The earthquake devastated 23 churches in the Compassion network and caused more than $2 million in damages.

That evening, as we began our prayers, I explained to my son what an earthquake is, and that our sponsored child possibly lost his church. Given that churches are how aid and support are often distributed to the community, Josue may have lost many layers of provision in his life.

After thinking about the situation, my son said, “Well, they can ask God for a new church. Will God build him a new one?”

I paused, unsure exactly how to answer, and then it hit me.

“Yes, son, God will build them a new church. Do you know how?”

“No, how will God do that?”

“Well, God has given us money, along with many other families in America. God’s plan to help Josue is you and me.”

You Are God’s Plan for the Needy

God’s plan to help the hurting people of the world is to equip other people—us—to help them. As St. Teresa of Avila wrote centuries ago, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

My son’s excited response brought me back from my musing:

“Daddy, I have my [pretend] cash register. It has lots of dollar bills. I can open it up, get them all out, and we can send them all to Josue.”

My son’s excited response perfectly captures the mindset God desires for us. But often, we end up on the other end of the spectrum.

Have you ever given out of guilt, or because you feel like you have to “tithe” to be a good Christian? Have you ever given because you heard an emotional appeal and felt awkwardly obligated to chip in?

We’ve all heard that God’s desire is for a “cheerful giver,” but growing up I was often stumped by how actually to become one. As an un-cheerful giver, I just didn’t give that much.

But over the past two years, I’ve met many radically generous families, and observed their joy. It doesn’t come by accident—it comes through a proper view of God, man and redemption.

What the Bible Says About Giving

Nearly every generous family I met pointed to the Bible’s teaching. I was surprised to learn that the Bible says more about money than it does about heaven and hell combined. Nearly half of Jesus’ parables related to money, and there are over 2,300 verses pertaining to money. Clearly, it’s an important topic. So, what does the Bible say?

In short, three things:

1. All of our wealth originates from and belongs to God (Deuteronomy 8:18, 1 Chronicles 29:11-14, Colossians 1:16).

2. In light of this, our wealth should be used for God’s purposes (Luke 12: 42-43, Matthew 25: 31-46).

3. God’s purpose is to restore the world to wholeness. This occurs spiritually through salvation in Jesus Christ, and physically through our service and giving to serve the poor, needy, and weak (Luke 4:18-19, 2 Corinthians 5:18, Matthew 28: 19-20, Jeremiah 22: 13-16, Proverbs 19:17).

Implicit in these three statements is the idea that our wealth is not our own. As my son learned, God has given it to us to accomplish something on earth.

Giving With the Gospel, not Guilt

It was a turning point in my financial life when I realized that my generosity should spring from the Gospel, not from guilt. I don’t give because I’m supposed to tithe, or because I want to avoid feeling bad, or because it’s kind of a thing Christians are supposed to do.

I give because God gave first. Since He enables us to get wealth in the first place, and because we are the recipients of His great grace in our lives, our natural and joyful response is to engage in radical generosity on behalf of the Christian church and the poor.

Pastor Tim Keller puts it this way:

To the degree you understand the Gospel of grace, you will live a radically generous life! If you truly have a spiritual inheritance, you are going to be promiscuously generous with your earthly inheritance.

The next morning, I sent a check for Josue and the people of Ecuador. And, for one of the first times in my giving life, I smiled with joy after sending the funds. My dollars, in some mysterious way, experienced redemption for a higher purpose. There they were, sitting in a bank account in the United States, accomplishing nothing. And now, they have become bricks, bread and the hope of Christ made known in a desperate situation.

Praise God for allowing us to be a part of accomplishing His purposes in the Earth.

Researchers at Utrecht University, located in the Netherlands, note that roughly 55 percent of the global population currently lives in regions that lack clean water for at least one month per year. Their projections find that this number will rise to 66 percent by the year 2100.

What’s driving these life-threatening changes? According to the study published in Nature Climate Change, socioeconomic and current climate trends will continue to make life harder for people, especially in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Climate change and socioeconomic developments have multi-faceted impacts on the availability and quality of, and demands for, water resources in the future,” wrote lead author Dr. Edward Jones. “Changes in these three aspects are crucial for evaluating future water scarcity.”

The team of researchers predict that global water scarcity will continue to increase throughout the 21st century. However, these changes won’t occur evenly throughout the world. In Western Europe and North America, water scarcity will likely make things harder for people a few months per year. In developing countries, however, the problem will likely affect more people over a longer period each year, according to the team’s projections.

“Increases in future exposure are largest in the Global South,” Jones explained. “These are typically driven by a combination of rapid population and economic growth, climate change and deteriorating water quality.”

Clean water is essential to better quality of life. Research has show that a variety of diseases are linked to drinking dirty water, including Hepatitis A, intestinal parasites, chemical poisoning, as well as numerous waterborne and diarrheal diseases.

“The lack of clean water presents a systemic risk to both humans and ecosystems, which is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore,” Jones said. “Our work highlights that, alongside substantially reducing our water demands, we must place an equally strong focus on eliminating water pollution in order to turn the tide on the global water crisis.”

Today, businesses and organizations are doing what they can to address the ongoing crisis. Charity:Water founder Scott Harrison explained why Christians in particular should be advocating for this cause.

“My theology around clean water is very simple,” he said. “I believe that God does not want any women or children to die from drinking muddy water and that when a well is put in a village and a woman stops walking five hours a day, when a kid starts drinking clean water, God smiles, and that is bringing His Kingdom a little closer.”

What I didn’t realize at the time, however, is that low prices often have a high cost.

On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed with about 3,500 workers inside. Large cracks had been discovered in the walls the day before, but the workers were told if they did not enter the building, their month’s wages would be withheld. Some were even threatened with beatings. So the workers filed back to their work stations.

Hours later, the building crumbled, killing more than 1,100 people.

Joe Fresh, The Children’s Place and Benetton were some of the labels manufacturing their products in the factory that collapsed. Many other companies, including Wal-mart as the largest, also manufacture their clothing in Bangladesh. The average monthly wage of a garment worker in the region is $37, and this low cost of labor is what gives companies higher profit margins. What’s more, Rana Plaza is one of many factories where safety violations have caused such disasters.

This is the backstory on the other side of the price tag many consumers never see.

Here is where the finger pointing begins. The race to the bottom, a byproduct of unchecked capitalism, ensures that no one is “really responsible” for what happened. It becomes a classic case of plausible deniability, the condition in which a party can believably deny knowledge of a reality because the system has deliberately shielded them from the full picture.

The owner of the plaza that housed the garment factories won’t claim responsibility because the factory owner chose to operate in the building without demanding structural upgrades first.

The owners of the the garment factories won’t claim responsibility because they are only trying to meet the demands of the their multinational corporation clients.

The corporations who sell clothing in their stores won’t claim responsibility because they assume the Bangladesh government is enforcing labor laws that align with their company codes of conduct.

The government of Bangladesh won’t claim responsibility because if they start to reinforce labor codes, international corporations will pull out of Bangladesh, with signi!cant economic ramifications.

The customers buying clothing won’t claim responsibility, because they assume companies are monitoring their factories. And in the end, a stylish out!t for a low price trumps further questioning.

In essence, the landlord blames the factories, the factories blame the multinational corporations, the multinational corporations blame the government, the government blames the economic climate and the customers claim their ignorance.

No one is left to take responsibility for the hundreds of people crushed under the weight of concrete.

Of course, the reality is every player in this sequence is responsible.

Evangelist Charles Finney once said he never witnessed a revival that didn’t include public confession and restitution. This means if we want change to happen, we must be willing to look in the mirror. Bangladesh is the second largest exporter of clothing in the world, and the U.S. is its biggest buyer. If you have purchased an item made in Bangladesh or the product of any unjust labor anywhere, you are responsible.

Yet here is the paradox of justice: We are individually responsible, but to enact real change, we must change more than our individual actions. We must work together to create systemic solutions, because the problem is systemic.

The impact of the Rana Plaza factory collapse has affected thousands of families who have sustained the loss of a loved one, the loss of income, the fear of going back to work at any factory and more. Sex traffickers even prey upon such tragedies. Dr. Abrar Chowdhury, coordinator of Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit in Bangladesh, told the Dhaka Tribune that in times of chaos, “traffickers can easily lure [the unemployed] with promises of jobs abroad.” And because 80 percent of the country’s garment workers are women, the Border Guard Bangladesh has been on high alert since the factory collapse.

 But if families are made vulnerable to human trafficking and extreme poverty when a factory shuts down, then wouldn’t the absence of a Western market leave these families in a vulnerable place?

The system is so broken, it makes workers dependent on their own exploitation. Yet to reverse this will require action at a systemic level. Restoration must begin with fostering sustainable opportunities for people in developing countries so workers are no longer dependent on their exploiters for a quasi-livelihood.

This isn’t an abstract hope, either. The Worker Rights Consortium estimates that it would only cost 10 cents more per clothing item to uphold factory safety standards in Bangladesh.

In the wake of the Rana Plaza factory collapse, many global retailers have signed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety, backed by the International Labour Organization, in an effort to prevent future disasters. Participating companies are signing up for a five-year commitment to factory safety inspections and paying up to $500,000 a year toward safety improvements.

However, some major retailers have resisted the act. As representative George Miller, the senior Democratic member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, said in an official statement after the factory collapse, “If they fail to sign an enforceable agreement, they are declaring that they accept blood on their labels.”

The clothing production system is complex, but wherever one plays a role in the process, we all have an opportunity to move in the direction of redemption.

10 Things You Can Do

1. Go through your closet. For every piece of clothing made in Bangladesh, donate the amount that you paid for it to the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, which has set up the Bangladesh Worker Relief Fund at globallabourrights.org.
2. Sponsor a child. Organizations like World Vision (worldvision.org) and Compassion (compassion.com) offer community-based child sponsorship programs that equip children for life, thereby reducing the likelihood that they will end up in sweatshops or other vulnerable situations.
3. Inform yourself of the connection between your personal purchases and unjust labor practices. Discover your own slavery footprint at slaveryfootprint.org.
4. Run an ethical business, motivated by people over profit. Go to madeinafreeworld.com for ideas.
5. Buy used clothing, and therefore avoid contributing to the demand for new clothes that are factory-made.
6. Buy fair-trade certified products whenever you can. See your dollar as a vote, and put it toward good and just causes.
7. Research where your clothing comes from by Googling the company name with the word “labor practices” or searching the database at free2work.org. Then write a letter to the company and advocate for them to source their products ethically. Go to change.org to start your own petition.
8. As a church, start a clothing co-op or become a distributor for fair-trade products in your region.
9. Write a letter to your political representatives. Let them know that corporate accountability is important to you, and ask them what they are doing to promote this on a government level.
10. Pray that God would break the chains of greed and injustice, and ask Him to show you how to be part of that process.

Because wherever you buy your clothes from, injustice doesn’t look good on anyone.

1. Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV

Available on Max

Investigation Discovery’s jaw-dropping documentary uncovers the sinister side of Nickelodeon Studios. Once known as the peak of children’s television, dozens of former child stars and crew members speak out in this interview about the mistreatment they experienced on set. From the kids’ discomfort participating in approriate jokes to mistreatment from executive producer to Dan Schneider to multiple instances of child sex abuse, the documentary exposes how the entertainment industry has left young actors particularly vulnerable. The documentary premiered in March, but a new episode will drop on Monday on Max.

2. The Economics of Happiness

Available on YouTube

3. The Octopus Teacher

Available on Netflix

The Octopus Teacher explores the remarkable relationship between a filmmaker and an octopus living in a kelp forest off the coast of South Africa. The film documents the filmmaker’s journey as they observe and document the octopus’ intricate hunting and problem-solving skills, as well as its ability to use tools. This captivating and intimate look at the octopus provides new insights into the intelligence and complex behavior of these mysterious sea creatures, challenging the notion that they are just mindless predators.

4. The Future of Work and Death

Available on Amazon Prime

This thought-provoking documentary examines the rapidly changing landscape of work and mortality in the 21st century. With technological advancements disrupting traditional job markets and extending human lifespans, this film asks important questions about the future of work, the meaning of life, and what it means to be human. Through interviews with experts and thought leaders, the documentary explores the impact of automation and artificial intelligence on employment, the ethical implications of life extension, and the importance of finding purpose in a world where work and death are being redefined. Whether you’re an optimist or a skeptic, The Future of Work and Death offers a sobering look at the potential consequences of our current trajectory and the choices we must make as a society.

5. A Beautiful Planet

Available on Apple TV+

This 2016 film explores planet Earth from a view never seen before. Like similar projects, the imagery is breathtaking. But there’s something entirely unique about it—A Beautiful Planet views Earth not from South American rain forests or East Asian mountain ranges—but from the International Space Station. From space. It’s impossible to see the beauty and intricacy and not come away with a greater sense of awe for God’s creation and respect for His creativity.

Plus, the picture is narrated by Jennifer Lawrence, which is just cool.

6. The Dark Matter of Love

7. Good Night Oppy

Available on Amazon Prime

Talk about a story of resilience. Good Night Oppy charts the remarkable true story of Opportunity, a NASA exploration rover that was sent to Mars for a 90-day mission but ended up surviving for 15 years. While Oppy may only be a robot, it does remind us to never give up hope, especially when facing a challenge that feels out-of-this-world.

8. What We Leave Behind

Available on Netflix

Julián Moreno is the focus of What We Leave Behind, a poetic exploration on family, tradition, immigration, and life and death. Filmmaker Iliana Sosa interviewed her grandfather, who took time every month for nearly 20 years to take a bus for the 560-mile trip from his home in Mexico to visit his daughters and grandchildren in El Paso, Texas. The story weaves through loss, hope and sacrifice, reminding us that everything we gain can often come at a cost.

9. Endangered

Available on Max

In a time when “fake news” is a common phrase, it can be hard for many to recognize the dangerous work journalists actually do. Endangered peels back the veil on the fourth estate, showing audiences just how difficult it can be to discover the truth. It’s a reminder that what goes on in a newsroom isn’t always the full picture.

10. The Waiting Room

Available on Hulu

It’s all too easy to boil the idea of health care to a series of bills or politics. But director Peter Nicks strives to put a face to the U.S. crisis with his 2012 film, The Waiting Room. Shot over five months, viewers are invited to simply watch an average day at Highland Hospital in Oakland, California—where most of the patients are uninsured. With a story assist through a confessional both placed in the waiting room, rather than an omniscient narrator, we hear the story directly from those affected the most. (Fans of This American Life, you’re going to dig this one.) It’s stark reminder that compassion shouldn’t come with a price tag.

The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group, says an estimated 1,026,690 abortions were performed in 2023. That’s a 10% increase from 2020, the last year for which comprehensive estimates are available.

Experts predicted the number of abortions would decline following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, but the new report shows that the number is rising. With abortion now restricted or banned in 21 states, how is that possible?

160,000 people crossed state lines last year to obtain an abortion in a state with no restrictions. And the populations in those states also got abortions at a higher rate than previously. But the majority of abortions came through prescribed medication — commonly mifepristone and misoprostol — which can be easily obtained online. The use of abortion pills increased by 60% since 2022, and has become the most common way for women to terminate their pregnancies as it has become easily accessible and cheaper than surgical abortions, even in states with abortion bans.

However, that could change very soon.

This Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear a case brought by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine challenging laws that have expanded access to mifepristone. Those policies, issued in recent years by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have allowed the pills to be prescribed online, mailed to patients and dispensed at physical pharmacies. The case could restrict access to the abortion pill around the country, including to women living in states even without abortion bans.

The number of abortions in the United States peaked in 1990 at 1.6 million and over the following 30 years, the number declined, falling to 885,000 in 2017. In 2019 and 2020, however, that trend began to reverse, with the number of abortions rising to 930,160 in 2020, and now, 1,026,690 in 2023. The last time there were nearly that many abortions was back in 2011, which saw an estimated 1,058,490 abortions.

Tebow was part of a panel at the “Voice for the Voiceless” hearing on Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill. The former football star opened up his statement by explaining the work the Tim Tebow Foundation does with children in need around the world.

“[The Tim Tebow Foundation] exists to bring faith, hope and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need,” Tebow said. “To sum it up, we strive to fight for people who can’t fight for themselves.”

