The truth is that the immigration crisis is actually a human crisis. Once we begin to view our neighbors as humans and not illegal immigrants, community transformation can take place on a global scale in ways that rival any international philanthropy. Nobody knows that better than border activist Peg Bowden, who is author of "A Land of Hard Edges: Serving the Front Lines of the Border."
Forty years from now the world will be a vastly different place from today's. There will be 10 BILLION of us, with all of the racial, ethnic, religious, and economic diversity that such massive growth brings. Two-thirds of the world's people will be in cities of 1 million people or more, and our most basic resources of food and water, often taken for granted today, will be in short supply. Listen to this pivotal conversation.
On July 30th a team from OMNIA arrived in the city of Gombe, Nigeria to begin a week-long series of leadership workshops. This was our second time training in Gombe. Our first had brought together more than 400 people and included four tribal rulers (chiefs), a representative of the governor of Gombe State, two members of the State Parliament, and numerous senior Muslim and Christian leaders. They gathered to learn ways in which Muslims and Christians can work together in a context in which religious tensions have given way to some of the deadliest extremist violence in the world.
For the first time I was in our nation’s capital on the Fourth of July, where the choir directed by my wife Dhilanthi performed at the John F. Kennedy Center.
Later we visited the recently-opened Museum of African American History and Culture. The experience was at once inspiring and troubling. Inspiring because so much of the distinctive texture of American life can be traced directly to its rich African American contributions. Troubling because our nation’s shameful embrace of racism is not just a stain on our nation’s past, but a plague that threatens us still.
The Rev. Abare Kallah, OMNIA's Nigeria Team Leader, is featured in the July 2017 issue of The Christian Century, in which he talks about OMNIA's role in bringing a way forward for Christian and Muslim Clergy seeking to end the influence of the terrorist group, "Boko Haram." Also featured was Soraya Deen, founder of the Muslim Women Speakers Movement, who served also as a key team leader in Nigeria.
At Berlin's historic Brandenburg Gate, Chancellor Angela Merkel took the stage with former President Barack Obama at Kirchentag, a gathering of some 140,000 celebrating the 500th anniversary of Luther's protestant reformation. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, something of a second reformation was quietly taking place. Three progressive theologians were, figuratively speaking, tacking a thesis to the door of the church of the establishment - one that might change the world, if we could embrace it.
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