“Jim, Christianity has nothing to do with racism.”

That's what my church elder told me when I was a 15-year-old boy. Can you believe that? “That's political, and our faith is personal,” he said.

That's the night I left my church.

Jim Wallis
President and CEO, Sojourners

(a magazine dedicated to faith in action for social justice)

Come Lord Jesus

I hope when all the sentimentality of Christmas is over

That Jesus receives in his stocking

Real food not pap

That men need each other to survive

That the social gospel

Is the gospel

Not an addendum

As we gather in warm churches

Many are cold

As we receive the lord

Many are hungry

As we showoff our Christmas finery

Many are naked

As we celebrate family

Many are lonely

As we think of a child forced to flee to Egypt

Many will not accept the stranger in our midst

We have been taught a narrow image of religion

So that many wonder what happened to the message of Christ

The straw in the manger is prickly

So should be our conscience

Come lord Jesus

Really come

Not as we imagine

But really come

Frank A Vollmer