He then called on lawmakers to pass a bill that would create a “rescue team” to protect thousands of children who are victims of sexual abuse around the world. Tebow said that this team needed to not only have adequate manpower but also the necessary funding, resources and technology to rescue and protect vulnerable children.

“I’ve had the privilege to play for a lot of sports in my life, and almost all of them we’ve had incredible resources to give us a better chance at winning a game. Something that ultimately — as much as we care about it — doesn’t matter,” he said. “Why would we not give as much, if not more, resources to the frontline heroes that are going after the most vulnerable boys and girls on the planet?”

Tebow later shared his full speech on X saying that he was grateful for the opportunity to speak and advocate for children facing injustice around the world.

Viewer Discretion Advised: “Voice for the Voiceless” House Judiciary Committee Hearing Testimony on behalf of child sexual abuse victims

Last night, I got a message from a girl who has been rescued and she said, “thank you so much for speaking up for us”…and it was… pic.twitter.com/HabteqT1tQ

— Tim Tebow (@TimTebow) March 6, 2024

 “Identifying and rescuing these children is so much more than policy,” Tebow wrote in another post on X. “Policy is important, but our focus has to stay on people. They deserve our best because God set the example and gave His very best, His son Jesus. ”

Many of us have been actively fighting injustice issues for years. Socially conscious millennials and Gen Zers have spent much of their lives fighting for what they believe is right.

But now social media has emboldened the unwise and exacerbated the arguments. People are able to share their thoughts and purposefully provoke anger in others. Rather than reasoned and informed discussions, we’ve devolved into online shouting matches with people we don’t know from the safety of our couches with little fear of retribution.

What’s making it even worse is the lack of reliable information. Throughout the last decade, Americans have witnessed fake news sites not only gain traction, but become viral phenomena. People can take strong stands about topics and events that simply aren’t true. 

It’s exhausting, and that exhaustion can quickly slide into apathy. Cause fatigue. It’s easier to just block it all out and enjoy the silence of not engaging at all.

With all the causes and need stands to be made swirling around us, is it even possible to focus on worthy causes and avoid turning apathetic?

Start where you are

Jason Fileta and Scott Bessenecker have both been working in social justice for years, learning the keys to inspiring people to take action on issues of justice the hard way. 

“Pay attention to what God is putting in front of us,” says Fileta, the executive director of Micah Challenge USA. “Sometimes a particular issue will come up in very unexpected places. The Spirit puts those things in our path for a reason.”

Fileta thinks it’s physically impossible for people to exert energy on every single justice issue they come across. Instead, Bessenecker says, would-be activists should start with the posture Jesus teaches in the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).

“We don’t want to be that person who rushes past someone bleeding by the side of the road on our way to a protest rally,” says Bessenecker, who  is an activist and author of Overturning Tables: Freeing Missions From the Christian Industrial Complex. “We must develop that sensitivity, where an elderly person struggling with their luggage or a marginalized person being harassed right in front of us enters our field of concern and moves us to action.”

 Join a community of activists

Central to Fileta and Bessenecker’s advice is finding a community to walk with during the fight.

“We fail when we believe we are good enough and strong enough to do it alone,” Fileta says.

Similarly, Bessenecker warns that fighting alone can have dangerous consequences: 

“The worst thing someone trying to make a difference can do is to develop a messiah complex, believing you are the answer to the needs of the world. Know the one, small part you play. If you attempt to do it all, it feeds your ego and robs others of the roles they have to play in the greater effort.”

This isn’t new information. Fighting for justice within community is an idea as old as the Bible. Fileta and Bessenecker point to the words of King Solomon, who writes in Ecclesiastes 4:12,  “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Later, Jesus commands His disciples to share the Gospel by going in pairs. 

From the Bible’s perspective, working for justice is something done best—if not always—in the context of community. 

 Balance your life

In the world of activism, there are both unhealthy and healthy justice workers. Families have been ripped apart because one or more of them is so focused on the justice work they ignore their loved ones. 

People’s bodies physically rebel from the amount of stress related to working in the justice realm to the point of sporadic, days-long paralysis. People have become so burned out they leave the justice realm altogether, no longer fighting for anyone or anything.

But there are also people who have spent nearly their entire lives working for justice and are still going strong. What’s the difference?

“Remember that a field which lies fallow on a regular basis produces more than one that is harvested year after year,” Bessenecker says. 

He means the dangers of burnout are naturally prevented by the rhythms God intends for the Earth: God created Sabbath for a reason. 

Prioritize your faith

In order to give our all,  Fileta says, we must be filling ourselves back up somehow. Christians, if you haven’t noticed, don’t miraculously have an ever-running fountain of energy.

“Honestly, sometimes I don’t have the strength,” Fileta says. “I fall prey to escapism, fatalism and exhaustion just like most people.”

But, he goes on: “I find strength from prayer. I know that’s a cheesy textbook answer, but when I feel God’s presence, and His Spirit speaking straight to my soul, I come away energized and refreshed.”

His point is clear: Don’t let life overwhelm you so much that you end up ignoring your best option for comfort and revitalization.

Realize you will fail

From trying to join movements and realizing that they’re not a good fit, to trying to rally people around a certain issue and failing miserably, to simply getting into a Twitter conversation that turns antagonistic, sometimes activists and advocates fail. And who among us hasn’t botched a conversation on an issue of justice when you were new to the fight?

Failure is a fact of life. 

“Relax,” Fileta says. “Seriously, remember that we are simply workers alongside an all-powerful God. At the end of the day we have to ask ourselves if we trust Him, if we trust what He says about Himself, that He will make all things new. 

“If we can find ways to embrace that truth and trust in God, we will find the time to rest and return to our work with renewed passion and energy.”

You’re going to fail. But taking a step back,  Fileta counsels, re-evaluating your actions and further relying upon God will only strengthen your abilities and resolve to fight injustice, fend off apathy and move forward—even when you get exhausted.

Prepare and take action

Here’s the harsh reality: There is no magic formula for fighting injustice—and, yes, sometimes it’s exhausting. Every individual is different. Every justice community is different. But every justice issue requires action.

While saying a few words on social media might be an entry point for you on an issue, actual action has to be the next step. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Ideas to Take Real Action

Animal Rights

Volunteer at your local animal shelter or animal hospital. Walk the dogs. Clean the kennels. If you are able to, foster an animal until a permanent home can be found.

Environmental Justice

Take part in ride shares to work and the store. Buy used rather than new. Take public transportation. Plant some trees. Connect with groups like the Micah Challenge (www.micahchallengeusa.org) to learn the spiritual elements involved in climate justice.

Human Trafficking

You can only report human trafficking if you know what to look for. Thankfully many local community programs and organizations can educate you. Visit sites like www.humantraffickinghotline.org to educate yourself on what constitutes human trafficking in the U.S.

Poverty

Get to know families in your community who are living on SNAP. Make them real people, not numbers and stats and vague stories out in the universe. Talk through their hardships and help them in ways you feel God is leading you.

Pro-Life/Pro-Choice

No matter where you stand on abortion, find someone who holds the opposite view and is willing to have a conversation with you. Neither side wants an increase in abortions, so how can you work together to decrease the number of people seeking them? You won’t agree on everything, but you can learn from a civil conversation.

Racial Justice

Make friends with people of different ethnicities and listen to their stories. Call your state or national representative (get the info at senate.gov and house.gov) and ask them to repeal unjust laws and practices that disproportionately target people of color. Request all law enforcement personnel wear body cameras for the protection of law enforcement and the citizens they are sworn to protect.

Refugees

Contact organizations serving refugees like World Vision and World Relief  and find out their needs. Call your representatives to urge fair treatment of refugees. “Adopt” a local refugee family or simply donate needed items like furniture.

Women’s Rights

The Violence Against Women Act has lost significant funding under the new administration, putting women seeking to escape domestic violence situations at higher risk due to lack of available services. Call your elected representative and ask them to protect victims of domestic violence.

In truth, none of us are animals or angels (i.e., boys don’t have tails and girls don’t always act nice). God made us humans, and little has gone well in human relationships since our first ancestors disobeyed God. Scripture and history testify that we no longer live in Paradise (Romans 3:23). Conflicts are rife in our homes and communities. We have only to watch the news to see global violence and poverty affecting vulnerable people, usually women and children.

Christian feminists look to God’s word to make sense of what has gone wrong in human relationships affecting the world. Although the Bible does not explicitly refer to “feminism,” it speaks to justice issues that have bearing on present-day feminist concerns: What is true of God’s design and purposes for humans? How does sin play into human brokenness and wrong ways of treating others? What hope is there for change, healing and restoration? What is necessary, practically, as Christians pursue gender reconciliation?

To start, Christian feminists look to foundational truths about creation, the fall and redemption.

1. God designs females and males with equal dignity.

“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion” (Genesis 1:26).

You and I have dignity because we bear God’s image as humans (Genesis 5:1-2). Male and female equally reflect God as unique persons; neither is superior. When we treat others with dignity, we value God’s image in them. Mistreating others is mishandling God’s masterpieces.

2. God assigns important work to all humans.

In one breath, God expresses mutual purposes for male and female: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28).

Although different physiologically, God intends male and female to complete each other in a unity; children are the fruit of a couple’s union. Scripture also points at important work of single people and those who do not have children (1 Corinthians 7:8-9). Jesus never married, after all.

Clearly, God’s assignments include a range of possibilities. The Hebrew words for subdue and have dominion point at taking care of, serving, guarding, watching over, preserving and caring for others and the world. When we honor each other’s unique callings, we build God’s realm.

3. God intends male and female to contribute their unique strengths to benefit each other and the world.

God orchestrated a parade of animals to show the first man he could not possibly do all the work alone (Genesis 2:19-20). He was half a community without someone to help.

In Created in God’s Image, Old Testament scholar Anthony Hoekema explains that the man couldn’t reflect the plurality of God alone. The description of the woman as “a help” is the same word used to describe God and military protectors and allies (19 out of 21 times in the Old Testament). God only declared humanity “very good” after completing the masterpiece. We do well to honor the strength of women working alongside men.

4. Humans are sinful, and Christians are called to fight injustices.

“Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: Rebellion and treachery against the Lord, turning our backs on our God, inciting revolt and oppression” (Isaiah 59:12,13).

The Old Testament traces what happens as a result of humans abandoning God’s purposes. To this day, many experience less-than-human treatment, especially women and children. Attitudes of superiority play into devaluing others through stereotyping, minimizing, competitiveness, withholding resources, dominating, etc.

Sin is the belly of sexism, racism, classism and other forms of systemic inequality resulting in inequitable education/training/opportunity/pay; harassment; domestic and sexual violence; pornography; sex trafficking; slavery; and other crimes. As Christians, we are called to fight for justice in these areas (Isaiah 1:17).

It can be easy to criticize the way some people have gone about fighting for justice in various women’s issues, but Christians should respond to even misguided justice efforts graciously in Jesus’ name.

“Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone” (Colossians 4:5-6).

Three main branches of second-wave feminism take differing approaches to overcoming gender inequality. Radical feminism, associated with deep hurt and anger, emphasizes female jurisdiction and overcoming evils of patriarchy. Liberal feminism, known for valuing androgyny, seeks reform through education, equal political rights and economic opportunities, and exploring terminology and values. Marxist feminism pursues economic opportunity, freedom from racial and gender oppression and prosperity to all.

Time does not permit critiquing each one, biblically, but we can be sure Jesus would not “throw stones” at secular feminists (John 8:1-11).

5. The spirit of Jesus can restore broken, divided humans to wholeness and unity.

“I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me” (John 17:22-23).

In the words of Henri Nouwen, Jesus brings divided humanity to a new unity. The world pays attention when we treat each other in the ways we want to be treated (Matthew 7:12).

Evangelical feminists believe there is hope for redeeming communities from age-old conflicts (Ephesians 2:4-9). God has given us power to incarnate Jesus. Doing so enables rising above attitudes of superiority that result in stereotyping, minimizing, competitiveness, withholding resources, dominating, etc. And it enlivens us to oppose structures supporting inequitable education/training/opportunity/pay, harassment, domestic and sexual violence, pornography, sex trafficking, slavery and other crimes. Ground is fertile for bringing light, hope and wholeness to lives and communities in Jesus’ name.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

Recommended Reading

Created in God’s Image, by Anthony A. Hoekema

In the Beginning, by Henri Blocher

Beyond the Curse, Women Called to Ministry by Aida Besancon Spencer

The Locust Effect, Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence, by Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros

What’s Right With Feminism, by Elaine Storkey

It’s a problem Terence Lester is trying to solve. After spending several years as a pastor and church planter, Lester has moved to nonprofit work, focusing primarily on helping raise awareness about things like poverty, homelessness and systemic economic inequality. In his book When We Stand: The Power of Seeking Justice Together, Lester discusses the obstacles that keep Christians from getting involved in important causes. He spoke with RELEVANT about the blight of homelessness in the U.S. and how Christians can get involved.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What are some of the misconceptions you’ve come across that are impediments to us as a church being more service-minded in our lifestyles?

I think as we see how Jesus actually lived his life, he was always others-focused. I love these little lines [in the Bible] where it says, “And Jesus saw …and Jesus saw …and Jesus saw.” But he didn’t stop with seeing. Jesus embodied what it means to be proximate in presence. And there’s a difference between proximity and presence. We can be proximate to something or someone for a brief period of time and not even realize that we’re next to the person or the thing. But I think when you really embody a presence, you’re physically there and you are mentally there as well. You’re intently focused on your neighbor who is in front of you. When we talk about this idea of neighbor, Jesus was talking about people who don’t look like you or come from the same social location you come from. All of these different things.

And so I really believe that one of the greatest challenges has been not developing these proximate relationships where we practice the ministry of presence with people who are suffering.

And then, there’s little time, right? People are living lives where all of their margin is eaten up. That reinforces this event mentality where, “I don’t have enough time to give my life away to these things.” What I’m arguing is that you don’t have to give your life away. You just have to become available so God can actually use your life to make a difference with connecting with other people. 

Some churches wrestle with the idea of partnering with local organizations — other churches, maybe other faith groups or non-religious charity groups, maybe even local government. How can Christians navigate some of the interpersonal tensions that come up with those cooperative partnerships?

I deeply think that churches should get involved with organizations. We’ve had a number of churches and communities of faith get involved in the work that we do to affirm the dignity of people who are experiencing homelessness. And I can tell you, there are times when it hasn’t been a good witness for people who don’t believe in Jesus to see church people fighting about whose name will get recognition. But then there has been really powerful and transformative times when we’ve seen faith-based communities come together in the name of God to take the love of God beyond the four walls of the church.

I tell leaders who are leading communities of faith that there’s already someone in the community that’s doing the work that you may be passionate about. You can join in this good work and bring this collective force together to do more good and also to bring more glory to God.

You’ve touched on this a few times, that in a lot of churches, you sense this idea that there are two buckets; there’s the spiritual work and there’s the justice work that we do. And you should do both, but you can’t really do them at the same time because that gets confusing.

Yeah. That goes back to my experience being a Black man in America. I don’t have the luxury of separating my experience with brown skin and my faith. And so, in my tradition and my experience as a Black man being discipled in my faith journey, a large part of how I see the world is not only framed through a lens of justice and liberation, but it is also driven by my centeredness in God and my faith in Jesus. When I read the scriptures and it says that Jesus came to bring good news to those who were made poor by systems, I can identify with that because I understand that from my lens in being a Black man in America.

So I’ve never been able to separate my faith from justice talk. My ancestors and people who I’m standing on the shoulders of right now have fought all types of justice battles trying to overcome oppression and exclusion and racial trauma that has been entrenched in this country. I use my faith to do that. I use my faith to show up and continue to show up. And so there’s no separation for me.

Something that you hear a lot in that type of work, and I feel like it does come from a lot of white Christian folks, is this idea of a hand-up versus a handout. “Well, we can’t just give them resources because we don’t know what they’re going to do with money.” That is often used to tap the brakes on how much work could really be done, could be accomplished. 

Could you speak to that impulse that we feel, both as organizations and as individuals, when it comes to helping the homeless? 

Yeah. It’s a really great question. First, I want to quote one of my favorite quotes. “Our inability to relate to the experience of homelessness is also our biggest obstacle to ending it.”

I ask people to imagine a world where it’s illegal to sit down. It’s illegal to sleep in certain places. It’s illegal to even have multiple belongings with you. For some of us, if we were to put ourselves in that frame of mind or that context, we would say, “No, that’s unrealistic,” or, “No, that’s ludicrous.” But for people experiencing homelessness across the United States of America, these circumstances are an ordinary part of daily life.

