by Stephen Phelps | Aug 5, 2012 | economic justice, environment, food insecurity, hunger, sermon 2012, Uncategorized
Unlike gun control or our criminal justice system, which no politician will discuss, hunger and poverty have sometimes mattered to elected leaders. Yesterday, I heard President Lyndon Johnson’s voice on the radio, coming from 1964. He was declaring “war on poverty” in that famous Texas drawl. Yet how tragic was the news that followed. One out of six of us is poor; that is, has less than $23,000 for a household of four. The news story went on to report that although malnutrition is not the scourge in America that it had been before President Johnson started the Food Stamp program, unlike the poor in Johnson’s day, today’s poor are generally employed—and hungry.
by Stephen Phelps | Apr 22, 2012 | environment, interpretation, salvation, sermon 2012, suffering
Great question: Is Job blessed because things turned out well? Can he be happy–be satisfied, have peace, sing “It is well with my soul”–without the happy ending? Is Jesus blessed while he is on the cross, still unaware of what shall come? How critical to your own life–and even to the planet’s–your answer is!
by Stephen Phelps | Apr 3, 2011 | environment, relinquishment, sermon 2011, stewardship
In the wake of the Gulf oil spill last spring and summer; in the mental aftershock of not knowing the fallout from the nuclear reactors now burning in Japan, how strange to hear the Lord’s command to the human, male and female: “Fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea . . . and over every living thing that moves . . . ”
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