The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope

  CONNECTING THE DOTS AND LINES OF INJUSTICE ©Wendell Griffen, 2020 September 24, 2020       Across the United States, people are debating how the legal system can justify allowing police officers to not be charged with killing Breonna Taylor who they shot to death in March 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky during a military-style invasion of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend.     Across the United States, people are debating whether it is fair for US Senators to hold a hearing before the November 3, 2020 presidential election to confirm whoever President Donald Trump nominates to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who died on September 18).   Those Senators refused for months to conduct a confirmation process for Judge Merrick Garland when President Barack Obama nominated him to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia.   Across the United States, people are struggling to survive the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than...

REMEMBERING JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG ©Wendell Griffen, 2020 September 20, 2020   Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman confirmed to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), transitioned to life beyond us the evening of September 18.   Justice Ginsburg lived a long, remarkable life devoted to serving victims of discrimination and bigotry, based on sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.   She was the first female editor of the Harvard Law Review, the first female tenured law professor at Columbia Law School and was one of the first lawyers who litigated sex discrimination cases before SCOTUS.   Justice Ginsburg served on the Supreme Court for 27 years, from August 10, 1993 until her death.     I first learned of Ginsburg in 1971 as a University of Arkansas political science major in a course titled “The Supreme Court and Civil Rights.”   Our class learned that an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer ...

©Wendell Griffen, 2020   Like many others, I am praying for children, teachers, and school staff who are being ordered to return to school buildings and classrooms in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.     However, we should also pray for the adults who knowingly send children of God into the teeth of a lethal virus under conditions that we know are harmful because of the pandemic and the dangers of COVID-19.   Adults (politicians, school officials, educators, and parents) know that indoor gatherings of groups of people threaten the health of persons who breathe.   Adults know that children breathe.   Adults know that children can be asymptomatic yet infected with coronavirus.   Adults know schools do not have enough personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, gowns, etc.) to protect students, teachers, support staff and school visitors).   We know these facts.   That knowledge gives us the moral power and eth...

©Wendell Griffen, 2020 The July 26, 2020 issue of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper contains an article based on an interview of U.S. Senator Tom Cotton, the junior senator from Arkansas.   The article written by that paper’s Washington, DC correspondent, Frank Lockwood, quotes Senator Cotton’s assertion during a recent interview that slavery “was the necessary evil upon which the union was built…”   Cotton made that assertion to support legislation he is sponsoring that would prohibit public schools in the U.S. from using material from the New York Times 1619 Project that traces U.S. history to 1619 and the enslavement of Africans (see, https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jul/26/bill-by-cotton-targets-curriculum-on-slavery/?ne ). Senator Cotton’s view that slavery was “the necessary evil upon which the union was built” is flawed logic and flawed ethics.   It is flawed logic because morally competent people can choose good rather than evil.   A...

A FOURTH OF JULY SERMON FOR THE UNITED STATES OF PANDEMICS ©Wendell Griffen, 2020 July 5, 2020 (Fifth Sunday after Pentecost) New Millennium Church Little Rock, Arkansas Jeremiah 22:1-5 22 Thus says the  Lord : Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word,  2 and say: Hear the word of the  Lord , O King of Judah sitting on the throne of David—you, and your servants, and your people who enter these gates.  3 Thus says the  Lord : Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.  4 For if you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their servants, and their people.  5 But if you will not heed these words, I swear by myself, says the...