In the majority of U.S. cities right now, it is illegal to do things like rest, sit, lie down, share food, sleep in cars in public places. There are over 200 cities right now that have created laws and ordinances that have criminalized what it means to experience homelessness. 

I think this criminal view of what it means to be homeless has stripped the dignity away. It’s also violated the human rights of a person experiencing homelessness. And it’s not affirming of the Imago Dei that reside in my brothers and sisters who don’t have an address.

Oftentimes I want to say this, because this is a huge point; just because a person doesn’t have an address does not mean that they’re not your neighbor. When Jesus says, “Love your neighbor,” he’s also talking about people who are experiencing homelessness.

There’s a city in South Carolina, on January 16, 2021, that unanimously voted to institute a ban against sleeping in public places. Now here’s the thing; there is a large, growing population of people experiencing homelessness. There’s a shortage in beds, but then there’s a ban to not allow people to sleep.

The Department of Justice, actually had to file a brief in 2015 that literally stated that it’s unconstitutional to punish people for practicing life-sustaining activities, meaning if you don’t have anywhere to sleep and you need to rest, because rest is a part of a life-sustaining activity, how could you take that away?

But I say all of that to say, I think what we have to do, as believers, is see people who are living on the streets the same way you would see someone sitting next to you in church holding a cup of coffee. God doesn’t love the person next to you in a church that drove there anymore than the person who had to sleep behind a building. And if we are really going to be about loving our neighbors, that also includes people without an address.

We’ve got to get past this mentality of, “If we’re going to help, we may hurt people.” Some people don’t have identification cards, some people can’t have access to showers. Right now, we’ve launched a campaign providing sanitation all around the United States through a campaign called LoveSinksIn, giving people experiencing homelessness access just to wash their hands because they were telling us to do that because of COVID. How can you require somebody to do something if you’re not also going to provide the tools for them to perform behaviors? And as a member of the family of God, how much more can we do to lead the initiative in loving our brothers and sisters whom God loves and has created and fashioned them in his own image, inviting them to the table? The Lord’s table. We’re called to extend the table, not to build walls.

Preorder Terence Lester’s When We Stand: The Power of Seeking Justice Together here.

Today, thousands of people die because of preventable diseases, hunger, circumstances perpetuated by extreme poverty, environmental factors, violence, unsafe working conditions and other ways that represent causes Christians should stand against.

Here’s a look at five of the modern-day pro-life issues currently making headlines that aren’t abortion.

Slavery

Today, there are more than 40 million slaves around the world. Many of them have been trafficked by human traders who lured them with promises of jobs. Many are children made to work long hours in dangerous conditions. Many are held against their will as sex slaves, forced into prostitution. Many have been deceived into taking on “debts” that they are then forced to pay by working in unending cycles of bonded labor agreements. Freed slaves tell horror stories of inhumane conditions on boats, farms and factories where many die and others are beaten, injured and given barely enough food or water to live.

How You Can Help: Organizations like International Justice Mission, AntiSlavery.org, the End It Movement and Free the Slaves all offer ways you can get involved through financial support and political action to end modern-day slavery.

The European Migrant Crisis

Over the last year, Europe has seen an influx of refugees from North Africa, the Middle East and Ukraine who are seeking safety from war, famine and diseases. Many of those attempting to flee fall victim to human traffickers who load refugees into dangerous boats and trucks, resulting in thousands of deaths and at-sea rescues. Thousands are fleeing violence and desperate refugee camps with no place to go.

How You Can Help: While leaders from the EU continue to meet and strategize who to help people in need, there are humanitarian organizations assisting those in need. Save the Children, and the Migrant Offshore Aid Station are among the organizations offering relief to Syrian refugees and migrants attempting to flee to Europe. Additionally, organizations like World Vision are hoping to meet the needs of Ukrainian families and North African families grappling with disaster.

The Death Penalty

Though more and more states have banned capital punishment, the United States is still among the leading countries in the world when it comes to state-sponsored executions and death sentences. Increasing concerns about the drugs used in lethal injections have brought the issue back into the national spotlight following several botched executions, though the practice still remains legal. Also concerning is the record number of exonerations of inmates who were wrongfully convicted—some of whom were on death row.

How You Can Help: The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty offers resources on how to make your voice known politically, and groups like the Innocence Project are in constant need of support as they provide legal assistance to inmates wrongfully convicted of committing crimes.

The Fight Against Systemic Racism

America is still waking up to the ways that racism has embedded itself into our social and cultural systems in ways that go far beyond ethnic slurs and “Whites Only” seating. Disparities in the justice, healthcare and education systems were built into the foundations years ago, and the U.S. has been resistant to deliberately removing the toxic materials in these structures. The cost has been high and has mostly been extracted via Black lives, resulting in an overall disparity in life expectancy in the U.S. For white men and women, it’s about 77 years and 81 years respectively. For Black men and women, it’s 72 and 78 years.

How You Can Help: The conversation around racism has been unavoidable for the last few years, but real action remains scarce. If you want to get involved beyond social media debates, there are plenty of groups doing on-the-ground work who could use your donations.

Clean Water

According to the World Health Organization, preventable diseases spread because of a lack of access to clean water kill more people than war. And, as charity:water notes, of the 30,000 people who die every single week from drinking unclean water and not having access to hygienic conditions, 90 percent are young children.

In an era when so many Christians have access to wealth and resources, this a major problem. Providing clean water to people in need not only saves thousands of lives by helping eliminate water-borne illnesses, it also helps communities economically by freeing up resources and time.

How You Can Help: Support one of the many organizations building wells, providing hygiene infrastructure and helping communities in need of access to resources like filters and water jugs.

Regular churchgoers in the United States (adults who attend church services at least once a month) were polled on social issues, particularly abortion and matters related to biblical teachings.

According to their findings, 16 percent of churchgoers admitted to having, paying for or encouraging an abortion. Additionally, 20 percent of respondents did not believe the Bible identifies when human life begins.

Regarding the Bible’s stance on abortion, 35 percent believed it is never acceptable, 19 percent deemed it acceptable when the mother’s life is at risk, and 10 percent thought the decision should be left to the couple. The study also found various views on abortion in cases of physical or mental disabilities.

The study shows that churchgoers are not a monolithic group when it comes to abortion. Even when identifying as “pro-life,” many Christians seem to have different standards: While 36 percent identified as “pro-life, with some exceptions or limitations,” 27 percent labeled themselves as “pro-life, without exceptions or limitations.”

David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, said that survey’s findings show an “ongoing need for instruction in a biblical worldview, particularly on abortion and the value of human life.”

“Christians might be surprised to learn that around 17 percent of female churchgoers have had an abortion, and 15 percent of male churchgoers have paid for or actively encouraged someone to get an abortion,” Closson wrote. “However, Family Research Council’s findings track with similar studies, including one by Lifeway Research in 2015 that showed 16% percent of all women who have had an abortion identified as evangelical Christian.

“To put these percentages into perspective, consider the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest protestant denomination,” Closson continued. “In 2023, the total membership across 47,198 SBC churches was 13.2 million. If we were to apply the 16 percent figure from the FRC and Lifeway surveys, approximately 2.1 million Southern Baptists have, at some point, actively participated in an abortion. In other words, we can conclude that millions of theologically conservative Christians have a personal history with abortion, even if they do not talk about it.”

Surprisingly, a group of influential Southern Baptist pastors from Tennessee penned a letter in support of Gov. Lee’s proposed gun reform law. However, their endorsement faced immediate backlash from members of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The pastors expressed their support for the law as a means to “strengthen our state’s order of protection laws to protect the broader population from those who are a danger to themselves or others.” They commended Gov. Lee’s approach, stating that it safeguards citizens’ constitutional rights while also offering protection to potential victims of dangerous individuals. To bolster their stance, the pastors cited scripture and resolutions from the SBC.

However, the letter sparked controversy among many Baptists, particularly those who staunchly support Second Amendment rights. The issue of gun control in the United States has long been a fiercely debated topic, exacerbated by the frequent occurrence of tragic shooting incidents. Nearly halfway through 2023, gun violence has claimed the lives of 19,532 individuals, with an additional 16,500 people injured. So far, 2023 has had the highest number of mass shootings in American history.

In light of the statistics, it is evident that change is urgently needed. However, amidst the prevailing rhetoric about gun reform, is there a third conversation that should be taking place? One that seeks to find common ground and practical solutions? Is it possible for Americans to engage in a peaceful and productive dialogue about gun reform?

The existing debate on gun control in the United States has become polarized, presenting a false dichotomy between staunch support for the unrestricted right to bear arms and advocating for an absolute ban on firearms. But does this binary approach truly represent the more nuanced views held by many Americans?

Author Brené Brown captures the plight of those who find themselves in the middle ground, stating, “I exist in that lonely space between all guns and no guns — a space that [feels] defined by criticism and judgment.”

There are individuals who grew up in households with firearms, appreciating the rich history of sportsmanship and personal freedom, while also recognizing the need for responsible gun policy reform. They believe that the conversation on gun control should transcend simplistic slogans and encompass a comprehensive and thoughtful evaluation of existing policies.

The conversation on gun control in the United States must transcend the current divisive rhetoric.

A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that 53 percent of Americans are receptive to stricter gun laws, even among gun owners. This demonstrates a recognition within this group of the necessity for sensible regulations, such as universal background checks and higher age requirements.

Taylor Schumann, a survivor of the April 2013 shooting at a college in Christiansburg, Virginia and author of When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough: A Shooting Survivor’s Journey into the Realities of Gun Violence, suggests that a third conversation on gun reform is already underway.

“A third conversation is already happening, we’re just not hearing about it,” she said. “I talk to people all the time about the conversations they’re having with family members and friends where they realize they’re not actually that far apart on the issue, or they find some unexpected common ground — maybe on Red Flag Laws or expanded background checks or closing a loophole.”

On an individual level, people seem willing to engage in nuanced conversations about reform. However, when the media enters the picture, these discussions often crumble.

“Unfortunately, we don’t hear about these conversations, and we’re not encouraged to have them, by the voices we listen to in the news or in politics,” Schumann laments. “We are largely told by the news media how extreme the other side is, how far apart we are on issues, how we can never find common ground. This serves ratings and keeps our politicians in office. But it also keeps us firmly in our political camp and believing the worst about those on the other side.”

Moving the conversation forward on gun control is no easy task, but it is crucial to acknowledge the emotionally charged nature of the discussion and approach it with a genuine interest in understanding everyone’s perspectives. Active listening should be prioritized, ensuring that the conversation remains focused on identifying common ground and achieving the shared goal of saving lives.

When engaging in conversations about gun control, it is essential to begin from a place of agreement. Recognize that both parties share the desire to reduce the loss of life due to gun violence. This common objective can serve as a foundation for exploring potential solutions and finding common ground.

Schumann points out that research indicates Americans are open to change. She highlights a poll conducted by Fox News in April, which found that 87 percent of voters favored requiring criminal background checks for all gun buyers, while 81 percent supported raising the legal age to purchase firearms to 21. Additionally, 80 percent of voters supported allowing the police to disarm individuals deemed a danger to themselves or others, and 77 percent supported a 30-day waiting period for all gun purchases.

It is worth acknowledging that changing someone’s stance on gun control may not occur in a single conversation. However, by challenging extreme views and sowing seeds of alternative perspectives, individuals can contribute to a positive shift over time.

Christians have a unique role to play in the conversation surrounding gun reform. The Church should be at the forefront, providing wisdom, clarity and solace to those impacted by gun violence. Unfortunately, the Church has often remained silent or failed to address this contentious issue adequately.

Schumann hopes that the Church will champion the value and dignity of individuals within the gun control debate and recognize the opportunity for personal sacrifice.

“Too often, this conversation sends people to the furthest ends of the political arena, which is understandable since politics is largely how we accomplish things in the United States and how we act on our beliefs,” she says. “But if anyone should be advocating for protecting lives and limiting human suffering, it’s the Church.”

Schumann envisions churches and community organizations sponsoring gun buyback programs or facilitating safe opportunities for people to relinquish their firearms voluntarily. She envisions individuals deciding that preserving lives and reducing gun violence outweigh personal attachment to guns, even without legal compulsion. While legislation is desirable, she firmly believes that meaningful work can still be accomplished even without its immediate enactment.

“If anyone should be advocating for protecting lives and limiting human suffering, it’s the Church.” – Taylor Schumann

Though the issue of gun control reform may appear overwhelming, there is reason for hope. Progress has already been achieved in some areas, with states implementing red flag laws, extending background check periods and enacting assault weapons bans. Grassroots initiatives and community-led efforts, such as gun buyback programs, also have the potential to make a substantial impact.

Schumann’s hope lies in the ongoing commitment of individuals, not just institutions, to advocate for change.

“My hope really is that we wouldn’t have to rely so heavily on legislative action but that we would see more action at individual and community levels,” she asserts. “I would love to see more people decide the safety of their neighbor is worth more than their guns.”

The conversation on gun control in the United States must transcend the current divisive rhetoric. While the path to change may be challenging, individuals and institutions, including the Church, have a critical role to play in bringing about constructive reform. By engaging in conversations with wisdom, compassion, and a focus on preserving lives, Americans can move toward a future that combines peace and productive gun reform.

Despite billions of federal dollars being spent on support services and shelter space, cities still struggle to keep up with the demand, especially in west coast areas where homelessness is pervasive and encampments are sprawling.

California has the nation’s highest homelessness rate. The state has roughly one-third of all the country’s homeless people, and Los Angeles, San Jose and Oakland have among the largest numbers of unsheltered people in the country.

Shelters are working nationwide to accommodate as many individuals as they can, but DHUD found that shelters were only able to accommodate for 181,786 individuals, despite an estimated 421,392 individuals experiencing homelessness as of January 2022. At the same time, eviction filing rates have not only returned but also exceed pre-pandemic levels in many popular U.S. cities as housing costs and inflation continue to rise.

COVID-19 forced cities to quickly find private rooms for unhoused people to practice social distancing. Some cities, like Phoenix and Denver, have used federal COVID aid money to buy hotels for people experiencing homelessness. But shelter conversions can take a year or more to get up and running.

Terence Lester, author of When We Stand: The Power of Seeking Justice Together, spoke with RELEVANT about how the Church can better address the rising homelessness crisis.

“I deeply think that churches should get involved with organizations,” he said. “We’ve had a number of churches and communities of faith get involved in the work that we do to affirm the dignity of people who are experiencing homelessness. And I can tell you, there are times when it hasn’t been a good witness for people who don’t believe in Jesus to see church people fighting about whose name will get recognition. But then there has been really powerful and transformative times when we’ve seen faith-based communities come together in the name of God to take the love of God beyond the four walls of the church.”

Lester also wants Christians to remember that caring for the homeless is a Biblical commandment, not a suggestion.

“Just because a person doesn’t have an address does not mean that they’re not your neighbor,” he said. “When Jesus says, ‘Love your neighbor,’ he’s also talking about people who are experiencing homelessness.

“I think what we have to do, as believers, is see people who are living on the streets the same way you would see someone sitting next to you in church holding a cup of coffee,” he continued.” God doesn’t love the person next to you in a church that drove there anymore than the person who had to sleep behind a building. And if we are really going to be about loving our neighbors, that also includes people without an address.”

The number of mass shootings has risen over the last two decades, but it wasn’t always this way. From 1994 to 2004, the number of mass shootings decreased significantly, thanks in large to a Congressional ban on assault rifles.

The ban was initially drafted after a series of mass shootings — a 1989 school shooting in Stockton, Calif., that killed five; a 1991 shooting of 23 people in Killeen, Texas; and a 1993 office massacre in San Francisco — led Congress to introduce and pass a ban on assault rifles in 1994.

The ban sought to increase the restrictions surrounding battlefield guns by expanding the definition of what constitutes an “assault weapon.” The ban outlines around a dozen guns such as AR–15s, Uzis, AK–47s and TEC–9s — all of which possess technical and cosmetic features that could make them appear as a replica of a assault gun — including magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds, telescoping or folding stocks, bayonet or grenade brackets, and pistol grips.

