An interesting voice of Christian dissent is being raised regularly in Texas at Houston Mennonite Church, where the Rev. Marty Troyer calls himself "the peace pastor."  --  A recent sermon of Troyer's, part of a series on Election Year 2012, was posted on the website of the Houston Chronicle.  --  Entitled "The Shaping of Things to Come," it labels both those who "believe in government" and those who "believe in free enterprise" as idolators, and summons listeners instead to (in the words of theologian Stanley Hauerwas) "the radical communal quality of Christian life."[1] ...

"Films For Action uses the power of film to raise awareness of important social, environmental, and media-related issues not covered by the mainstream news," says a recently created website, Films For Change.  --  "Our goal is to provide citizens with the information and perspectives essential to creating a more just, sustainable, and democratic society."  --  Below is a link to a "wall of films" containing hundreds of documentaries, "peak moment TV," presentations, PSAs, etc., made available for viewing online.[1] ...

In the late 1970s the poet William Everson, (1912-1994) also known as Brother Antoninus, witnessed a highly dramatic encounter between a cat and a Steller's jay in California, and later recounted it in an appealingly lyrical mock-heroic poem in which one can also feel his life-long devotion to the work of Robinson Jeffers. --  In the "translucent blue" of the "wild feathers" Everson saved as "numinous trophies" of the encounter, the "beat friar" (Everson was a member of the Dominican Order for almost two decades) saw an "iridescent message . . . from beyond the screen of Nature."[1]  --  Originally published in 1980, this poem's message continues to resonate.  --  It is also included in the posthumous three-volume collection of Everson's poems published by the Black Sparrow Press....