Red Letter Christians Podcast

Why is Ceasefire Controversial? Dr. James Zogby, and Ariel Gold

Ariel Gold is the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. She was the national co-director of the antiwar group CODEPINK, where she specialized in campaigns for Palestinian rights. She is a member of Congregation Tikkun v’Or in Ithaca, New York where she resides and has been a longtime active member of Jewish Voice for Peace.
James Joseph Zogby (from Arabic: زغبي, Zuġbīy) (born 1945) is the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.–based organization that serves as a political and policy research arm of the Arab-American community. He is Managing Director of Zogby Research Services, LLC, specializing in research and communications and undertaking polling across the Arab world.

Reverend Dr. Fahed, Palestinian Arab Christian, Founder of Atlanta Ministry with International Students, Inc.,

Rev. Dr. Fahed Abu-Akel is Founder and Executive Director of the Atlanta Ministry with International Students Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia. He was born in Kafr Yasif, in the Galilee, of Christian Palestinian parents. He was ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church USA in 1978 and has served on the mission staff of the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. Rev Fahed was instrumental for mission trips to Kenya, Haiti, Brazil, Egypt, Israel, and Palestine.
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Demand Ceasefire NOW | Diana Oestreich

We only need 38 more signatures to reach the next goal - can you help?
https://www.ceasefiresong.com/
We are religious leaders, nonprofits, and activists, nurses, doctors, dads, teachers and mothers united in this moment of moral reckoning to affirm the sanctity of all human life. https://www.change.org/p/save-children-s-lives-duluth-demands-a-ceasefire-now
We call on the  Duluth City Council  to save  Palestinian and Israeli Children’s lives by demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. 
We unequivocally condemn attacks on all innocent civilians, including the October 7th Hamas-led attacks in Israel, which killed 1200 Israelis and saw 240 people taken hostage. We condemn the Israeli Army’s siege and indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza, where U.S.-made weapons have contributed to the loss of more than 25,105 Palestinian lives  and left more than 62,681wounded or dying without hospitals to stop the bleeding. 
Children are experiencing the suffering and consequences from decisions made by Adults. We cannot allow them to suffer for the horrific decisions they did not make. 
We as Duluthians are standing up to Protect innocent childrens lives.
Children make up over 47% of the population of Gaza according to UNICEF.Its estimated 3 children are being killed every day by the Israeli Army.Bombs, disease and starvation in addition to having their parents killed is the triple threat facing them according to UNICEF every day we allow this to continueTwo abducted Israeli children must be unconditionally and safely released.
“With every passing day, children and families in the Gaza Strip face increased risk of death from the sky, disease from lack of safe water, and deprivation from lack of food. And for the two remaining Israeli children still held hostage in Gaza, their nightmare that began on 7 October continues.”
It is our moral obligation to leverage our collective power to end the escalation of death and ongoing humanitarian crises. We have three demands.
We demand an immediate, permanent ceasefire and the immediate release of all Israeli and Palestinian hostages. We urge the Duluth City Council and US to facilitate unimpeded UN-supervised humanitarian aid in Gaza. This includes but is not limited to the immediate delivery of lifesaving aid, the reconstruction, restabilization, and return of Palestinians displaced from their homes and neighborhoods.  We urge the Duluth City Council and the US to condition funding to Israel on its adherence to humanitarian law just as is required for every other nation that receives our citizens tax dollars through US aid and funding. 
United in shared humanity, we collectively urge the Duluth City Council  to leverage its power to end the genocide in Gaza. A ceasefire is just the beginning. The staggering civilian casualties and rising global hate crimes highlight a fundamental truth: there is no military resolution to this invasion. We understand the safety and security of Israelis and Palestinians to be inextricably intertwined, a safety predicated on a long-term diplomatic solution. Further, we condemn weaponization of this violence to justify anti-semetic and anti-Arab, especially anti-Palestinian, attacks and abuse and  intimidation across Duluth and  the nation. 
We stand on our faiths, our conscience and human and civic responsibility to speak up for children and preserve the sanctity of human life here in Duluth and across the world in Gaza. In the words of Rev. Jesse Jackson in Lebanon in 1979, “we do not seek to exchange sufferers but rather to stop suffering.”  
 