However, the ban contained a “sunset clause,” which meant it was only enacted for a decade before it was up for another run through Congress. And in 2004, it lost. Congress failed to reenact the law, and the ban was lifted. Since then, as indicated by the red line below, mass shootings have nearly quadrupled.

A 2019 study published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery found a 70 percent increase in mass shootings since the 10-year ban, based on an analysis of data from 1971 to 2017. And mass shootings have exponentially increased since 2017.

For the last two decades, Congress has tried and failed to reenact an assault rifle ban. Following yesterday’s shooting, President Biden addressed the nation, saying, “It’s heartbreaking, a family’s worst nightmare. We have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping at the very soul of the nation. We have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons.

“Women have D&Cs for many reasons,” Duggar posted, “not all of which involve killing a living human being.”

The “19 Kids and Counting” alum revealed in a video Friday she had experienced “heartbreak over the holidays,” when she and her husband, Ben Seewald, experienced a miscarriage near the end of her first trimester. She said it left her in “complete shock.”

“I didn’t even have words,” Duggar said. “I just immediately started crying. And I was so, so thankful in that moment that I had not gone to that appointment by myself, because I almost did. And Ben was there, and he put his arms around me.”

After her post, Duggar was accused by media outlets of “admitting she got an abortion.”

Jezebel posted, “Jessa Duggar Seewald Had an Abortion, Even If She Won’t Say the Word,” while Parade published “Jessa Duggar Reveals She Had a Life-Saving Abortion in Emotional New Video.”

This is monstrous. Jessa Duggar suffered a miscarriage recently & received a D&C afterward (common medical care) to clear womb & protect her from infection. Abortion activists are capitalizing on her suffering by claiming she had an abortion. There is no depth they won’t sink to. pic.twitter.com/qiQ31vrI00

— Megan Basham (@megbasham) February 27, 2023

A common procedure after miscarriages, Duggar underwent a D&C — or dilation and curettage — to remove tissue from the uterus. The short procedure is, in many cases, necessary to prevent infection or complications following a miscarriage, particularly if there is a chance uterine bleeding won’t fully clear the uterus. Additionally, some women, like Duggar, experience “missed miscarriages,” instances in which the body does not realize the unborn baby has died.

That is not the same as an abortion, which is defined as the “deliberate termination” of a pregnancy. Duggar, 30, had already lost the baby when she underwent a D&C.

“My baby’s heart had stopped beating three weeks before I had a D&C,” Duggar explained in an Instagram story. “(BTW, this was not my first D&C — it was my second. My first was two weeks postpartum Ivy’s birth for retained placenta).

“Each person is created ‘in the image of God’ (Gen 1:27), and to purposefully destroy a baby in the womb is an affront to the God who created that life,” wrote Duggar. “There’s a world of difference between someone dying and someone being killed.

“To equate one to the other — and to a mother grieving the loss of her baby no less — is severely distasteful,” she continued. “There is a world of difference between a mortician and a murderer. Even a child understands the difference between the two.”

Watch Duggar’s original video:

Natalia Harrell, who is eight months pregnant, has been held without bond since July on a charge of second-degree murder. The Miami Herald reports that Harrell’s attorney, William M. Norris, recently filed a write habeas corp — an appeal alleging a person has been illegally detained — in Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, arguing that Harrell’s unborn child is being “improperly jailed” and should be discharged so it can receive proper care.

“An unborn child has rights independent of its mother, even though it’s still in the womb,” Norris wrote. “The unborn child has been deprived of due process of law in this incarceration. You simply have to have the unborn child as a factor in the equation.”

Norris’s argument is based on the concept of fetal personhood, which is the belief that an unborn child is a person entitled to constitutional protections. This idea has gained notoriety following last summer’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

On Monday, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s office filed a motion to dismiss Norris’s petition, saying he didn’t provide necessary documentation to support the allegations about inadequate medical treatment and that habeas corpus is the wrong legal argument under which to seek relief.

Harrell is accused of killing another woman during an argument in an Uber on July 23. She pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to stand trial in April. Harrell has been jailed at the Miami-Dade Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center for nearly seven months, an arrangement the petition argues has left her and her unborn child vulnerable.

Norris claims that detention center employees have failed and refused to provide medical care or transport Harrell to scheduled medical appointments. She hasn’t seen an obstetrician-gynecologist since October, according to the petition, and employees have failed to provide Harrell with vitamins, liquids and nutritional food necessary for child development.

Without proper care, Norris said he fears the child will be harmed before or during childbirth.

“The unborn child is incarcerated without any consideration of its rights at all,” Norris said. “Our interest is in the health of the unborn child, and at this point, it’s a crapshoot. We don’t know what the health of the unborn child is at this point because months have passed with no prenatal care.”

In November, Gendron pleaded guilty one count of domestic act of terrorism motivated by hate, 10 counts of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted murder and a weapons possessions charge. Gendron was the first person to be charged under a 2020 New York law against domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which carries an automatic sentence of life without parole.

On May 14, 2022, Gendron traveled over 200 miles to a majority-Black neighborhood in Buffalo to carry out the shooting, which he livestreamed on Twitch. Prosecutors reported that he posted a hate-filled creed invoking the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory that white people were being systematically replaced by nonwhite people.

Before being sentenced, surviving victims and loved ones of those killed had the chance to address Gendron and the court. The daughter of Andre Mackniel, one of the ten people killed, spoke directly to Gendron, saying, “I’ll never forgive you. It wasn’t my dad’s time to go. Who are you to think you control that?”

Gendron himself also decided to make some remarks in the courtroom, expressing regret and apologizing for the pain he had caused the victims and families.

“I’m very sorry for stealing the lives of your loved ones,” he said. “I did a terrible thing that day. I shot and killed people because they are Black. Looking back now, I can’t believe I did that. I believed what I read online and acted out of hate. And now I can’t take it back. But I wish I could. I don’t want anyone to be inspired by me by what I did.”

Gendron is also facing separate federal charges — 10 counts of a hate crime resulting in death, three counts of hate crime involving bodily injury and 13 counts of firearms offenses — which could carry the death penalty if the Justice Department decides to seek it. Gendron pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. However, during a December hearing, Gendron’s attorney said he would be prepared to enter a guilty plea in federal court in exchange for a life sentence.

The world’s first “artificial womb facility” is in the works, and it plans to give clients the ability to choose their baby’s characteristics from a menu.

EctoLife was conceptualized by Hashem Al-Ghaili, a Berlin-based biotechnologist, and he believes his plan could be beneficial for couples struggling with conception for any reason.

EctoLife would work by taking embryos and placing them in “growth pods,” or artificial wombs, which would be designed to replicate the exact conditions of a mother’s uterus. EctoLife would also offer an “Elite Package,” which would give parents the option to pre–determine the characteristics of their child by genetically engineering the embryo before it is placed in the artificial womb. This could include eye and hair color, height and even intelligence.

Additionally, the pods would be equipped with a screen that displays real–time data on the developmental progress of the baby, which can also be viewed via a phone app. The facility would contain 75 high-tech labs, each one able to accommodate up to 400 pods. That would result in approximately 30,000 babies a year. 

Of course, there’s a major ethical dilemma here. For starters, current research on human embryos is not allowed to go beyond 14 days, after which they must be destroyed due to ethical concerns. If laws were to relax and EctoLife could find a way to move forward, there’s still the “playing God” factor. If you ask us, choosing not only what your child would look like but also who that child might grow up to be is um, something better left in the hands of a higher power. 

It is clear that EctoLife has the potential to revolutionize the way people think about childbirth in the future, and a version of it could possibly be a viable option for couples who have difficulty conceiving. But the ethical and legal implications of the rest of the plan really need to be addressed.

Money might be tight this year, so your ability to give may not be quite as robust as previous years — and that’s OK. Sharing these companies online raises their profile, and that’s a huge gift to non-profits as well.

Here are a few good people doing good work for important causes.

Racial Justice

Color of Change 

The nation’s largest racial justice organization is also one of the most well-connected, advocating for change at high levels for a more equitable future. 

Live Free USA

Live Free works with churches, educating and deploying congregations into communities to help fighting for racial justice at the local level.

Know Your Rights Camp

By mobilizing and educating Black and Brown communities, the Know Your Rights Camp helps people become more aware of their options in the face of injustice. 

Prison Reform

The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform 

The NICJR not only works to help change the way America treats its prisoners but also works at helping educate communities, helping prevent people from getting caught up in crime in the first place.

The Equal Justice Initiative

Bryan Stevenson (author of Just Mercy, who was played by Michael B. Jordan in the movie of the same name) has done unparalleled work in the space of reforming America’s criminal justice system. 

Innocence Project

The Innocence Project uses DNA testing to help exonerate the wrongly convicted and get people who don’t belong behind bars back out on the street.

Climate Change

350

350 is hard at work finding solutions to the fossil fuel crisis, ensuring a transition to renewable energy sources that protects jobs and communities. 

Natural Resources Defense Council

The NRDC works to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water and the wild, and to prevent special interests from undermining public interests.

Conservation International 

Since 1987, Conservation International has helped protect more than 2.3 million square miles of land and sea across more than 70 countries.

Hunger/Clean Water

Charity: Water

One of RELEVANT’s favorite charitable organizations out there — the brand that launched a movement and is determined to make the lack of clean water a thing of the past. 

Feeding America 

Hunger has never been bigger issue for Americans during this entire pandemic than it is right now and Feeding America is doing great work meeting the crisis with boots-on-the-ground volunteers and hot meals into homes that need them.  

Convoy of Hope

Convoy is one of the most effective relief organizations in the world, blowing through their goal of providing 10 million meals in 2020 to delivering over 150 million.  

Education

World Vision

One of the world’s most famous humanitarian aid organizations doesn’t just help keep children fed, but also makes sure they’ve got the tools and resources they need for a better future. If you can afford to sponsor one of their children, it’s absolutely something you should do. 

College Possible 

College Possible doesn’t want anyone to go without a college education who doesn’t want one and through intensive training and curriculum in low-income communities, their dream is becoming a reality. 

First Book

There’s no education like a good book and that’s something First Book aims to provide for everyone in America, helping children across the nation build their own personal library. 

The state called off Smith’s execution by lethal injection — which would have been the fourth execution in the U.S. this week — after repeated attempts to set an IV line.

“We tried several locations (on his body),” Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said, according to AL.com.

This is the second failed execution from the Alabama Department of Corrections this year. Back in July, Joe Nathan James’ execution received heavy scrutiny for breaking away from Alabama protocol for execution after a report in The Atlantic said a private autopsy showed James’ “suffered a long death.”

Ngozi Ndulue, the deputy director of the Death Penalty Information Center, spoke to CNN about the botched attempts.

“The attempted execution of Kenneth Smith last night is the last in a series of executions and attempted executions that demonstrate failures in Alabama’s ability to implement the death penalty consistent with its protocols and constitutional values,” Ndulue said. “When other states have faced sustained problems with executions, they have paused executions and investigated the source of the issue.”

The death penalty has become a pro-life issue for Christians and non-Christians alike. Organizations like the Innocence Project work endlessly to end lethal injections and executions, and Congress has slowly begun discussing what, if anything, can be done about the death penalty. Last year, numerous representatives introduced the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2021 to Congress in order to abolish the death penalty under federal law.

But the truth is I don’t want to “serve” the poor anymore, and neither should you.

Maybe I should clarify: I don’t want to “serve” the poor in the same ways that we as a Church and society have been serving for so many years. Frankly, it isn’t working, and it’s not just hurting the poor, it’s hurting all of us as the Body of Christ. Jesus did say that “the poor will always be with you” (Matthew 26:11), but that doesn’t mean what we often think it means, and it certainly isn’t an excuse for us to give up in the face of failure either. What we need to do instead is step back and re-evaluate our approaches, redefine what it means “to serve,” understand different methods of serving (and when to use them) and most importantly, re-evaluate why we serve.

So, what does it mean to serve the poor?

Jesus served the poor in many different ways. One of the ways He served was through charity—the giving of material things such as money, food, clothes—and He calls us to do the same (Matthew 25:35-40). Charity can be an easy, quick and tangible way of sharing Christ’s love and compassion for people who are experiencing a temporarily difficult situation. It is 100 percent necessary and part of our responsibility as the Church, and in the U.S., we are pretty good at charity.

However, charity is not always what is needed in every situation, or for indefinite periods of time.

For example, think about the effect that pouring millions of pounds of food aid or dumping piles of used clothing has on an already fragile foreign economy—it absolutely destroys it because local farmers and tailors simply cannot compete with free. We may be feeding and clothing people, but at what cost—at the cost of someone’s dignity and livelihood? Is this the type of service that the Bible calls us to?

More often what is needed is development rather than charity. Inappropriately giving charity in the place of development, whether done intentionally or unintentionally, only serves to bolster our savior complexes by further strengthening the dependency cycle between the economically wealthy and poor; it pities rather than respects; and it fails to recognize God and to celebrate the God-given potential and value of those we are “serving.”

There comes a time for charity to stop and development to begin. Jesus served through charity, but He also served through development and we should, too.

So, what does development look like and how does the Bible and Jesus model this?

• Development is about creating a system where everybody has the opportunity to work.
  Even before there was sin in the world, there was work (Genesis 2:15), and we are not helping anybody by taking away their opportunity to work. Work is a gift from God to us, a sanctifying act in which we can use the gifts that God gave us to connect with Creation, each other and with God. We need to start focusing more on providing things like education, opportunities and empowerment in place of things so everyone has a chance to work and use their God-given potential.
• Development treats the root causes of poverty alongside of the symptoms.
  This means exploring the hundreds of complex reasons, both societal and individual as well as physical, mental and spiritual, that contribute to poverty and working to solve them rather than continuing to treat the symptoms with charity alone. Just as doctors don’t ignore the symptoms of a disease while looking for the cause of the disease itself, neither can we ignore the immediate needs of people around us as we look to understand the deeper issues. Jesus was charitable, but He also came to both treat expose and to treat the root of the problem so that all might truly live (John 10:10, Luke 16:15).
• Development is a wise investment into people and their futures, not just their current state.
  As Christians, we shouldn’t just be thoughtlessly giving our money away. We should be seeking out organizations, places and people where we can strategically invest it. It may take years until we can see the return on that investment for society, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. People and their futures are worth it. Good intentions with money are not enough which Jesus demonstrates in the Parable of the Talents, making it clear what it means to be good stewards of the resources our master has given us (Matthew 25:14-30).
• Development frees people by breaking the chains of oppression.
  Despite how it may typically be interpreted, Matthew 26:11 is actually one of the strongest calls to action in the biblical mandate to end poverty through development. In those words, Jesus is referencing Deuteronomy 15:11 where God is giving the Israelites instructions on how to end poverty and bring about the Jubilee: It wasn’t just through charity. Instead, it was to be a social movement acknowledging God as the Savior that focused on sacrificial giving and forgiveness and freedom for the poor in order to restore equality, justice, peace and unity with God and each other.
• Development asks what people need.
  It doesn’t assume. It values people and their voices and it recognizes their ideas and potential as not only equal but more valuable than our own. It is about taking on a humble attitude of searching and seeking, rather than entering into every situation with our own plans.  How often do we forget this simple step of asking in our service to the poor—reinforcing dependency cycles, wasting money and robbing dignity? Even Jesus asked a blind beggar what he wanted before He performed the healing and so should we. (Mark 10:51).
• Development is about relationships, humbly working with people rather than for people.
  Jesus invited everyone to the table (Luke 14:13). It’s about equality. It’s breaking down barriers and stereotypes. It’s engaging our hearts on a deeper level and not being intimidated or afraid of the differences, of the unknown, of getting in too deep, of feelings, of failing, or of sharing in the reality of someone else’s suffering. For this reason, development is messy and it’s complicated and typically slow. There is no one perfect easy path or way of doing it, there is no grand solution or one organization that’s doing it perfectly. It’s confusing and it’s humbling, but it’s these relationships, not things, which make it all possible and worthwhile.

Relationships with people matter, but as Christians wanting to do or emotionally/financially support development work there is one relationship that matters even more: our relationship with God. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because He first loved us.” Christ’s life and sacrifice for us is the ultimate display of God and His true love and if we don’t know Christ, then we don’t know love. We may have the best intentions, “but if we don’t have love, we have nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). And if we have nothing, then we have nothing to give, nothing worthwhile anyway.

