Category: General (Page 1 of 3)

Resources for Studying Immigration

June 21, 2025 / Joseph Ginder

In a talk I recorded for Long Beach Friends Church on June 22, 2025, I mentioned that there were some really good resources to understand migration issues. This sort article is written to provide links to those resources. I used these resources in preparing that message.

For a long-term historical survey of migration contextualizing present-day migration, far and away the best research is included in a book by one of the world’s leading scholars of migration, Hein de Hass. It is entitled How Migration Really Works: The Facts About the Most Divisive Issue in Politics. I highly, highly recommend it. It is well-written and covers a great deal of ground. I found some of the things I believed about immigration were simply not true. This is not a partisan book. (I don’t get anything if you use that link above to purchase from Amazon. Purchase where you will.)

Evangelical Immigration Table is a Christian organization that connects followers of Jesus with the world of American immigration in a way that strives to honor Jesus’ teaching.

USAFacts is a non-partisan organization to present statistics about immigration in the United States. Steve Balmer seems to be the primary driver of this organization. They present the unspun statistics about immigration to the United States.

Pew Research has a short article on unauthorized immigrants living in the United States.

Featured image for this post is from Heitordp, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Quaker Testimonies

June 5, 2024 / Joseph Ginder

I often read Johan Mauer’s fifth day commentaries on CanYouBelieve.me. Recently his writing included an excerpt listing “Quaker Testimonies” taken from the developing Faith and Practice of Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting. I found it refreshingly…. er, Quaker?

I mean that in contrast to the drift of many Friends groups toward generic American evangelicalism, abandoning testimonies historically valued by Friends. I’m not advocating a stance that ignores the times in which we live in favor of some idealized past. (Frankly, our past has never been ideal!)

However, these are testimonies that faithfully represent Jesus’ character and teachings that Friends have tried to seriously pursue and embody. They remain Jesus’ teaching and character; they are not obsolete! If we are to follow Him, we try to live these testimonies in an age of 21st century technology and in the face of an often violent global society where living and worshipping in these ways remains relevant and necessary as the life to which Jesus calls.

But let me get to the testimonies! You can read the whole commentary by Johan here. The testimony portion that I want to highlight (by quoting) follows.

We understand the Quaker testimonies as a call:

to live simply and sustainably;

to seek nonviolent responses to conflict, and refuse participation in war and preparation for war;

to speak the truth and keep our promises;

to make common decisions based on our community’s practice of prayer and discernment rather than majority rule or force of personality;

to regard each other—and all people—with a commitment to equality and equity, rejecting all false distinctions based on social, cultural, or economic status;

in the wider world, to support, advocate, and initiate efforts toward peace, justice, care of Creation, and relief of suffering in ways that are consistent with these testimonies;

in all things, to put Love first.

As we set forth these values and commitments, we acknowledge that they are to some extent aspirational, not an inventory of our successes as of today.

Transformation… to become more like Jesus….

March 13, 2024 / Joseph Ginder

Our great fear should not be that people leave our church but that they would stay in our church and remain unchanged.
– Jim Cymbala

Cicero, on history…

March 7, 2024 / Joseph Ginder

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

– Marcus Tullius Cicero

On Adversaries

April 12, 2022 / Joseph Ginder

“Loving, forgiving, and doing good to our adversaries is our duty. Yet we must do this without giving up and without being cowardly. We shall resist whenever our adversaries demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the Gospel. We shall do so without fear, but also without pride and without hate.”
-from a sermon preached by André Trocmé the sunday after France fell to the German attack in World War II

2021 Advent Resources

November 28, 2021 / Joseph Ginder

I mentioned in a Zoom worship time that there are many Advent resources that you may find helpful during this Advent season. This is the list of links to resources that I promised. I may update the list from time to time…. So let me know if you find errors or things that should be added.

Regent College Advent Resource Guide: Called to this Time

Regent College Advent Resource Newsletter

Regent College Audio lectures and chapel talks on Advent, some free.

Spotify playlist for the Advent Collection album from The Brilliance

Amy Orr-Ewing’s Mary’s Voice in Advent series – starts December 1 – Youtube version

CCDA Advent Begins in the Dark

CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) Spotify Advent Playlist

CCDA Advent for Weary Souls

Renovare Advent Devotional

Waiting Together: An Advent Prayer Companion by Richella Parham (weekly prayers to pray three times daily through Advent)

Wonder: An Advent Devotional from Dwell (daily devotions through Advent with scripture readings)

BIOLA‘s Center for Christianity Culture and the Arts: on Facebook, Advent 2021 page – There are resources online and a daily Advent devotional that you can subscribe to.

