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“These are folks that in many cases couldn’t pay like a two hundred dollar fine or ticket. They’re put on probation. They have to pay interest on what they owe, and they have to pay that company for the privilege of being supervised by them,” says Caroline Issacs, Arizona program director of the American Friends Service Committee. “It’s like a payday loan they end up paying ten times over, and these are people that are poor to begin with.” More
“He was a master teacher,” says Rabbi Chaim Schochet, recalling the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—who led the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement until his death 20 years ago. Rabbi Schochet directs Jewish Summer Fellowship, a program of intensive training in sacred texts and mystical teachings for Jewish college students. More
“The Rebbe was as profoundly a religious and spiritual figure as you can imagine. He was of course scrupulous in his observance of Jewish law. He prayed with a sense of tremendous profundity, and you actually felt, when you were dealing with him, that you were with a person who was suffused with a God-consciousness.” More
Dogs, says Tim Hetzner of Lutheran Church Charities, are “a very gifted part of God’s creation.” In disaster situations they sense when someone is hurting, and together with their handlers they minister compassionately to the needs of victims. More
“Jesus matters so much because of the incarnation,” says Edward Blum, a history professor at San Diego State University and co-author of The Color of Christ. “So if God takes a particular body with particular hair length and particular eye color, then perhaps that says something about the value of that body.” More
Communities of faith and the moral issues raised by Ferguson; one American woman’s campaign to bring love into the lives of China’s neglected orphans. More
“I’m particularly concerned when I see white people and African-American people not having conversations with one another about what’s happening in Ferguson,” says Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. “I think that needs to change in our own congregational life, when we have congregations where reconciliation is modeled within the pews of the church.” More
It was the campaign of one American woman, Jenny Bowen, in Berkeley, California, that brought loving care into the lives of millions of Chinese orphans, most of them girls. Bowen and her husband began by adopting one girl. Then another. Now Jenny Bowen leads Half the Sky, a foundation to deliver responsive care to all China’s orphans. “They’re being treated like their lives matter,” says Bowen. “They know it, and they know they’re loved, so they thrive.” More
Every day, Edem Richard Adjordor drives throughout Ghana’s Volta region to assist poor families and to rescue children from slavery and abuse. He offers services ranging from medical supplies and health education to providing children with a safe place to … More
Muslim minority experiences Buddhist persecution in the former Burma; a best-selling author of detective stories explores the idea of sin; Hindus celebrate the birth of Lord Krishna. More