So many of us, myself included at times, are trying to serve the poor on our own, either because we want to feel good, meet an invisible Christian obligation or we think that maybe God can’t do it Himself. Before we go out and try to serve the poor (or anybody for that matter) through our actions or even through our money, we need to look within, re-evaluate and rededicate our hearts. Jesus knew this. He knew He couldn’t do this work of serving that God had called Him to without first spending some serious time seeking God through prayer and His word (Luke 6:12, Mark 1:35, Hebrews 5:7, etc).

We need to be recommitting our hearts to the Lord daily, pouring ourselves out before Him, ridding ourselves of any selfish motivations or prideful thoughts, and allowing God to guide us and fill us up with His love FIRST so we actually have something worthwhile to give. When we fail to do this, what we end up doing is interacting with people from a safe distance, dispensing out a cheap manufactured version of love, bringing glory to ourselves and parading around a weak and needy hollowed-out version of Jesus who apparently needs us and our “good works” in order to save humanity. The result? Neither the poor nor the rich will come to know Christ nor the power, mercy, goodness, love or strength of the gospel. Nobody will experience true freedom or grace, we will just be applying patches to a failing system.

I guess what I really meant when I said “I don’t want to ‘serve’ the poor” was: I don’t want to serve the poor if it’s creating an oppressive system that fosters dependency and destroys dignity. I want to do more, to do better for society. I want to serve through charity when needed, but I also want to build relationships and empower people through development, even if that is messy and complicated and I don’t see results as quickly. I want to seek God first so that through Him I can serve and better support others who serve in a way that leads us ALL to thrive rather than just survive, in a way that gives people eternal life rather than just a longer life. I want to change the way we view the poor so that we can change the way we serve the poor so that the Body of Christ can truly be restored.

In 1969, when Pew first started asking people how they felt about marijuana legalization, just 12 percent of Americans thought weed should be legalized. But things have changed rapidly on that front over the last few years, with 67 percent in favor of marijuana legalization today. That group includes Christians. 60 percent of Protestants say weed should be legalized, along with 53 percent of Catholics, according to the most recent study. Even evangelicals — generally the most conservative U.S. demographic — narrowly support legalization, with just over 50 percent saying they believe weed should be decriminalized.

There are several reasons for this. Compared to other substances, experts consider marijuana usage to be fairly safe and non-physically addictive. Economically, weed legalization provided a huge boost to Colorado, prompting states like Oregon, California, Washington and New York to follow suit in spite of the federal government. Some Christians, like XXXChurch’s Craig Gross, have even started touting getting high as a spiritual experience.

Still, not every Christian is on board the #legalizeit train. Like most pastors, Dr. Russell Moore opposes marijuana use. “Most of the young evangelicals I know seek to minister to friends who have been harmed by marijuana culture,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “This isn’t theoretical to them at all.” Four out of five Christian pastors agree with him.

So Christian opinions on marijuana are changing, and believers will disagree on whether or not that’s a good thing. But one question Christians should be asking as more and more state laws reflect shifting opinions on marijuana is what this means for the people behind bars for marijuana. As American laws and opinions shift on marijuana — and some entrepreneurs get very rich off of this newly legal enterprise — shouldn’t that mean revisiting the cases of people who went to jail for it?

Much of America’s mass incarceration crisis stems from minor marijuana offenses. Four-in-ten drug arrests in 2018 were for weed, mostly possession. Crucially, the racial disparities in the American criminal justice system are rarely more stark than they are when it comes to marijuana. Although Black and White Americans use marijuana at roughly the same rates, Black people are almost four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

Consider the case of Fate Vincent Winslow. In 2008, Winslow was arrested after selling $20 of weed to an undercover cop in Louisiana. Winslow wasn’t the drug dealer. He was homeless, working as a middle man between the actual dealer and the buyer, with an agreement to make five dollars on commission. The actual dealer, who is White, was not arrested. Winslow, who is Black, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Winslow’s story isn’t unique. Since 1996, at least 54 people have been sentenced to life in prison for marijuana-related crimes, but exact numbers are hard to come by and the ACLU believes there are probably more.

But of course, you don’t have to be locked up for life for a charge like this to change everything. The formerly incarcerated face enormous challenges, including the types of jobs they want, the places they can live and public assistance they are eligible for.

Squaring the reality of these sentences with sunny press releases about a group of (mostly White) scientists who successfully created the world’s largest pot brownie is a maddening exercise. Even the staunchest critic of marijuana legalization would have to wonder if the punishment really fits the crime, since even possession is not even considered a crime in some parts of the country. For example, Craig Cesal repaired freight trucks for a living, and took a job with a company that used trucks to move a lot of weed on the sly. According to him, he never handled or even saw any drugs, but he was still “convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute thousands of pounds of marijuana,” according to Mother Jones. He was sentenced to life. “I had no idea I had done anything illegal,” he said.

For Christians, the question goes even deeper than fairness. In Matthew 15, Jesus tells the disciples that he identifies with those in prison, telling them that when they visit people in jail, they’re really visiting him. Christians have every reason to advocate for just treatment of inmates, because doing so is advocating for the just treatment of Jesus himself.

This is about much, much more than whether or not you think weed should be legalized. This is about the Church’s concept of justice. There are some legal movements afoot to tackle the disparity, from a proposed Illinois bill that would release inmates convicted of cannabis charges to several California bills that have lowered or dropped marijuana charges over the last few years.

While nuance has never been a strength of popular discourse, it’s needed here. Justice reform advocates like Bryan Stevenson have long been pushing for more humane policies around sentencing, focusing on movements like ending mandatory minimums. In 2015, former President Barack Obama granted clemency to dozens of federal inmates who’d been locked up for non-violent drug offenses, citing past excesses from lawmakers eager to prove their “tough on crime” bonafides, throwing minor criminals behind bars and throwing away the key.

Clemency isn’t always popular politically or culturally, but Christians should be familiar with the idea of forgiveness and restoration. The debate on marijuana use will probably be over any time soon. But there is no need to wait on desperately needed reforms to our justice system.

“…That States have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home,” Alito wrote. 

Alito’s words echo a belief pro-life advocates have spread for years: adoption is the antidote to abortion. For every unwanted pregnancy, there’s a family out there who wants a child. But the data shows that isn’t necessarily true. 

According to a study by Good Housekeeping, more than 33 percent of Americans consider adopting a child, but only two percent actually follow through with the process. This means  approximately 117,000 children will spend years of their life in the system waiting to be adopted.  

All things considered, the state of adoption has been improving. The National Council for Adoption reports the number of domestic infants relinquished in private adoptions (without involving a step-parent) has dropped about two percent a year since 2012, hitting an all-time low in 2020. 

Fewer children are entering foster care due to increased wages, better welfare options and more support from local, state and federal governments. However, the future of adoption is a bit unsteady at the moment. 

Yet the future of adoptions are unsteady at the moment.

It’s too early to determine how the overturn of Roe will ultimately play out, but experts predict the number of women giving their children up for adoption will increase each year. 

Their best guess? Ten thousand additional newborns are expected to enter the adoption process annually. 

Christians have been the most vocal supporters of overturning Roe. Immediately following the Supreme Court decision, social media was full of Christians celebrating the news. Many were intonating that the fight for life had been won—but the fight against abortion isn’t over because one law was overturned. If anything, it’s just beginning. 

Many women with unplanned pregnancies will have valid concerns of not being able to financially care for their child, provide proper medical care, or mentally withstand all it takes to raise a child. These women will need help — and grace — more than ever. 

So, if adoption is to be the antidote to abortion, that means there will be thousands of children needing safe homes and loving families to care for them. And this is where the Church can step in. 

“The goal of adoption and foster care is all about helping strengthen families and keep them together,” says Cheri Williams, the senior vice president of domestic programs for Bethany Christian Services. 

“Whether that’s birth families who need us to come around them and help bring services and support to help them stay together, or adoptive families after the adoption has taken place.” 

Williams has spent decades with BCS placing children in healthy adoption and foster care homes. BCS is based in Michigan but has offices in 32 states, making it the largest Protestant adoption agency in the U.S. In 2019 alone, it oversaw 3,406 foster  care placements and 1,123 adoptions. 

Agencies like BCS have rigorous training for would-be adoptive parents, educating individuals on how to handle emotional, physical and psychological trauma. Federal and state agencies have been working to ensure their employees have the resources they need to keep children safe and thriving. 

This can make the adoption process longer for families, but it’s imperative the child receives the best care possible, even if that takes time. Agencies often need months to vet would-be families and prepare them for a wide range of children with specific needs. 

For Williams, adoption is not just an alternative for an child born into a difficult situation, but an opportunity to share a message of hope.

“We see adoption and the theme of adoption and the spirit of adoption throughout the Bible,” Williams says. “It can be a beautiful thing, but adoption always starts with trauma and loss. By God’s perfect design, every family would be able to raise and care for children that are born into that family. But we know we live in a fallen world.

“I think it’s to our detriment to think of it as either a beautiful thing or a bad thing or a hard thing or a traumatic thing,” she continues. “It’s both, and ultimately, at the end of the day, we believe that family changes everything. We will do everything we can to make that transition as positive as possible.”

While Williams believes in the beauty of adoption, she also stresses how important reunification is for families. The goal should not be for every unwanted pregnancy to end in adoption. Rather, it should be meeting the needs of someone who needs help, and that can look different in every situation. 

Sometimes that could mean giving a child up for adoption, or sometimes it means making meals for a struggling single mom. 

“It can be a beautiful thing, but adoption always starts with trauma and loss.”

“What could our world really look like if we really came around vulnerable families and helped them stay together?” Williams wonders. 

This is the next step for the fight for life for the Church. Now more than ever, Christians have the opportunity and responsibility to step in and provide support to those who need it the most — physically, financially, emotionally and yes, even spiritually. 

Williams equates the work of foster care and adoption to the story of Moses. 

“Moses’ mom — due to the genocide that was happening — put Moses in the river and he floated downstream. Miriam pulled him out of the water, took him into Pharaoh’s home, and raised him and gave him love and a home. He was raised in the context of a family, but what does it look like now for us as believers to go upstream and say, ‘What is happening up the stream that is causing Moses’s mom to have to put him in the river to begin with?’ How can we as believers come around families while they’re vulnerable, help them stay together?” 

That’s the question the Church should be asking now. For decades, advocates spent their time working to overturn the law legalizing abortion. But the reasons women choose to have abortions, or inevitably give their children up for adoption, still remain. 

Now, the Church must figure out how to help the women who is unable to shoulder the financial burden of raising a child (the average cost of raising a kid from birth is approximately $233,610) or who is stressed with how a child will effect it would have on their education or career (the U.S. ranks last in government-mandated paid parental leave). 

The underlying goal of the Church moving forward should be supporting those who feel like they are out of hope. By showing them that God and His people care about them, struggling families have a chance to stay united together. 

“I’ve seen families quite honestly give their life to Christ because of the love they’ve experienced from the Church,” Williams says. “I’ve seen families be able to stay together and provide for their kids because they had people cheering them on or helping them make connections for their new job or just giving that concrete support that we all need.”

Anitta (not her real name), who gave birth to her daughter when she was 22, relied heavily on her local church community to make it through the first few years of unexpected motherhood.

“I was not in a good place,” she said. “I was on my own and the father didn’t want to stick around. At first I was nervous about what my friends would say, but I can honestly tell you now if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have my daughter with me today. They showed up with meals for us, or would just come over to watch her so I could take a nap. I wouldn’t even have to ask sometimes. They just knew I needed help and would offer right away.” 

“It is a much easier ask of God’s people to wrap around and do what we do and love on families and help support families.”

It doesn’t take a lot to make a difference for families in need. There are many ways God can use His people to minister to one another. The Bible talks often about the importance of adoption. From spiritual adoption as co-heirs with Christ in Galatians to the tangible adoption of Moses by Miriam, God has woven adoption into the story of humanity. 

It’s a foundation of the Christian faith. And it continues to be a call for believers everywhere today. 

Williams, who has spent her entire career working in foster care and adoption, remains hopeful the Church will continue to show up for vulnerable families who need extra help.

“It is a much easier ask of God’s people to wrap around and do what we do and love on families and help support families,” she says. “That’s a much easier ask than actually adopting a kid for life forever, and bringing a kid into our family. I have this vision that God’s people are going to catch this vision as well, and that we as believers will be known for our love and for wrapping around vulnerable families in need.”

In Puerto Rico alone, 3.1 million residents are still without power, and roughly only 300,000 people have regained their power since the storm hit, according to LUMA Energy, the electric company that operates the island’s aging power grid.

At the time of this writing, five people have died from the storm, but officials expect that number to rise the longer it takes for the islands to recover.

Puerto Rico is still recovering from 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria, which caused the longest blackout in U.S. history. It took nearly 11 months for the the island to fully recover power and parts of the island were still rebuilding their communities.

Hurricane Fiona is still on the move in the Atlantic, but organizations are already gathering volunteers and emergency resources to help the communities in need.

Here are some organizations working on the frontlines that sure could use your financial support:

• The Red Cross is currently gathering supplies and volunteers for the Caribbean nations.
• Operation Blessing is a nonprofit organization providing emergency relief to disaster victims.
• Convoy of Hope is working with local officials to provide food, water and other disaster relief to victims.
• Global Empowerment Mission are at work in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico offering aid and assistance.
• Project Hope has already sent volunteers to assist shelters and food banks in Puerto Rico.
• World Central Kitchen is providing nutritious meals to victims and volunteer teams in Puerto Rico.

That’s the gist of the results from a new report conducted by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization. The report found the one out of every 150 people is currently living under the conditions of modern slavery.

Of the roughly 50 million people living in their devastating reality, nearly nine million entered into these conditions within the last five years. The on-going coronavirus pandemic, devastating climate change effects, unstable economy and more have led to this rise.

The UN report focused on two major areas of modern slavery: forced labor and forced marriages. The first category applies to approximately 27.6 million people, including 3.3 million children, and the latter represents 22 million people and counting. Both instances appeared in every corner of the world, including high-income nations. Women and children are most likely to be exploited in modern slavery, too.

To put it simply: This is not an issue any citizen of the world can afford to ignore.

The UN complied the report in order to determine what can be done. And the bottom line is that it will take an enormous collective effort to completely abolish slavery. Governments have their roles to play to ensure the safety of everyone, but individuals do have the power to make tangible differences, too. If everyone is willing to step up to the plate, the tide will turn and modern slavery can be a thing of the past.

The problem feels both far away, incredibly complicated, and too large to make a dent in. The latest data estimates 45.8 million people are in modern slavery today worldwide, and impacting change in such a lucrative and exploitative system of oppression feels a bit like fighting the Transatlantic Slave Trade of the 1800’s. It might just feel as difficult as fighting slavery actually would.

And, unfortunately, the average American consumer can play a significant role in the demand for slave labor without even realizing it in the products they purchase.

When Exodus Road first  began this work in intervention, my husband who worked as an undercover operative overseas came home one night discouraged. He was actively working with the police to locate minors caught in sex slavery, and had witnessed a particularly gut-wrenching night.

We talked about quitting. The risks—to our safety, to our mental health, to our marriage—seemed too high. We didn’t have the answers for how we would handle what might come down the pike at us next.

But then we thought about the 14-year-old farmer’s daughter who thought she was taking a job in a restaurant, was deceived by a corrupt system, and who was now held under the thumb of a pimp, forced to sleep with five or more older men a night in some seedy brothel. We thought about what she would say to us, to our excuses and our doubts about what abolition might cost us.

We thought she’d probably look at us and say, “Come and find me. Help me. Fight for me. I don’t care what it might costs or how. Figure it out.”

Figure it out.

And it’s what I would say to you, as well. If you want a free world for our kids, if you want to stand with the literal slaves today against oppression, figure it out.

It doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it will require action. From all of us.

Here’s where you can start:

1. Learn about it.

It may seem simple, but modern slavery is an issue which few people really understand. Spend time (even just looking through the links embedded in this article) online reading stories from the front lines and studying reputable reports. You may want to start at the Global Slavery Index or the U.S. TIP (Trafficking in Persons) Report. Read a book or two about the issue. Watch a video from a survivor. Get some skin in the game and stare the issue in the face. Let the stories of others bring humanity to this otherwise complex and laborious issue.

