A delegation of American Baptist leaders, including general secretary emeritus, A. Roy Medley, visited Kachin State, Myanmar, January 4-9, 2019. Dr. Medley spoke with The Christian Citizen about the concerns facing the Kachin people, the suffering of the Christian community in Myanmar, and the prospects for renewing the stalled peace process.
The evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is a painful, yet important, reminder of the dangers inherent in majority rule. An important check on this power
to sway governance for good or ill is the voice of people for whom God’s righteous reign is the supreme goal.
Our challenge is not to redirect the president’s use of emergency powers to something we would prefer he address. It is to contest the use of such powers given the threat to they pose to liberty.
The year was 1864. The very fabric of the nation and the churches in America had been torn asunder by the Civil War. American Baptists were so passionate about the social justice issues that prompted the conflict, that representatives of the American Baptist Home Mission Society met with President Abraham Lincoln to share their loyalty to the North’s position.
50 years after Apollo 8’s Christmas at the Moon, have we lost sight of the goodness of the Earth? Have we lost sight too of the remarkable gift of life that is ours to enjoy, however fleetingly, amid the immeasurably vast expanse of time and space?