by Stephen Phelps | Oct 7, 2012 | climate change, environment, sermon 2012, stewardship
According to Genesis, God gave us “dominion,” that we might “fill the earth and subdue it!” Now, this commandment is rather different from all the others in that we have performed it eagerly, to the letter of the law. The Earth: we filled it, and we subdued it. But unlike a horse or a tractor which the master takes back to the shed when its work is done, we don’t know who our master is any more, or when to rest. We are going to keep filling this earth and subduing it until it is subdone!
by Stephen Phelps | Sep 23, 2012 | abortion, sermon 2012, social justice, womens rights
Today, we are going to think through abortion. In this matter, the wings of our citizenry, right and left, seem hardly attached to the same bird. While our prayer for the wings of a dove must never amount to muddling toward the middle, afraid to take a stand, we can bend down and draw out real thought.
by Stephen Phelps | Sep 16, 2012 | education, sermon 2012, social justice
Today, we are exploring what Christian life has to say about education—not just for those following programs, but for everyone who wants to see seed sown in good soil.
by Stephen Phelps | Sep 9, 2012 | disability, identity, sermon 2012, social justice
Could it be more plain that nations yearning to practice only strength, whether financial, legal, military or moral, segregating and oppressing their weak, their workers, their aged, their disabled, their poor, their sick, their least, their lost—that such nations always ultimately lose their bearings and collapse in weakness? Why? Because the human race was not for winning. The human race was for learning how to become humane. Care for what is weak is the core value of the left wing; and all share in its benefits.
by Stephen Phelps | Sep 2, 2012 | economic justice, labor, sermon 2012
As Labor Day comes tomorrow—and despite the fact that on this holiday in America, the interests of laboring people are not much heard above the songs of summer’s end—let us acknowledge, in obedience to virtues of compassion, courage, and truthfulness what some will not: The gulf between the rich and the rest is becoming so great that it is threatening the whole of our civilization.
by Stephen Phelps | Aug 19, 2012 | economic justice, history, sermon 2012, stewardship
In the year 1712, the future began. Thomas Newcomen developed the first useful steam engine. Supplanting the power of a few hundred horses to drain water from the bottom of a coal mine in Dudley, England, Newcomen’s engine enabled much more coal to come up from the earth. Therefore more power came to homes and businesses. Jobs began to multiply. The standard of living improved and, to be a rather short-spoken about it, before long people began to think that this earth was a good place to live, with a future.
by Stephen Phelps | Aug 12, 2012 | militarism, nonviolence, sermon 2012
Things.That.Make.For.Peace-WOTD from the Wings of the Dove series Texts on Sunday, August 12, 2012 Jeremiah 6: 1-15; Luke 19: 41-48 In very many aspects of our common life, we Americans cannot find the will for concerted moral action. With respect to some of the...
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 | Jul 15, 2012 | economic justice, inequality, sermon 2012
In 1908, Winston Churchill wrote, “The seed of Imperial ruin and national decay [lies in] the unnatural gap between the rich and the poor [and] the swift increase of vulgar . . . luxury.” In the same decade, Republican President Teddy Roosevelt said, “The supreme political task of our day is to drive the special interests out of our public life.” A generation later, his cousin President Franklin Roosevelt would offer that “political equality is meaningless in the face of economic inequality.” Justice Louis Brandeis of the U.S. Supreme Court framed his concern in ominous terms: “We can have a democracy, or we can have great wealth in the hands of a comparative few, but we cannot have both.”
by Stephen Phelps | Jul 8, 2012 | immigration, sermon 2012, social justice
Immigration in America is a mess. Its awful odors are hard to miss, but let me indicate one. Alabama has a law that aims to make life as near to impossible as possible for undocumented workers. Police are to stop and demand documents from anyone they suspect of being not-American; teachers must identify children whose parents have no documents; and anyone who offers support or shelter to undocumented workers is subject to criminal penalties. . .
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