2. Connect on social media.

I once had someone tell me, “Laura, I can’t forget about this issue because I follow you on Facebook and you won’t let me forget.” Research and choose five (or more) anti-trafficking organizations with strong social media content to follow. When something’s in your feed about slavery and it grabs your attention, share it with your online tribe. Add a personal message about why you care. You’re sitting in front of a “digital congregation” — use that influence to remind them about the things that matter.

3. Give money.

It’s not the abolition action people want to hear, but it is a practical and effective way to engage in counter-trafficking work. Fund nonprofits that work towards prevention, intervention, or after care. Look up the organization’s financials to ensure a quality charity. Be sure to see that they have a sustainable model in place to effect long-term change, especially equipping nationals if it’s overseas, and then give sacrificially. Charities need monthly donations especially, so consider joining the fight on a consistent basis with your wallet.

4. Consider foster care or support for at-risk kids.

A majority of U.S. minors who find themselves victims of sex trafficking come from broken homes or are runaways. 1 in 6 endangered runaways are likely trafficked for sex, and approximately 68% of those sex trafficking survivors were in the care of social services or foster care when they ran away (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children). The strongest prevention tool against trafficking has always been a strong, safe family. Passionate about abolition in your own backyard? Look around for the most at-risk kids in your community and then figure out a way to support, or even foster, them.

5. Buy fair trade every chance you get.

Yes, I know it’ll cost more. But slavery costs too; it’s just that you’re demanding someone else pay the price. Recognize that men are enslaved on fishing boats to farm shrimp, kids are harvesting chocolate, and that factory workers in China are not being paid for the stuff you’re buying on the cheap at your local discount store. It may feel small, but the power of the almighty dollar is a strong weapon for change. Wield it. (And with the holidays coming up? For the love, purchase with purpose. There are so many fantastic organizations empowering the vulnerable, support them with your gifts this year.)

6. Volunteer locally.

Research local counter-trafficking nonprofits and volunteer. Stuff envelopes, clean offices, donate your professional services. Bring their staff lunch to encourage them. Show up when they ask for help. If there’s one thing I know about most charities, they are typically understaffed and underfunded. Find one you like, and dig in and serve. Can’t find one locally? Lots of organizations will have volunteer opportunities remotely, as well.

7. Participate in Human Trafficking Awareness Month in January.

Decide to host an awareness or fundraising campaign in January, the designated Global Human Trafficking Awareness Month. Host a dinner party and show a movie about trafficking. Launch an online crowdfunding campaign for your favorite charity. Organize a spaghetti dinner or carwash with the students at your church. It’s a prime time every year to stop and do something creative in a month that is already getting global attention around the issue.

8. Use your voice.

Our officials listen when we log complaints or ask targeted questions. Use the power of democracy and write a simple letter or make a quick phone call to your state Senator, Legislators, or others. Let them know that human trafficking is an important issue to you and ask them how they are working to fight it in your state or community. You can find out who to contact by going here.

9. Stop trafficking efforts in your local community.

If you happen to suspect a trafficking situation in your own area, be sure to go online or call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. Seriously, stop right now and put the number in your phone. You can report a completely confidential tip and access an advocate 24/7. Interpretation is available. In immediate danger, always call 911 first.

10. Find your puzzle piece.

Everyone has a piece of the puzzle to help build a free world, and each person’s puzzle piece will look different. We humans are phenomenally creative beings who have solved impossible problems and overcome incredible odds. We can do that, again, with slavery. Injustices worth fighting often don’t have formulas that fit all advocates. So, move forward and find yours. If you’re sincerely looking for a way to effectively help, you’ll find one.

The Jackson water system has been facing mounting trouble for years, and it looks like it’s now or never to fix it. Thousands of Jackson residents already have little to no water pressure. While officials ensured they are working to restore it, it’s hard to determine how long that will take. For now, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves declared a state of emergency and created an “incident command center” to distribute water to the city’s residents.

“Until it is fixed, it means we do not have reliable running water at scale,” Reeves said. “It means the city cannot produce enough water to fight fires, to reliably flush toilets and to meet other critical needs.”

This isn’t the first time a city has gone without water. Flint, Michigan had decontaminated water for two years, and other cities across the country have faced similar shortages.

The Red Cross is already on the ground providing assistance to residents. Here are a few other organizations help out in Jackson that could use your help:

In a recently released statement from the U.N., the figure represents roughly 1 percent of the world’s population — equivalent to the 14th most populous country — and is the highest number of displaced individuals on record.

At the end of 2021, 90 million individuals had been displaced from their countries. Of those, 14.4 million people had been displaced within their country due to violence. Roughly 23.7 million people, primarily in the Asia-Pacific region, had been displaced internally because of natural disasters.

In 2022 so far, around 14 million individuals have been displaced due to Russia’ invasion of Ukraine.

“One hundred million is a stark figure — sobering and alarming in equal measure. It’s a record that should never have been set,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi. “This must serve as a wake-up call to resolve and prevent destructive conflicts, end persecution and address the underlying causes that force innocent people to flee their homes.”

Grandi added that the international response to Ukraine refugees has been “overwhelmingly positive.”

“Compassion is alive, and we need a similar mobilization for all crises around the world,” Grani said. “But ultimately, humanitarian aid is a palliative, not a cure. To reverse this trend, the only answer is peace and stability so that innocent people are not forced to gamble between acute danger at home or precarious flight and exile.”

In 2015, I was a young conservative and an art student at The University of Alabama. I was one of 43 interns who would squeeze into a tiny 19th-century planetarium twice a week for meetings with my fellow interns at a university program centered around arts advocacy. On one such afternoon, the interns were treated to a short film preview; we watched a documentary that followed a man named Anthony Ray Hinton as he re-entered society after spending nearly three decades on Alabama’s death row. He was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit in 1985 and was finally exonerated and released from prison on April 3, 2015.

If you asked me now, I couldn’t tell you the name of the documentary or the film professor who introduced us to it, but I can clearly remember the moment I saw the look on Mr. Hinton’s face as he was reunited with his family for the first time in 30 years. That facial expression, the mixture of relief, joy and sadness about time lost, shattered every naive assumption I had made about due process and capital punishment. It opened my eyes to the reality that the modern justice system in my home state was not as just as I wanted to believe — and in fact that it could be so wildly unjust as to force an innocent man to spend half his life waiting to be killed in retribution for something he did not do.

I had convinced myself that those convicted of a crime as heinous as murder were irredeemable. Seeing his face woke me up to the humanity of death row inmates, a population I had, up until that point, written off as disposable. 

A Radical Approach 

In writing about the ethics of the human face in his book Totality and Infinity, French philosopher Emmanual Levinas says, “[t]he face opens the primordial discourse whose first word is obligation.” This concept resonates with me. Viewing the face of another human being seems commonplace, but it can be such an intimate experience too. It reminds us of the respect we owe each other. It reminds us of our innate human dignity. For those who believe in God, it’s the imago Dei, the reality of God’s divine image present in every human person. 

It means that no human is insignificant. 

This idea also reveals why it can be so easy for us to ignore the humanity of certain groups whose faces we choose not to see. The death row inmate. The child in the womb. The asylum-seeker in a detention camp. The civilian living in a war-torn country. It’s so easy to protect our own comfort by looking the other way; meanwhile, the blood of those we ignore cries out from the ground. 

This is why I believe it is necessary to embrace a Consistent Life Ethic — a radical approach to the protection of life which professes the dignity of every human being, at every stage of life, and in every circumstance. I can no longer deny that I am my brother’s keeper. I have an obligation to love my neighbors by resisting a culture which treats any one of them as disposable.

The term Consistent Life Ethic was coined by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in the 1980s. Journalist Eileen Egan had another term for it: the Seamless Garment. That’s a reference to the tunic Jesus wore during the crucifixion, which was woven in one piece so it couldn’t be separated into parts, the same way this consistent life ethic can’t be split. 

This philosophy began in Roman Catholic circles, but the idea is not exclusive to Catholics. I’m a Catholic, but Rehumanize International, the nonprofit I work for, is a secular group which advocates for the Consistent Life Ethic. It transcends political party lines and religious belief (or lack thereof) because it focuses solely on our shared humanity.

A Blanket Opposition

The Consistent Life Ethic eliminates qualifications when it comes to which human beings are worthy of protection. It distills the causes for life, peace and justice into their purest unified form. We don’t advocate against various forms of violence because the victims are innocent, or American or because they are able to survive outside the womb; the simple fact of being human is enough to warrant compassion. 

This results in a blanket opposition to acts of aggressive violence against human beings, the list of which includes, but is not limited to: abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty, unjust war, assisted suicide, police brutality, torture and abuse. 

The Consistent Life Ethic highlights the commonality of these issues, while still recognizing each as a distinct moral problem with its own gravity. For instance, when it comes to the number of people impacted by an act of violence, it is clear that abortion outweighs all the other issues within the ethic by far. In the United States alone, over 2,000 human beings are killed by abortion daily. War is the only other life issue to come close to that type of body count. This magnitude is why the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — in their document Forming Consciences for Faithful Leadership which gives spiritual guidance to Catholics when voting — make the claim that abortion is a “preeminent priority.” 

But the bishops also make it clear that Catholics may not use their passion for the anti-abortion cause as an excuse to ignore other injustices; in fact, the USCCB immediately follows their claim with a clarification: “At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty.” 

We must strike a balance. When advocating for a particular marginalized group, we should not use their suffering, however grave, to dismiss the concerns of another marginalized group. The goal is a greater respect for all human life.

A Broad Coalition

There is only so much each of us can do. We cannot expect to solve every issue, and we cannot expect to create heaven on earth — unless we want to set ourselves up for failure or burnout. But God rejoices when we choose to participate in His plan for humanity, which is, as the Lord’s Prayer says, for His will to “be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” It is good to work for justice, and to divide our time with God’s will in mind, while still acknowledging the reality that our human capacities are limited. This is why you can hold a Consistent Life Ethic embracing the importance of many causes but still feel called to focus your personal efforts on a specific issue. It takes all of us to affect change.

That’s why there’s incredible diversity in the Consistent Life Ethic movement. In my five years of involvement, I’ve met conservatives, progressives, marxists, libertarians, atheists, evangelicals, Quakers, Vaishnava monks — and everything in between. Some members of the movement advocate for and embrace total pacifism; others support Just War Theory and proportional self-defense. The Consistent Life Ethic transcends religious and partisan boundaries. It’s a call to “radical inclusivity” in regards to who we work with, since we have the same amount of inclusivity in regards to who we are fighting for. 

With so many of the issues we address, we know that it will take a broad coalition to actually bring them to an end. That’s why we need to make a concerted effort to build a movement open to anyone willing to work with us to address these issues. In my work, I’ve fought for change alongside groups like World Beyond War, Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty, the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians, Witness Against Torture, Americans United for Life and more. These are single-issue organizations each play an important role in the fight for human rights, and the Consistent Life Ethic gives them an opportunity to find common ground, whatever our other differences.

I am personally grateful for that inclusivity. I began my work with Rehumanize International before I fully embraced the Consistent Life Ethic. When I interviewed for a summer internship in the early spring of 2015, I had not yet experienced my change of heart about the death penalty. I considered myself a conservative Republican, and I was interested in Rehumanize because I appreciated their ability to articulate the pro-life position from a non-religious perspective. The abortion issue was — and to be honest, still is — closest to my heart. 

But as I broadened my perspective, I began to take a deeper look at my own motivations. I learned to question my own assumptions about what makes someone deserving of protection. Most surprisingly, while working for a secular organization, my faith life grew exponentially. I dug deep into Catholic Social Teaching while learning more about each issue, and I fell in love with the rich intellectual history of the Church. In so many ways, I feel like embracing the Consistent Life Ethic has taught me what it truly means to see my neighbor through the eyes of Jesus.

Everyone Means Everyone

Last year in Pittsburgh, I got the opportunity to meet Anthony Ray Hinton face-to-face. He spoke at a local Presbyterian church about his experience adjusting and healing in the four years since he was exonerated from death row. His talk was profoundly merciful and hopeful, and it brought me back to that moment in 2015, when my eyes were first opened to the injustice done to my neighbors on death row. In opening my eyes, God opened my heart to accept one of the core tenets of my faith: everyone, everyone deserves mercy.

“Power and funding alone control homelessness,” she wrote in a Medium article announcing her departure. “But in our current system, organizations like the one I lead, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), are not given control over regulatory or policy decisions, service providers remain underfunded, and dedicated front-line employees of non-profit organizations and government entities are hamstrung by rules, red tape, and bureaucracy. We are denying power and funding to the very entities tasked with finding and implementing solutions.”

She explained the multifarious systemic issues that lead to homelessness — issues that often have less to do with one individual’s specific decisions than it does a complex web of problems that are pushing affordable housing further and further from the people who need it. “Looming at the origin and growth of homelessness are ‘shadow monsters,’ concepts hard to pin down and rarely noticed unless we look for them: systemic racism, low wages and high cost of living, lack of access to affordable healthcare, inequity in education and housing, and many others,” she wrote. “These shadow monsters may not be what immediately comes to mind when we encounter someone who is living on the street, but they are the unseen cracks in the foundation of our society.”

Marston opened up about her desire to raise the minimum wage for employees at LA Homeless Services. The current minimum wage for employees is below what the federal government considers “very low income,” putting many of the people who work for the organization perilously close to qualifying for homeless assistance themselves.

Marston raised the minimum wage for the organization’s lowest compensated employees — over 90 percent of whom are people of color — and made up the difference by freezing the salaries of the organization’s 10 highest paid employees. She alleges they pushed back on this move, prompting her departure. “Leaders at the helm of the homelessness crisis are quick to state they want to end homelessness,” she wrote. “But, when given the opportunity to create housing security, I have watched those same people refuse to make the sacrifices necessary to effectuate that change.”

Marston’s overall plea is for empathy — to recognize that people on the street were often driven there by forces well outside of their control, but within the control of others who can make the necessary changes to reduce homelessness, if they want. “Every day, we can acknowledge the humanity we share with the person sleeping on the sidewalk and offer the help we can provide,” she wrote. “True help also means challenging ourselves beyond the existing infrastructure; we cannot challenge systems and simultaneously keep people trapped in them.”

You can read her full letter here.

“We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma,” Stitt said during a signing ceremony for the bill. “I promised Oklahomans that I would sign every pro-life bill that hits my desk, and that’s what we’re doing here today.”

The bill would only make an exception for cases in which the mother’s life is in danger. It does not authorize criminal charges against a woman who receives an abortion.

Sen. Nathan Dahm, an Oklahoma Republican who wrote the bill, called it the “strongest pro-life legislation in the country right now, which effectively eliminates abortion in Oklahoma.”

The Oklahoma bill is set to take effect 90 days after the state legislature adjourns next month, but pro-choice advocacy groups have already stated they plan on fighting it.

If the bill goes into effect, it will be the most restrictive abortion law in the country, a title currently held by Texas’ Senate 8 bill that bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Since the law went into effect, abortions in Texas have dropped by about 50%, although the number of Texans going to clinics out of state and requesting abortion pills online has gone up.

“To meet this commitment, we are considering the full range of legal pathways to the United States,” the official told CNN. The administration plans to utilize the US refugee admissions program, parole and immigrant and non-immigrant visas to meet the threshold. The move will reportedly not require Congressional approval or an adjustment of the refugee cap, which is set at 125,000 for this fiscal year.

It’s a start, but the crisis is vast. An estimated 3.5 million people have left their homes, according to the UN refugee agency’s data. Most of them have fled to Western European nations, and the U.S. expects most refugees will want to remain on the continent, but new programs are being developed that will have “a focus on welcoming Ukrainians who have family members in the United States.” The official said there will also be a focus on extra vulnerable refugees, like those with medical needs, third-country nationals and members of the LGBTQ community.

“By opening our country to these individuals, we will help relieve some of the pressure on the European host countries that are currently shouldering so much of the responsibility,” the official told CNN.

Since January of 2022, an estimated 13,000 Afghan infants have died of hunger-related diseases like malnutrition. An estimated 95 percent of Afghan people are food insecure, with 3.5 million children who lack nutritional support,

The Human Rights Watch reports that humanitarian aid flowing in from other countries lags far behind the actual need, and the collapse of the nation’s banking system in light of wariness around sanctions is leaving millions with no recourse. Donors are concerned about their financial aid going to bolster the efforts of the Taliban rule, so very little aid is flowing into the nation right now, and that situation shows little sign of changing.

