Tag Archives: justice

Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: Host Lynne Hybels

Nationwide Nonviolence Tour: Host Lynne Hybels

Posted on 09. Oct, 2010 by Tim Stoner.

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Day Six: Lynne Hybels, wife of Willow Creek pastor, Bill Hybels, invited us to join about 30 close friends and church leaders in her home. Looking at Sami Awad, to her right, she tells the group in her living room, “I want to introduce you to my hero.” This is real. You can feel it in her tone and see it in her eyes. After spending a week with him, I understand what she is saying. It’s not every day you hang out with a man who stands in front of tanks and bulldozers with nothing in his hands but faith, hope and love.

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Nationwide Screening Tour of Little Town of Bethlehem: Boston College

Nationwide Screening Tour of Little Town of Bethlehem: Boston College

Posted on 25. Sep, 2010 by Tim Stoner.

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There is a sense of excitement and anciticipation. It is day one of EthnoGraphic Media’s (EGM) 12-day launch tour of its new film Little Town of Bethlehem. This premiere on September 21, 2010 was scheduled to coincide with the United Nation’s International Day of Peace. I am on bus with a team whose members have flown in from across the U.S. (California to Washington D.C.). We are joined by a film crew from Dot & Cross, and a photographer to document the trip. This ground-breaking documentary addresses a growing (and finally, truly hopeful) movement, composed of both Israelis and Palestinians, with united voice calling for a nonviolent end to the occupation in Palestine.

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“Please don’t become social activists!”

“Please don’t become social activists!”

Posted on 08. Feb, 2010 by Tim Stoner.

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“Please, don’t become social activists!!”
This is not what I expected to hear from a “left-wing,” anti-capitalist who helped launch the Christian social-activist movement in the early 80’s. Ron Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, had been asked to be the devotional speaker for a conference on Faith and International Development at a local Christian College. Those opening words riveted me but settled like a foreboding fog over the mostly young and zealous audience. But it was just a warm-up for an intolerable “heresy” of scandalous proportions.

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A Cry For Justice

A Cry For Justice

Posted on 17. Jun, 2009 by Tim Stoner.

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What remains with me is the sound of clapping. I go to Uganda with my wife and some friends and come back with the sound, not of grief but joy, and gratitude, and an honor that is so weighty it could crush your bones. You even start to walk a little hunched over. Maybe you’re just bending down to place your hands on their mostly bald heads and maybe you just are starting to cave in under the pressure. You reach out and hold the thin brown hand and smile back at the face that is shining with delight and at a smile that is sometimes so bright that you can barely look directly at it for very long. It can burn your eyes with its brilliance and as I blink my eyes I wonder if what I’ve really seen is Jesus.

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