Six New Things – Week of 09.08.25

Hatred and cruelty are ubiquitous and bring profound, complicated, tragic consequences. Grounding and building up in Love – for individuals and communities – is our balm and healing.

ONE

Shots rang out again this week. Rev. Cameron Trimble urges us: Let’s Talk about Political Violence, writing, ‘[P]olitical violence, is a flare sent up from the depths of our collective soil. It reveals something toxic growing beneath us—something about who we’ve become and what we’re allowing to fester.’

Key to healing is making space for grief. Please see Responses and Resources for Community Grief; and note especially the on-going online prayer community from Healing Our World. Join via zoom every morning through September 15, 2025.

Find our Let’s Talk about Political Violence Great Idea based on Trimble’s post here.

TWO

‘Now is the time for those with spiritual and moral courage to rise—not in revenge, but in resolve. To name what is broken. To imagine what could be. To live as if we remember that another world is still possible.’ – Rev. Cameron Trimble

Rise with spiritual and moral courage:

  • In Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Just Shine! How to Be a Better You, kids of all ages – including adults – discover ‘how helping others shine makes the whole world brighter’.

Name what is broken:

  • Bill O’Reilly and Josh Hammer’s Confronting Evil: Assessing the Worst of the Worst (St Martin’s) couldn’t be more tragically timely – and more challenging – as it ‘explains the struggle between good and evil, a choice every person in the Judeo-Christian tradition is compelled to make. But we…avoid the decision… Prepare yourself to read the consequences of that inaction.’

Imagine what could be:

  • Act – as individuals and congregations – with more zeal and impact inspired by Not Just Sunday: Reimagine the Reach and Rhythms of Your Church (Abingdon), which ‘guides leaders and congregations into innovative ministry where they can thrive in new ways, creating meaningful connections in the community and nurturing deep discipleship’.

Live, remembering what is still possible:

  • Rev. Frenchye Magee, founder of Healing Our World, is one of our Church. Organize. Neighbor. Love. panelists. This four-part panel series is designed to move clergy and lay leaders (together!) beyond inaction by grounding in our particular theologies, which draw us into a shared mission of neighbor-love, made real through collaboration with faith-based and community organizations leading the way into God’s preferred future. Church. Organize. Neighbor. Love. runs Tuesdays in October at 2:00 PM.

Get inspired for your action through The Web and find lots more in our Social Justice: Politics & Social Structure; Reimagining Church: Reorienting, and Faith Formation: Hope & Resilience lib guides.

THREE

Evil and hatred have less room to grow in healthy democratic societies. Heather Cox Richardson reminds us (in a 3-minute video) of the history of The Nineteenth Amendment – which is being significantly threatened by Christian nationalists in power.

Take a deeper dive into The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding (Random House), which argues that, ‘American democracy is an illusion we must make real by transforming not only our political institutions but the American economy‘.

[See also, Building a Moral Economy (Fortress) for concrete ways congregations can engage in this globally recognized and planet-saving shift.]

Find more in our Social Justice: Census, Elections, & Voting, Confronting Misogyny, and Reimagined Democracy & Moral Economy lib guides.

FOUR

‘Learn about white evangelicalism [a root of Christian nationalism] from those raised by its heroes’ in, The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism (Broadleaf), which offers a unique perspective that ‘illuminates broader currents in American Christianity’.

Maybe it’s not such a unique perspective:

Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds (Simon & Schuster) – written ‘in the spirit of George Carlin and Christopher Hitchens’ – by ‘the son of a former Catholic nun and a Franciscan brother’ – ‘delivers a deeply irreverent and biblically correct takedown of far-right Christian hatred – a book for believers, atheists, agnostics, and anyone who’ll ever have to deal with a Christian nationalist’. So, all of us.

Start Littles off on a more sound foot with God Is (Pilgrim), which ‘offers a profound theology of joy, wonder, and assurance for children of all ages’.

Find more in our Spiritual Memoir, Church & State/Christian Nationalism, and Exploring God lib guides.

FIVE

Quell fears and anxieties by engaging in building up what is broken:

  • Let Little Rebels (Neal Porter) inspire the whole as they, ‘ask questions… use language to shape the world… and imagine, trust their intuition, and aren’t ashamed to change their minds’.
  • Invite adults into The Hard Work of Hope: A Memoir (ILR), in which author and activist Michael Ansara, explores the questions: ‘How does a movement build support when large parts of the country are opposed to its goals? How do you connect with people who disagree with you? How do you build organizations that unite across racial lines? How can we make progress on the unfinished business of the hard work of hope?’
  • Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia Butler (Amistad), is ‘a magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work’. Butler exemplifies how language can shape the world and invites us into our own ‘positive obsession [which] is about not being able to stop just because you’re afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It’s about not being able to stop at all.’

Find more in our Change Makers, Young Leaders, Contemplative Activism, and Spiritual Memoirs lib guides.

SIX

And because I would be remiss not to include these Seasonal options:

This is, indeed, our hope and prayer.

Find more in our Faith Formation: Advent & Christmas and Worship: Advent & Christmas – Liturgical Arts – Year A lib guides.