Organizations like World Vision are on the ground in Afghanistan providing resources to children and families. They’re doing what they can, but they could always use more help.

“Biden crime policy: Crack pipes for all. What could go wrong?” tweeted Senator Ted Cruz.

“The Biden administration is going to be sending crack pipes and meth pipes, targeting minority communities,” said Senator Marco Rubio in a video message. “I know that sounds insane, I know that sounds too crazy to be true.”

Well, you know what they say about things that are too crazy to be true.

Several months ago, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a federal grant for “harm reduction” for local organizations involved in reducing the risk for drug use. Most of those funds will be spent on things like referrals for treatment, disease-testing kits, condoms, vaccinations and overdose-reversing drugs like naloxone.

It’s true that a small part of that fund could be allocated for drug paraphernalia like clean needles. Such resources are intended to protect people who use drugs from the dangerous and potentially deadly risks associated with drug use. Glass pipes associated with smoking crack cocaine are not on the list, but Harm Reduction International lists things like rubber mouthpieces, brass screens and disinfectant wipes as part of what are called “safe smoking kits.”

The Washington Post spoke with Keith Humphreys, an addiction researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine. He said harm reduction kits like this can save the lives of people struggling with drug addiction. “Obviously, we would like everybody who is addicted to never use drugs again,” he said. “But if we can’t have that, we should be grateful to at least reduce use or reduce the damage of use to that person or to the people around them.”

The White House said none of the funds will be used for pipes, denying accusations to the contrary in a statement. “HHS and ONDCP are focused on using our resources smartly to reduce harm and save lives. Accordingly, no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Rahul Gupta said in a statement. “The goal of harm reduction is to save lives.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the harm reduction kits will include “alcohol swabs, lip balm, other materials to promote hygiene and reduce the transmission of diseases like HIV and hepatitis.”

It’s the latest skirmish in the partisan battle over the best way to tackle the nation’s opioid crisis. 100,000 Americans died of a drug overdose between April of 2020 and April of 2021, and the trend is only growing more dire. People can reasonably disagree about the right way to address the crisis, but flashy political talking points from either side aren’t going to do much for anyone suffering from withdraw symptoms. Addressing this crisis will take courage, compassion and honesty — all things in short supply on both sides of the aisle in our present political moment. But one small thing us non-politicians can do is refuse to buy into the partisan narratives and flashy political marching orders that might score points for your party of choice, but do very little to help the real people caught up in the opioid epidemic.

According to the Innocence Project, Lucio fled an abusive home in the Rio Grande Valley when she was 16. She was the mother of 12 children and pregnant with two more when her youngest child Mariah died. That same night, police interrogated her for five hours. She says the interrogation amounted to a coerced confession. “I guess I did it,” she finally told them. “I’m responsible.”

Those two sentences are the only evidence prosecutors presented at the trial. Thousands of pages of Child Protective Services records and hours of interviews with her other children found no evidence that she had ever been violent or abusive. A court appointed attorney withheld evidence that bolstered Lucio’s claims that she had been forced to confess. But then-Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos pushed her conviction through anyway. Today, he himself is in jail for bribery and extortion.

In 2019, Lucio’s conviction was overturned by the by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, but the state of Texas appealed, and a court of appeals reversed the 2019 grant of relief by a vote of 10 to 7. Last year, a group of former prosecutors and reform advocates urged the Supreme Court to review Lucio’s case, but to no avail.

“This is as clear a case of injustice as you’ll ever see: Melissa Lucio faces imminent execution for a capital murder that never happened,” said Tivon Schardl, a member of her appellate defense team, in a statement emailed to the Texas Observer. “Melissa, an innocent woman, faces execution in less than 100 days because a corrupt prosecutor relied on a statement coerced by an overzealous Texas Ranger who badgered a traumatized woman into making a false confession.”

A documentary about Lucio’s case called The State of Texas vs Melissa has garnered enormous acclaim, especially in the director’s native France, where the death penalty is outlawed.

Now, the Innocence Project is mounting one final, desperate plea to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking them to review Lucio’s case. They are asking others to sign a petition demanding a new investigation.

“I lost it all — my family, my marriage, my job, my career,” the 35-year-old told the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting. “Now I’m working, trying to get everything back. I’ve got to take it one day at a time.”

After Lake’s arrest, he had two different court-appointed attorneys who represented him at different hearings, and then was left on his own to file motions for a trial. Those motions fell on deaf ears. He got no response.

Reporter Jerry Mitchell notes that this is far from an isolated case. He says thousands of people are waiting for a trial behind bars in Mississippi, around 85 percent of whom can’t afford a private lawyer. In Mississippi, local governments are responsible for providing public defenders to people who can’t afford a lawyer, but their networks are often poorly funded and stretched thin, leading to lengthy “dead zones” for thousands of Mississippians.

In Lake’s case, a dedicated attorney could have spotted the holes in the thin case against him early on and ensured a speedy trial or maybe even gotten the charges dismissed. But because he was forced to rely on a revolving door of overworked and underpaid public defenders with little time and few resources, he languished for six years. MCIR found that around one in 17 people in a Mississippi jail hasn’t been indicted yet. Of those, 89 have been waiting for six months. 29 have waited for more than a year.

You can read the full report here.

But a new letter to federal Judge Loretta Preska from Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley says it’s time for those names to come to light, writing that the John Does’ “generalized aversion to embarrassment and negativity that may come from being associated with Epstein and Maxwell” isn’t a good reason to keep them hidden. Maxwell’s lawyers have indicated that she’s willing to comply.

Maxwell was a British socialite who rubbed shoulders with the rich and powerful along with her business associate Epstein. They also recruited and groomed young girls for a variety of forced sexual acts with Epstein and his powerful friends. A who’s who of wealthy elite associated with Maxwell and Epstein both before and after the allegations against him were made public, and while most of their friends and associates have not been convicted of any wrongdoing, the reach of their social circle is astounding. In addition to Prince Andrew, men like Harvey Weinstein, Alan Dershowitz, Woody Allen and more than one former U.S. President took a ride on Epstein’s private plane — known as the “Lolita Express” — and visited his private island.

Epstein was arrested twice for these activities. Once in 2006, where an appalling “sweetheart deal” got him out of county jail after 13 months. And then again in 2019. He died in jail shortly thereafter, officially by suicide.

If Preska goes ahead with unsealing the names, it’s not clear whether or not any of those men’s names will appear on the list. That said, at least some people appear to be preparing for the worst. Prince Andrew was stripped of his titles following a federal judge in New York’s ruling that the lawsuit against him will proceed. Six of the eight John Does in the lawsuit have objected to having their names made public, but those objections seem to be falling apart. If the truth comes to light, the lawsuit against Prince Andrew will likely not be the only one stemming from this shocking, infuriating and very, very sad story.

But the detainees the Times spoke with didn’t agree. “There’s no safety for us,” Richard Colon said. “There’s no one to help us. It’s scary in here.” Detainees spoke of being compelled to clean up blood and feces due to a correctional officer shortage that has left Rikers woefully understaffed. 2020 was the deadliest year for New York correctional facilities in years, and a rise in officer absenteeism is thought to be part of the problem. Earlier this week at a Board of Correction hearing, it was revealed that 2,300 of nearly 9,000 staff members was out sick. Rikers’ poor ventilation and close quarters make it a hotbed of COVID activity.

Christopher Boyle is a lawyer with the New York County Defender Services, and he’s representing some of the detainees protesting. “This is an emergency situation,” he told the Times.

In the New Testament, Jesus specifically identified himself with inmates, telling his disciples that when they went to visit people in prison, they were really visiting him. In the U.S., Christians have tackled industrial prison complex reform from several directions, from the late Chuck Colson’s political advocacy after his own time behind bars to Sister Helen Prejean’s death penalty abolition work.

As of this writing, Jones is still scheduled be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday, November 18. On November 1, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt was sent a recommendation from Oklahoma’s Pardon and Parole Board, which voted 3-1 in favor of clemency. Stitt has yet to sign the recommendation, despite some serious doubts about Jones’ guilt.

At the time of Howell’s murder, Jones’ parents and sister say he was having dinner with them at his home. However, Jones’ trial lawyers did not call his family to present this alibi at his original trial. Jones himself was not called to testify on his own behalf either.

Moreover, there was only one eyewitness to the crime and her description of the killer doesn’t match Jones. She described a man with hair, but Jones’ head was shaved at the time.

Her account does match the description of another man named Christopher Jordan, who was present at the scene of the crime but claimed to have only been the getaway driver. Jordan testified that Jones was the killer in exchange for a plea deal that brought his sentence down to 15 years. He’s a free man today, but three separate inmates at three different times have testified in sworn affidavits that Jordan had confided that he was the real killer and had framed Jones. None of the three men knew each other or Jones, and none were offered any sort of incentive for saying what they said Jordan had told them.

That alone takes some pretty serious steam out of the certainty of Jones’ innocence, but there’s more. Of the 12 people on the jury at Jones’ original trial, 11 were White. One of those White jurors called Jones the n-word during deliberations, suggesting he should be taken out back and shot. This, at the very least, makes it pretty clear that Jones was not judged by a jury of his peers in any meaningful sense of the word.

If Jones’ death sentence is carried out, he will be the first person to be executed by the state of Oklahoma since 2015, when a series of botched executions led to a moratorium on capital punishment.

“This whole thing reeks of impropriety, and I’m very concerned about these children that are being pushed into this trafficking situation,” Todd said. “Our own federal government is trafficking. They’re hauling them all over the country and dropping them in neighborhoods, flying them in in the middle of the night.”

The comments were part of a broader inquiry into government efforts to find homes for migrant children who come to the boarder fleeing family and violence. Bethany Christian Services has been involved in this work since the 1960s, cooperating with the federal government to place children in safe homes. Since 2019, Bethany has found homes for about 100 children.

But Todd asked Bethany leadership about why they would place children with relatives in the U.S. who may not be documented. According to Yahoo! News, Todd said he “would not trust any documentation people had to prove a relationship with a child and asked why organizations like Bethany Christian Services were not placing unaccompanied children with a family member in their home country.”

In recent years, human trafficking has become a topic of enormous concern for many Christian groups, but there is often a lack of clarity about what exactly “trafficking” means and how it looks in the U.S.

“Children are children. An unaccompanied child wants what every child wants — to be with their family and to be safe,” said Amy Scott, Bethany’s state director. “We help unaccompanied children as a faith-based organization because Jesus calls Christians to welcome the stranger, love their neighbor and serve the overlooked and ignored. We believe that all children, no matter where they are from or what they have been through, deserve to be treated with dignity and care.”

Last night, @R_Denhollander, Save71, and @justiceforjanes received an email from LU’s general counsel informing us that we can’t gather on campus today.

But this morning, LU’s top leaders told Rachael that we can.

We will continue as planned and see you there at 6 p.m.!

— Save71 (@save71LU) November 4, 2021

Student leaders at Liberty University who’d been planning to hold a prayer rally calling for investigations into allegations of sexual abuse mismanagement were told they could not invite advocate Rachael Denhollander onto campus, according to Denhollander. The news comes in the wake of a series of revelations about about Liberty’s institutional response to cases of sexual assault on campus.

“Student leaders organizing a prayer rally to call for a proper institutional response to the crisis facing LU, were told I could not come on campus,” Denhollander tweeted. “3 yrs ago I was invited to teach on this. Today, when it is needed, it is no longer wanted. Aching to see a heart change tomorrow.”

Denhollander is a former gymnast who was the first to come forward with allegations about sexual abuse at the hands of former U.S. gymnastics coach Larry Nasser. Today, she works as an advocate for victims of sexual abuse and has championed reforms in numerous church denominations and Christian institutions. On Wednesday, Religion News Service reported that she would be speaking at Liberty in solidarity with student leaders calling for change. RELEVANT has reached out to Denhollander for comment.

Last summer, Liberty was rocked by a lawsuit from a group of 12 former students and employees who sued the nation’s largest Christian college over a culture they claimed makes it “difficult or impossible for students to report sexual violence.” Last month, a bombshell ProPublica report detailed stories from numerous women who said they were cautioned against reporting their assaults to police or pursuing justice, and were told they could be punished for violating the student code of conduct known as “the Liberty Way.”

Liberty President Jerry Prevo, who replaced former President Jerry Falwell Jr. following a series of scandals, sent a message to his senior team, saying “Liberty University will not tolerate Title IX violations, sexual abuse or sexual assault in any form at any time.”

“I hope and pray these allegations turn out to be false,” he continued. “Discrimination against victims of sexual assault because of their gender and engaging in sexual harassment are contrary to our Christian faith and mission, and have absolutely no place at Liberty.”

Following the media circus that followed Falwell’s downfall, students and school officials had expressed hope that Prevo’s leadership would help change the school’s course. Some have expressed disappointment. Karen Swallow Prior, a former English professor, told RNS that “I think he has been a disappointment. I am less hopeful than I was a year ago.”

Biden suspended the Remain in Mexico policy early in his term, but a federal judge in Texas has ruled that the termination of that policy violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The Supreme Court sided with that judge, landing a blow to Biden’s immigration plan and forcing the revival of the policy.

Trump’s implementation of the policy was a major break from U.S. immigration precedent which sent an estimated 68,000 immigrants back across the Southern border to wait months or years for their court date in squalid conditions which have been rife with kidnapping, sexual abuse and extortion. U.S. immigration budget cuts coupled with unprecedented levels of displacement around the world have led to a bottleneck at the border, where there simply aren’t enough resources to process migrants in a timely manner.

While the re-implementation of the “Remain in Mexico” policy means that migrants can’t wait for their court date in the U.S., it’s not at all clear that they’ll be able to wait in Mexico either, since the Supreme Court can’t force sovereign nations to do what they say. “Significantly, Mexico is a sovereign nation that must make an independent decision to accept the return of individuals without status in Mexico as part of any reimplementation of MPP. Discussions with the Government of Mexico concerning when and how MPP will be reimplemented are ongoing,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

The decision has been met with harsh criticism from advocates.

“We are so disappointed, @POTUS,” said RAICES, the largest immigration legal services nonprofit in Texas. “The Biden Administration is backing down and refusing to use their power to end #MPP aka “Remain in Mexico.” This cruel and inhuman policy has deadly consequences for asylum seekers and it perpetuates Trump’s anti-immigrant, xenophobic legacy.” 

Johnson, who was 61, was convicted of killing Mary Bratcher, Mabel Scruggs and Fred Jones in 1994 during the robbery of a convenience store. Johnson’s lawyers have argued that killing Johnson, whose IQ tests indicated that he had the intellectual capacity of a child, would violate the Constitution, per a 2002 ruling that forbids the execution of the intellectually disabled. His lawyers said that there would be “no tangible harm” to staying Johnson’s execution while the legal question was sorted out, but Missouri Governor Mike Parson denied Johnson clemency and the Supreme Court denied a last minute plea for a stay of execution.

The execution was carried out despite calls for mercy from a host of high profile supporters like Rep. Cori Bush, former Missouri Governor Bob Holden and even Pope Francis. “If our state is to be guided by the rule of law, we must temper our understandable anger with reason and compassion for the most vulnerable among us, including Ernest Johnson,” Holden wrote in the Kansas City Star.

On Monday, Johnson wrote his final statement, expressing remorse for his crimes, gratitude for his supporters and belief that he would go to Heaven when he died. It is transcribed in unedited form below

I am sorry and I have remorse for what I do. I want to say that I love my family and friends. I am thankful of all that my lawer has done for me. They made me feel as if I was family to them. I love them all, for all the people that has prayed for me. I thank them from the bottom of my. I love the Lord with all my heart and soul. If I am executed I no where I am going to heaven. Becaus I ask him to forgive me God everone. Whit respect Ernest L Johnson

DOC has made available a last statement from Ernest Johnson, dated yesterday. pic.twitter.com/yQdbMFDUNm

— Jeanne Kuang (@JeanneKuang) October 5, 2021

Sister Helen Prejean, the death penalty abolitionist who was played by Susan Sarandon in the 1995 movie Dead Man Walking, wrote that “the execution of Ernest Johnson is unconstitutional under all existing legal precedents. He has the mental capacity of a 9-year-old child and is missing 20% of his brain mass. The Supreme Court’s failure to do anything to stop this is a moral failing of the highest order.”

