Red Letter Christians

A simple prayer for complex times

RLC Editor — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:00:24 +0000

Holy God, You see the wounds in our bodies, our minds, and our spirits, and You see the brokenness in our communities and in our world. We come to You together, seeking Your healing. Where there is sickness, bring strength. Where there is grief, bring comfort. Where there is anxiety, bring calm. Where there is conflict, bring Your reconciling love. Heal the weariness that we hide from one…

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Is Prayer Enough?

RLC Editor — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 10:00:58 +0000

“Thoughts and prayers.” This phrase is often tossed around after a tragedy. Whether it’s spouted from a politician or swamping social media, there are plenty of well wishes for the survivors and the families of those lost. This phrase has drawn a lot of criticism, too. It is thrown back at Christians as empty words. What good are your prayers, people demand, when you do nothing to change the…

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What Gaza Has Done to My Faith in America

RLC Editor — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:00:59 +0000

The day I became an American citizen remains one of the proudest days of my life. It was February 1977. Standing among dozens of immigrants from around the world, I raised my right hand and pledged allegiance to the United States of America. I was not born into that moment. I had traveled a long road to reach it. I was born in Jerusalem. In 1948, when I was 2 years old, my father, a civilian…

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Courageous Empathy: Because the Globe is Our Neighborhood

RLC Editor — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:00:20 +0000

I still remember what it felt like to dread walking into school. When I was in the ninth grade, three students bullied and taunted me about my weight. The taunting became so relentless that I began skipping school, especially the class where I would see those three students. My absences almost caused me to fail the ninth grade. At fourteen years old, I did not have the language to…

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‘The Korean War’: Theologically, a brick wall (with prayer requests)

RLC Editor — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:30:22 +0000

The Korean War was a proxy war enacted on the Korean Peninsula by neighbouring great powers. Millions of people were butchered over those three brutal years, and the former national territory was utterly destroyed. – Han Kang (Oct 7, 2017) Relatively few understand today that what we term ‘The Korean War’ – was among the most brutal and savage wars in the history of humanity; a staggering 10%

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America and the Disinherited: Why We Cannot Rest

RLC Editor — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:30:35 +0000

My understanding of America did not begin in a classroom. It began in Tuskegee, Alabama, a place where the stories of struggle, resilience, faith, and possibility seemed to rise from the red clay. Growing up in Tuskegee meant living in the shadow and the light of people who believed education could liberate, communities could transform themselves, and ordinary people could bend history toward…

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‘God commands us not to kill’: Faith leaders protest 50 years of executions

RLC Editor — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 10:00:02 +0000

Editor’s Note: Previously published on Religion News Service on July 2, 2026. WASHINGTON (RNS) — In her first years attending a fast marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that resumed the modern-day death penalty in the United States, SueZann Bosler was still on medication to treat the effects of being stabbed in the head by the same man who murdered her father, the Rev.

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Eighth Letter of Revelation: Lay Down Your Flags and Take Up My Cross, An Open Appeal to the White American Evangelical Church

RLC Editor — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 10:00:56 +0000

To the Church of White Evangelicals in the United States of America: You have created a large network of worship and praise. But whom do you worship and whom do you praise? Over your pulpit, there is a large empty cross–a symbol of my resurrection. But yours is empty for another reason: You have taken me down from the cross and buried me in a shroud of two flags with different images but…

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Heeding the Mandate of Gospel Nonviolence and Pope Leo’s Call to Resist War and the Military Industrial Complex and AI’s Threat to Humanity

RLC Editor — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 10:00:57 +0000

On March 27, 2026, twenty-seven peace and justice makers, including many Catholic Workers, were arrested at the Pentagon as they prayed and sang for peace and the abolition of war and all weapons of war. The occasion marked the 70th birthday of longtime Catholic Worker Patrick O’Neill who, with other Catholic Workers, helped organize the action. Charged with “interfering with agency functions,”…

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After 50 years of death row, resistance has never been stronger

RLC Editor — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:30:50 +0000

Editor’s Note: Previously published on Religion News Service on July 2, 2026. (RNS) — This week marks 50 years of the modern-era death penalty in the United States. In a 1972 landmark case, Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court called the death penalty “arbitrary and capricious.” But on July 2, 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia, the Court allowed executions to resume. It was clear then…

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