 
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Book Club | "Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation" discussed by author Father Adam Bucko and Mary Grace Puszka

 Father Adam Bucko in conversation with RLC’S Mary Grace Puszka to discuss “Let Your Heartbreak Be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation” (Orbis Books, 2022). Written against the backdrop of the pandemic and America’s reckoning with growing poverty, injustice and systemic racism, this book is uniquely positioned to accompany us through the disillusionment and violence of trying times. It offers reflections, stories, and insights from Adam Bucko’s years of prayer and activism, including in the streets with homeless and LGBTQ youth, in new monastic communities across the world, and as an Episcopal priest in an engaged contemplative community.
Indeed, Father Adam Bucko has been a committed voice in the movement for the renewal of Christian Contemplative Spirituality and the growing New Monastic movement. He has taught engaged contemplative spirituality in Europe and the United States and has authored “Let Your Heartbreak be Your Guide: Lessons in Engaged Contemplation” and co-authored “Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation” and “The New Monasticism: An Interspiritual Manifesto for Contemplative Living.”
Committed to an integration of contemplation and just practice, he cofounded an award-winning non-profit, the Reciprocity Foundation, where he spent 15 years working with homeless youth living on the streets of New York City, providing spiritual care, developing programs to end youth homelessness, and articulating a vision for spiritual mentoring in a post-religious world. He currently serves as a director of The Center for Spiritual Imagination at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, New York, and is a member of “The Community of the Incarnation,” a ‘new monastic’ community dedicated to democratizing the gifts of monastic spirituality and teaching contemplative spirituality, in the context of hearing and responding to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth.
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Reverend Erich Kussman on Pastoring in Prisons, Injustice, and Deconstruction

 
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February Monthly Morning Prayer

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Book Club | ”You Should Be Grateful: Stories of Race, Identity and Transracial Adoption” with author Angela Tucker and host Diana Oestreich

We are humbled to be joined by Angela Tucker as our book club guest in conversation with Diana Oestreich.
Tucker wears many hats: she is the CEO of the Adoptee Mentoring Society, cultural commentator, filmmaker, podcast host, inspiring speaker, and author. Tucker is a transracial adoptee and is the Founder of The Adopted Life and the Adoptee Mentoring Society where she is challenging dominant adoption paradigms by centering adoptee voices in the mainstream. Tucker lives in Seattle Washington with her husband, Bryan Tucker.
Her new book, You Should Be Grateful: Stories of Race, Identity and Transracial Adoption is the subject of the documentary Closure, chronicling the search for Tucker’s biological family. The book centers the experiences of adoptees to share deeply personal stories, it is comprised of well-researched history and engrossing anecdotes from mentorship sessions with adopted youth. Tucker centers the experiences of adoptees through sharing deeply personal stories, well-researched history and engrossing anecdotes from mentorship sessions with adopted youth. These perspectives challenge the fairy-tale narrative of adoption, giving way to a fuller story that explores the impacts of racism, classism, family, love, and belonging.
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"Our story doesn't end in our worst moments." | Jeff Hood Recounts Kenneth Smith Execution in Alabama with Experimental Nitrogen Gas Method

Shane Claiborne speaks with Dr. Jeff Hood about redemption, grace, and justice. Dr. Hood was the spiritual advisor to death row inmate Kenneth Smith who was killed Thursday, January 25, 2024, with the experimental execution method of nitrogen gas by the state of Alabama.
Please visit the following to learn more about how you can get involved to help end the death penalty.
https://deathpenaltyaction.org/
https://eji.org/
https://www.redletterchristians.org/dr-jeff-hood-in-conversation-with-shane-claiborne-about-kenneth-smiths-execution/
 
 

Tim Whitaker from The New Evangelicals Returns!

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Rethinking Life | Reclaim the Sacredness

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