For several years, reports and allegations swirled around the legacy of Ravi Zacharias, the famed apologist and preacher who passed away in May of last year. RZIM, the evangelist and apologetics organization he founded, was well-respected for its winsome arguments for Christianity, but became the subject of increasingly troubling accusations in the years leading up to its Zacharias’ passing. Then in February, a four-month investigation revealed the shocking truth: During his life, Zacharias heaped abuse upon massage therapists in the U.S. and abroad, including sexual abuse, spiritual manipulation and an allegation of rape.

In addition to the victims who had already come forward to tell their stories of Zacharias’ sexual misconduct at the Atlanta-area day spas he co-owned, the investigation found five other victims in the states and numerous stories of sexual abuse in Malaysia, Thailand and India. The investigation found that Zacharias had solicited hundreds of images of young women, some of them naked, and continued to do so up until just a few months before his death.

Zacharias used tens of thousands of dollars in ministry funds to provide four massage therapists with monthly support for their “schooling and housing,” according to the report. One woman who received the funds said that Zacharias “required” sex from her over a period of many years, which she described as “rape.” The woman told investigators that Zacharias “made her pray with him to thank God for the ‘opportunity’ they both received” and, as with other victims, “called her his ‘reward’ for living a life of service to God.” She also said Zacharias told her not to tell anyone, telling her that “she would be responsible for the ‘millions of souls’ whose salvation would be lost if his reputation was damaged.”

In all, the reports paint a picture of a serial abuser who leveraged his reputation as a spiritual leader to get what he wanted from women, and a team of allies who looked the other way.

It’s only the latest story of a respected Christian leader being exposed as a hypocrite, a sexual predator, a serial manipulator or some mix of all of the above. Earlier in 2020, Hillsong NYC pastor Carl Lentz was removed from leadership after getting caught in an ongoing extramarital affair. If you’ve spent any amount of time in Christian circles, you probably have plenty of your own examples. 

So does Rachael Denhollander. Denhollander first made headlines in 2016, when she became the first woman to speak out against Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics’ team doctor who is now known to be one of the nation’s most prolific sexual predators. Denhollander’s courage to speak up soon led to over 300 other women sharing their stories of Nassar’s abuse, which led to his life of imprisonment. 

Now, Denhollander is an attorney and the author of What Is a Girl Worth? who focuses her efforts on advocating for survivors of sexual abuse in churches and Christian organizations. She’s been enlisted to consult RZIM on the necessary steps to address its legacy of sexual abuse and that’s just one part of her vision.Ultimately, Denhollander hopes to be part of building a new world in which the Church is no longer at best apologizing to and at worst ignoring victims of assault, but is instead their fiercest champion. 

We’re speaking on the heels of another major revelation and it feels like we get one of these about once a quarter. What is it about these Christian institutions that seems to just invite these sorts of scandals? 

There’s really two parts to that. The first is that sexual abuse is far more prominent than we want to acknowledge in our culture. This is not just a Christian problem. This is a problem that spans all socioeconomic barriers. It spans all types of institutions. I don’t think we’ve really grappled yet with really the epidemic levels that we have of sexual abuse in society. That being said, we also know that there are some hallmarks for why abusers are able to abuse for so long, particularly in Christian organizations. We know that around 90% of abusers self identify as religious or very religious, that means they can blend in very well with religious communities.

There is a very famous psychologist and author who has done some incredible work on delving into the mind of an abuser and how they operate. One thing that came out in her research was that abusers actually do target faith communities, and they target faith communities because our misuse and misunderstanding of our own theologies, very commonly the forgiveness of justice, our ideas of what it means to not gossip or to be unified and our idea of and understanding of authority. Those are often theologies found in scripture are twisted and weaponized, and very misunderstood in faith circles. It creates the perfect dynamic for an abuser. We have a big misunderstanding in our faith communities of what abusers look like and of what makes a person a wolf or a sheep.

What needs to happen so that we can keep the wolves out?

One of the things we really have to grapple with is our belief systems. If those belief systems are not accurate, our actions aren’t going to be either. Right now, we’re seeing a lot of focus on actions to make sure your child protection policy is right. What are your nursery guidelines? Those things are important. Of course, the policies are only as good as the people enforcing it and only as good as their understanding of it. Here’s where, again, we’re finding a lot of misuse of our theology.

Oftentimes, justice and forgiveness are really taught as if they’re dichotomous, opposed to each other. If you truly forgive, you will not talk about this. In reality, justice and forgiveness are found both in the character of God and their dependence upon each other. Christianity is the only framework that provides us a mechanism for forgiveness because justice is always needed. That’s our doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. We don’t apply it well at all when it comes to issues of justice in the Church. When victims come forward and they are desiring to speak up, they’re immediately pitted as bitter, angry, vengeful people.

The Church’s current understanding of what it means to be unified often becomes a plot against survivors to say, “Don’t speak up about what happened to you. That’s not seeking unity.” But we’re told in scripture to shine a light in the darkness; bring it out and expose it. 

What do you think the people who want to do a better job of this fail to understand?

Victims and perpetrators are both always watching. Perpetrators are highly skilled predators. They look for dynamics that are going to ensure that if anybody ever speaks up, they won’t be believed. They look for places that don’t understand trauma and abusive dynamics, that aren’t going to bring in outside accountability and outside help.

Victims also look for those dynamics. They watch how we talk about issues of abuse, and they know that’s what they would think about me. Victims are always watching how we talk about abuse because they know that’s what they would really say about them.

One of the things that came out of the Miller and Martin report [about Zacharias’ abuses at RZIM] is that, that’s exactly what happened to so many of the women who were abused by Ravi. They watched what happened to Lori when she spoke up and they said, “Nobody cares and if they did that to her, that’s what they’re going to do to me.”

How we talk about abusive dynamics, how it is preached on, how it is communicated on our social media platforms, the priority and emphasis we place upon it in our ministries. That really is the most critical dynamic. That’s what signals to abusers. It is absolutely critical that we start really grappling with the realities of abuse and abusive dynamics with our theology of authority, our theology of forgiveness and start delving into where we have gotten this so wrong. If we understood the epidemic-level proportions and the catastrophic life-changing consequences of this, we would treat it so much more seriously.

On average, one in four women and one in six men suffer sexual abuse. As a pastor is looking out at his congregation or ministry leaders looking out at their following, they’re looking at 25 percent of women and a substantial portion of men who have suffered from sexual abuse. If you factor in domestic violence, it’s even higher. 

If you had 25 percent of your congregation suffering from cancer or 25 percent who were unemployed, or who had suffered miscarriages, you would probably have ministries geared towards them. You would be preaching on the types of things your congregation is facing. You would have practical care for those people. You would have support groups for those people. But we don’t show anywhere near that kind of intentionality when it comes to abuse, both sexual and domestic, even though statistically, once you add domestic violence in there, around a third of the women in the congregation have experienced one or the other.

An issue you hear a lot in these conversations has to do with timing. “Why is she talking now?” 

Most victims cannot identify or articulate the full extent of their abuse statistically, either because they were abused for so long that their perception of normal has completely shifted or because they froze or dissociated during the time of their abuse. Their ability to put words to what they’ve experienced often isn’t there until a very long time after the abuse, especially for long standing abuse.

The average age of disclosure for someone who has experienced childhood sexual abuse, depending on the study you look at, is anywhere between late 30s and early 40s. For men, it can be even later into the 50s.

Delayed disclosures are the norm, not the exception. Most of the time, the ability to articulate it isn’t there because of the intense shame that accompanies abuse and because victims know what they’re facing when they come forward. The cruel irony when a victim speaks up is the immediate response: “He or she is in it for money. They’re in it for attention. They’re trying to destroy a good person. If this was really true, why did it take so long?

These people are demonstrating right now why it took so long: “Because I knew you were going to do this to me.” It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Out of every 300 rapes reported to the police, only about six results in any kind of criminal charges being levied. Whether or not those charges are anywhere near the level of the offense that was actually committed, it’s an even harder bar to meet. Only six out of every 300 result in criminal charges, only five out of every 300 results in conviction or jail time. According to the department of justice, the federal justice statistics, the average sentence for a sexual offender, including child sex offenders, is less time served than the average sentence for possession of a controlled substance. You can literally have weed on you and spend more time in jail than you will spend if you rape a child.

That’s because our justice system, our evidentiary codes, our statute of limitations, our detectives, our prosecutors are not only not prepared to handle those things, but oftentimes approach them in ways that are deeply, deeply damaging to survivors.

I know you saw a lot of the chatter that came out in the immediate wake of this report was some Christian men — some of them very prominent — saying things like “there but for the grace of God go all of us.” That was the big takeaway for many people. What’s your reaction to that?

I think this is one area where you see theological concepts that are twisted and wielded very wrong. Could any of us become that type of person? Yes. Technically, any of us could become that type of person. But to use it the way it’s being used in that context really normalizes sexual abuse. “I’m one step away from becoming a serial predator.” Brother, if you are one step away from becoming a serial predator, you’ve got other problems. It is a way to emotionally identify with the perpetrator instead of with the victim. Statistically, the more correct response would be, “There, but for the grace of God, go, I” in reference to the victims. That could have been me.

It’s an emotional identification with the perpetrator, whether or not it’s intended to be. It is used in a way that minimizes sin, as though this was an almost normal type of behavior. The message that sends to survivors and perpetrators is that abusive dynamics aren’t well understood, and that the people around them are not safe. I think it should legitimately raise the question: why do we think sexual predation is so normal that everybody’s just barely on the cusp of it? That’s not normal behavior.

You’ve eaten, slept and breathed this whole thing for a long time now, at personal cost to you and your husband. Do you see the tide turning on this issue?

We have this perception after the Me Too Movement that if you just put a tweet out there with the hashtag, you can basically destroy a man’s life. That is not how it works. 

By and large, we have seen zero shift in our conviction and prosecution rates. Our legal system is so far behind where it needs to be and the training that it needs to have. There’s been no shift whatsoever in our legal system, in our relationships and in our communities. 

Really, we have to get to the point of seeing a shift in how the community responds when the abuse is in its own community. When it’s in your own community, when it would cost to care, are you able to see clearly? Are you able to push for the right things?

The shift is very, very slight. I think we need to be examining our political communities. How are we responding when somebody in our political community is accused of abuse? Does it matter enough for us to say this person who has been credibly accused or a subject of credible allegations for felony level sexual assault probably should not be entrusted with this type of authority? Does it matter enough to us? Really starting to wrestle with how we will respond when it would cost us to care. What we will do when it’s in our own community. That’s really the measuring stick for how far we’ve come. Based on that measuring stick, we have not come very far.

All told, the FBI tallied 7,759 hate crimes in 2020, a six percent jump from the previous years. It was the highest number reported since 2008, when the FBI counted 7,783 hate crimes. It’s the sixth time in the last seven years that the number has climbed — a 42 percent increase since 2014.

According to the FBI’s website, a hate crime is any attack that is motivated in whole or in part by the attacker’s biases against a “race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.”

Attacks that targeted Black people climbed from 1,930 to 2,755 while attacks that targeted Asian people climbed from 158 to 274, according to FBI data. A total of 773 attacks targeted White people.

While Congress requires the FBI to collect hate crime data from local law enforcement agencies across the country, the number of agencies that participate has fallen for at least two years in a row. This has led some activists to argue that America may be dramatically undercounting the actual number of hate crimes, citing a lack of police department resources used to identify and catalog hate crimes.

Following the takeover, thousands of Afghans fled to the Kabul airport in an attempt to escape Taliban rule. Chilling footage of Afghan people clinging to a military jet as it took off before falling to their death shone a ghastly light on how dire the situation has grown.

Jenny Yang is the Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Policy at World Relief, a faith-based organization that helps the U.S. government resettle refugees. World Relief is racing to help Afghan families fleeing the Taliban find a safe place. Yang spoke with RELEVANT via email about what just happened in Afghanistan, what needs to happen next and how Christians can get involved.

RELEVANT: By now, most of us have seen images and read stories about an overwhelming number of people fleeing Afghanistan in droves. Why was America not better prepared to help these people resettle? 

YANG: The United States should have been better prepared to respond to the humanitarian fallout in Afghanistan especially when the humanitarian community laid out specific recommendations of how to do so in the summer when plans were first announced of the draw down of U.S. troops. It’s frustrating to see the lack of planning when we knew and could have done more before. We are however encouraged that the U.S. seems committed to ongoing evacuations of vulnerable Afghans although the ability to do so now will be much more limited than what it was before.

What do the Afghan people who are fleeing expect will change under Taliban rule? 

Most Afghans will not flee and will remain in Afghanistan. We are concerned about the millions of women and children who have in the past been subject to violence and will have limited opportunities because of their gender, and others who may be targeted and killed because they are religious and ethnic minorities.

When the Taliban was in power 20 years ago, they banned nearly all women and girls from attending school. They targeted and violently attacked those who defied their wishes. While the Taliban has in recent days given some indication that they would be more open to supporting women’s rights, there are ongoing concerns due to past experience that they will violently attack and kill those who disagree with them. Recently, we also have heard reports of Afghan Christians who are afraid to stay in Afghanistan and some who have already left Afghanistan. There is definitely a fear amongst the Afghan Christian community that they will be targeted and killed.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), some 550,000 Afghans have now been internally displaced in the country since the beginning of the year, in addition to 2.9 million Afghans already internally displaced at the end of 2020. They expect a large number of Afghans to leave Afghanistan as refugees or be internally displaced.

Many Afghan people have spent years aiding the U.S. in Afghanistan. Is there a plan to help them? 

There are many Afghans who helped our troops and now are in grave danger because of their association with the United States and applied to come to the United States as Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs). There are approximately 18,000 Afghan SIVs who are in process right now, and we have been calling on the United States to evacuate all of them and their dependents.

There are others who worked for a U.S. based NGO or media company and also need to be evacuated along with family members of Afghans currently in the United States who filed petitions for their family members in Afghanistan to come. The Pentagon has been saying that they plan to evacuate up to 22,000 at-risk individuals over the next few months, but it’s unclear when and how they will be able to do so. The U.S. government needs to make a full fledged effort to evacuate as many SIVs and others as possible who are extremely vulnerable.

On Monday, President Joe Biden said that “Part of the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave early, still hopeful for their country. And part of it is because the Afghan government and its supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as they said, a crisis of confidence.” From World Relief’s perspective, is this a fair assessment of why so many Afghan people were unable to evacuate before the Taliban takeover? 

We don’t believe the President’s remarks square with our experience helping Afghans on the ground. Not only are there 18,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants who themselves applied and desire to come to the United States, but every Afghan individual we’ve talked with in the United States who has their family members overseas want their family to come to the United States.

We are now working to try to evacuate vulnerable Afghans who have reached out to us and are desperate to leave. What’s evident now is there is a crisis of confidence in U.S. leadership in the world and people questioning our ability to keep our word to those who fought alongside of us.

Given the state of the crisis, what are the best steps forward to help as many people as possible? 

There first needs to be increased resources and coordination with the international humanitarian community to help vulnerable Afghans in Afghanistan. The United States and other countries need to continue to press the Taliban to support women’s rights, equal opportunity for education and protection for religious and ethnic minorities. Neighboring countries around Afghanistan and others need to welcome, assist, and protect refugees fleeing Afghanistan.

In addition, we are asking the United States for a full evacuation of all Afghan SIVs, their loved ones and Afghan immigrant visa applicants to U.S. territory (approximately 18,000 SIVs and their dependents).

Lastly, we are asking the United States for a robust implementation and expansion of the U.S. refugee admissions program and processing capacities in the region to help vulnerable Afghan refugees who cannot return to Afghanistan or locally integrate in the country to which they fled. The United States has a historical precedent in evacuating vulnerable people from crisis situations, like we did in Vietnam and Kosovo, and we can do it again.

How can Christians who care about the Afghan people get involved at their local and national levels? 

We need to speak out and ask President Biden to fully evacuate all Afghan SIVS, as well as Afghan immigrant visa applicants and other vulnerable populations to be processed on U.S. territory. In the United States, we need volunteers to assist Afghan families who are arriving in small numbers. The major cities that are receiving Afghans right now are Sacramento, Seattle, Modesto, and northern Virginia. You can find your closest refugee resettlement office here.

Please also give to organizations like World Relief that are at the front lines responding to this crisis, advocating for Afghans and also helping process and resettle them to the United States.