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes Du Mez

July 19, 2021 / Joseph Ginder

Jesus and John Wayne is the eye-catching title of a book by Kristen Kobes Du Mez. The subtitle is even more provocative: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. It’s a fine historical account written for a general audience detailing exactly what the subtitle says, with extensive documentation of sources. I lived through much of it what she is writing about. It is troubling, indeed, and helpfully contextualizes much that is troubling in the church today.

To learn more about the author, one can find a set of four interviews Skye Jethani did with Kristen Kobes Du Mez on The Holy Post podcast. These interviews summarize some of the points covered in the book:

Lastly, Jim Lyon did a really fine, more personal, interview with the author on the All That to Say podcast. He interviews Kristen Kobes Du Mez about her background and faith in a very wholesome and helpful manner. I found this interview quite helpful.

This is a book that many are talking about, and rightfully so. Kristen Kobes Du Mez will take some heat for this work – just like her Lord did, when He told the truth.

On the Cost of War: A Demonstration of Extreme Love and Loyalty at Great Cost

June 21, 2021 / Joseph Ginder

A recent trilogy of Rough Translation podcasts tells an amazing story of two people who make great sacrifices. I was struck by the display of the often unseen cost of war and violence and by the great display of love demonstrated by one who joined in with the sacrifice of a hurting veteran for whom she grew to care a great deal. There are many dimensions to the story and its implications; I’m still processing. The humanity, vulnerability, loyalty, love, sacrifice…

Here are links to the three podcast episodes that tell this story. They are worth your time. Beware if you are squeamish; the first episode tells the story of terrible injury and suffering in war.

Mom (Formally Speaking)

March 3, 2021 / Joseph Ginder

Below is the obituary that I put together for my mother shortly after she passed in early February. It’s not really much in the way of special memories or deep thoughts – though I captured a couple of hers in very brief form. It’s more the formal obituary that one finds in the newspapers. Or used to find in the newspaper and now one finds…. where? Well, here at least.

My sister Janice and my brother John and I called her (unsurprisingly) “Mom.” Mom was the branch for my ancestral Quaker roots, and her father Albert the one through whom much of the lifeblood of the Quaker incarnation of following Jesus flowed to me. Family. Anderson First Friends Church. Mom and Dad began taking in foster kids when I was in middle school, I think. It was just a thing we did…

Services in these strange and tragic times are difficult for family spread across the country and we are still working that out. Well, I said this was the formal part, so below is Mom’s obituary.

Rachael Ann Ginder, 83, of Anderson, passed away on Â February 3, 2021, at Community Hospital of Anderson. She was born on December 8, 1937, in Anderson, the daughter of Albert E. and Cicely (Lancaster) Pike. Rachael was a member of First Friends Church in Anderson for much of her life and later attended Madison Park Church of God.

Rachael retired from Gaither Music, Alexandria after several years of service. She served on the board of several non-profit organizations and was a Court-appointed special advocate for a number of years. Her primary life-calling was as a mother to foster and adopted children, many with serious special needs. Over the years, with her husband Ron, she cared for over 200 children. In 1986, she received the Golden Deeds Award given annually by the Exchange clubs. She also received the Foster Parent of the Year Award twice. Featured several times in published interviews, she would emphasize, “My daily goal is to be sure disabled and dying children are not alone. You can find beauty when you allow God to give you the ability to see these little ones as he does.”

Rachael is survived by her loving husband Ronald Ginder, whom she married, July 25, 1953; her children, Joseph (Susan) Ginder, John (Belinda) Ginder; adopted childrenÂ Susanna Ginder, Rebecca Ginder, and their special sibling, Jana Marie Craig; grandchildren, Laura, Ben, Sam, Brian, Joe, Lara, Monica, Gabriel, and Gene’; and 5 great-grandchildren; her sister Phyllis Van Duyn; and many nieces and nephews.

Rachael was preceded in death by her parents and daughter Janice, and adopted children Michael, Melissa, Elizabeth, Patricia, and Alissa. A memorial service will be announced at a later date.

Memorial contributions may be made to White’s Residential and Family Services, 5233 S. 50 E.,Wabash, IN 46992 (or whiteskids.org/donate).