The church can’t afford to become irritated, blasé or condescending about church trauma. As the phrase indicates, this phenomenon is the result of harms perpetrated in and by the church. We need to take religious trauma very, very seriously. Read more »
April 25, 2024
Is your church the right place to heal from religious trauma?
The church can’t afford to become irritated, blasé or condescending about church trauma. As the phrase indicates, this phenomenon is the result of harms perpetrated in and by the church. We need to take religious trauma very, very seriously. Read more »
Although the women of Malawi are accustomed to doing anything and everything from farming to running small-scale businesses to support their families, Tropical Cyclone Freddy sorely tested Tinenenji [tee-nan-an-gee] Kalamba’s resilience. 
As the guest of the new podcast “Around the Table” from the Office of Christian Formation, the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, an author, speaker and Moderator of the 218th General Assembly (2008), offers up his perspective on how conversations at home can improve and enrich family connections and spirituality. 
Do you ever feel — just off? Lost, disconnected or maybe even … a little defeated?
Truth be told, we all feel this way once in a while. Yet we do the best we can to live every day to its fullest, and always with the reality that God’s love, God’s grace, which is the very essence of God, will never leave us. 
There’s no time like the present to apply to host an International Peacemaker. The deadline, May 1, is just a few days away, though late applications still will be reviewed if space remains on peacemakers’ calendars. 
Ecumenical Women at the United Nations, an international coalition of denominations and organizations that advocates for gender justice, held its initial gathering as part of the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Watch the nearly four-hour celebration and discussion, which was held at the United Nations Church Center, by going here. 
Mahmoud Darkish once said, “Whenever they find the reality that doesn’t suit them, they alter it with a bulldozer.” It is the reality of the Palestinians facing the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948. You know, the Nabka didn’t happen only in 1948; it has been happening since 1948, as the leveling of villages is still occurring. House demolitions are on the rise, confiscation of lands is still ongoing, children, young adults, and others continue to be imprisoned, ethnic cleansing still occurs and unemployment is skyrocketing. It was a shocking war of 1948, a war which led to “independence for Israel” but a Nakba for the Palestinian Arabs in which 750,000 at least were forced to leave their country, and where 600 villages were destroyed. 
On March 22, the Inter-American Human Rights Court found the State of Peru responsible for violating the rights of residents of the Andean town of La Oroya, who had been exposed to decades of toxic emissions from a metallurgical complex located in the heart of the town. 
Tomas (not his real name) is a church minister in Manipur, Northeast India. He had teary eyes when he recalled what happened on May 3, 2023.
“I have never seen such violence in my lifetime,” he said. “They systematically ransacked our places. That first night, they burnt down a church nearby. The sky turned red by flames.”
A few months later, it was reported that 250 churches of different denominations had been burnt. For several weeks, the manhunt continued.
Over 100 people died. The trauma is unimaginable, especially among women and children.