A crowd of old and young, women and children congregated around wooden benches and told stories of their hard lives. Two villagers in their 90s described how they fled from their original village to the current village. The eyes of women and young children looked with curiosity and followed the team on the dirt road as we departed. When can they walk away free?
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.
In a time where xenophobia and other forms of fear are heightened domestically and internationally, being up front and honest about our history, malevolent threads of that tapestry included, is desperately needed.
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.
To give attention to society’s most vulnerable requires us to become humble and shed power. For many Christians, this is too great a cost. And so, it is far easier to say this “earthly” kingdom is about structures, utility, and economy and God’s Kingdom (up there far away in heaven) is about love, kindness, and grace. Such dualism tempts Christians to ignore the challenging but required work of Jesus.