Kevin O’Farrell

Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction keeps coming to mind on this point. What binds disparate religious groups together is a shared decision on who doesn’t belong. Friendship through exclusion, etc

ICE Goes After Church Leaders and Christians Fleeing Persecution - Christianity Today On Tuesday, Iranian asylum-seekers were detained in Los Angeles, adding to the count of church members taken despite lawful status.

On Tuesday, Iranian asylum-seekers who fled persecution for their Christian faith were detained by ICE in Los Angeles.

The arrests add to a growing number of church members taken despite lawful status.

Padilla: If this is how DHS responds to a senator with a question you can only imagine what they're doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California.

Map of many sighting with photos of ICE raids in Ventura County

Ventura County definitely hit hard today with ICE raids.

Crowdsourced site of sightings. Maybe worth starting to TOR this stuff IMHO.

My thoughts with the families of all the folks who were snatched off our streets today 🙏 […]

[Original post on ai6yr.org]

Zero Gravity Faith has lost much of its authority today—even for those who practice it. Why? And how does faith find authority for believers again today?

'The best preaching advice I ever received was from the theologian Robert Jenson, whose words to me serve well as a conclusion: If by the end of your sermon you can’t say, “Thus says the Lord,” you will have wasted everyone’s time.'

comment.org/zero-gravity/

One of my fav bits of non-commentary on the pope was when a tv anchor said “it’s important to note that he is Augustinian.” When asked why it was important, she answered “well it is an order in the Catholic Church” and nothing else

In his first Sunday address at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV has called for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

"I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people. Let everything possible be done to achieve genuine, just and lasting peace as soon as possible⤵️

who called it woke pope and not Opus DEI

👀👀👀

This is like saying “Attila the Hun helped draw attention to the plight of Gaulish peasants”

The Enlightenment and the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Culture “Louis Dupré’s study of the Enlightenment, ranging as it does over art, morality, religion, science, philosophy, social theory, and a good deal besides,...

Not quite on topic but I found this really useful and I learned of it since John Webster recommended it to his phd students back when

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Also from Pope Francis’s Stations of the Cross meditations:

“An economy in which the ninety-nine are more important than the one is inhumane. Yet we have built a world that works like that: a world of calculation and algorithms, of cold logic and implacable interests.”

I had been doubtful that we were going to have a "this is the crisis moment" with Trump, as opposed to "everything about this is a destructive catastrophe."

But the Abrego Garcia case is the crisis moment.

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Driving Overthink · Episode

Apparently Lacan once took the Heideggers on a road trip and his driving was so erratic Martin thought Lacan was testing his authentic being towards death

France, the country of true justice

An ‘Administrative Error’ Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison The Trump administration says it mistakenly deported an immigrant with protected status but that courts are powerless to order his return.

Nightmare: "The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up."

Aberdeen trade unionist Ron Webster wonders where all the money went from the oil boom The veteran union figure met everybody from Fidel Castro to Nelson Mandela and led the anti-poll tax campaign in Scotland in the 1980s.

I’ve never forgotten meeting Aberdeen trade unionist Ron Webster, just months before his death at 96. Ron was proudly, passionately left-wing and railed against increasing poverty in his home city. He would have been appalled by today’s spring statement! www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/past-time...

Michelangelo painting

Child in stroller with shade down showing only her feet

Two experiences of the Uffizi

Me vs my small child

Very true. I find this is the interpretive point that gets the most adamant and emotional pushback from other Christians.

I recently saw a forthcoming book that basically says if you question that disability results from the fall, then you have undercut the gospel. Pretty wild stuff

What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced Exclusive photos of the arrival of Venezuelan detainees deported from the U.S.

The author of this piece is an American photo journalist who has been embedded in El Salvador. Reading this piece is frightening and it should be. It's who we are in danger of becoming. time.com/7269604/el-s...

Picture in booklet of woman searching for lost coin under a dresser

There are also pictures throughout of the Bible stories made by people with IDD. This one is of the parable of the lost coin

Check it out here:

www.sociedadbiblica.org/proyectos-mi...

Cover of booklet with the title Las parabolas dr Jesus en lectura facil

A sample page from the booklet of the parable of the Good Samaritan

This is a great resource from Sociedad Biblia. They are making simple language Bibles that are accessible to people with intellectual disability. They limit the vocab and simplify sentences. They have translated parables, and are now translating the gospel of Luke, Acts, and OT stories.

"For Holland (and, frankly, all serious historians and theologians), Western Christianity’s genius is in its pluralism..."

Such grounded wisdom in this little essay

The food was obv really good too

So much to glean for our current moment, esp when considering bivocational is the norm here for ordained ministry. There is no cultural capital for them to fall back on

Just had dinner with pastors in Barcelona who shared so much wisdom from their history: highlights include navigating religious oppression under Franco, transforming dying churches in a minority faith community (baptists), and 18 year olds coming together to reconcile church divisions of past gens

Three people in sky blue shirts and jeans climbing the steps of the US Capitol, including a young blonde girl wearing a red and white bandanna around her head and turning to look at the camera

Today is the 35th anniversary of the Capitol Crawl, in which disabled activists discarded their mobility aids at the foot of the Capitol steps to climb them in support of passage of the Americans with Disabilities Ac. Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, 8, told reporters "I'll take all night if I have to!"

Headed back to the UK for the first time since leaving 4 years ago.

Feels weird to not go to Faberdeen but it will be good to connect with friends in Bristol and Nottingham.

Starmer decries ‘worst of all worlds’ benefits system ahead of deep cuts PM expected to announce billions in savings from personal independence payment, the main disability benefit

www.theguardian.com/society/2025... This is deeply wrong. Coping with disability already brings suffering, discrimination, poverty. There is no evidence that those claiming PIP do so fraudulently.
There is evidence wealth is not taxed effectively. Labour do better.