Living Out Hospitality in an Age of Terror

The week that the controversial U.S. travel and immigration ban was first issued, I sat in my living room in Lebanon with a Syrian woman whose water had broken in her seventh month of pregnancy. Both she and the baby were now at risk. Yet, she came, not for medical...

Lacking Moral Imagination to Care for Others: Part 2

The vision of humanity is inherently myopic. We are barely able to see the needs of our neighbor in the house, apartment or even cubicle beside us, let alone to recognize the needs of our neighbor across borders. Yet that is precisely what Christ calls us to do....

Lacking Moral Imagination to Care for Others: Part 1

I had a chat with the water-filter guy. He was bemoaning the fact that, as a former procurement manager in Dubai, he had not been able to find a suitable job after returning to Lebanon. This, he attributed to the large influx of Syrian refugees who had flooded the job...

When Religion Becomes Idolatry: Part 2

The idolatry of shaping God in our own image has been the root of much evil in the world. It has perpetuated systems of oppression. And racism. And hate. It has led to genocide. And apartheid. And rape. Tell me that the church’s hands are clean from the blood of...

When Religion Becomes Idolatry: Part 1

Like Jacob in Genesis 32, I have wrestled recently with God over the politics of my own identity. From a young age, I had attained to what many around me attested to be “profound maturity” in my Christian faith. I could quote Bible verses in the proper...