ecumenical in our expression—drawing on the best of Christian practices that are held denominationally. For example, when we are operating at our best, we try to take scripture as seriously as Protestants, understand communion as deeply as Catholics, rely on the Spirit as passionately as Pentecostals, preach a prophetic word of good news as zealously as evangelicals, and live a contemplative life rooted in the ever-present Imago Dei as humbly as Orthodox.

As a cluster of Christians, we strive to practice "open-source" spiritual leadership, or "priesthood of all believers," or authority rooted in gifts of the Spirit. Additionally, we understand following Jesus as a "way of life"—the Tao of Jesus, the Jesus Road. This "way of life" leads us also to take the doctrinal teachings of the church very seriously -- because we've lived them, not (necessarily) because we signed a contractual arrangement or took a loyalty oath with the church.

I'm grateful to Phyllis Tickle, Brian McLaren, Archbishop Rowan, Karen Ward, the New Monastics, and others who are keeping our rosebush tended.

As the 15th-century hymn celebrates, "Lo, how a Rose e're blooming from tender stem hath sprung!"

Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

- Romans 8:1-2

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