Suffering Archives

As Many Christians Wrestle with Fatigue and Uncertainty, New Album Storybook Explores What Gospel Hope Sounds Like

By CSA Staff

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The seven-song project grew out of a year of listening to stories from organizations working for justice, creation care, and community renewal.

March 23, 2026 — In a cultural moment marked by rapid news cycles, political tension, environmental crisis, and widespread exhaustion, many Christians are quietly asking what hope actually looks — and sounds — like today.

As Many Christians Wrestle with Fatigue and Uncertainty, New Album Storybook Explores What Gospel Hope Sounds Like

By CSA Staff

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The seven-song project grew out of a year of listening to stories from organizations working for justice, creation care, and community renewal.

The Church’s Witness: When Theology Harms or Heals in Israel and Palestine

By Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon

(Editor’s note: This is Part 3 of a four-part series exploring Christian faith, theology, and peacemaking in the Holy Land. In this installment, Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon examines how theological frameworks — particularly those connected to Christian Zionism and dispensationalism — shape Christian attitudes toward Israel and Palestine.

When the News Breaks Your Heart

By Melanie Mock

Two days after the United States began bombing Iran, I dropped my oldest son at the airport in Portland, OR. He was headed to National Guard boot camp, and will be gone for 10 weeks.

Walls, Borders, and the People in Between: Human Stories from Israel and Palestine

By Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon

(Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a four-part series exploring Christian faith, theology, and peacemaking in the Holy Land. In this installment, Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon turns from history and biblical interpretation to lived experience, examining how physical barriers, borders, and political structures shape the daily realities of Palestinians and Israelis alike.

Loving the Profits While Hating the Prophets

By Scott Bessenecker

A story attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi goes something like this: Once, Francis and another friar were walking past an ornate cathedral when the friar declares, “The church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold I have not,’” referring to Peter’s words to a lame beggar at the Temple gate.

Shalom in a Shattered Land: A Biblical Vision for Peace in the Holy Land

By Mae Elise Cannon

(Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a four-part series exploring Christian faith, theology, and peacemaking in the Holy Land. In this opening article, Dr. Mae Cannon invites readers into a biblically grounded vision of shalom — challenging common assumptions about conflict in the region and examining how Scripture has often been misread in ways that obscure God’s purposes for peace.

Palestinian Child Detention: A Lenten Christian Reflection

By Rubin McClain

Last year, at the beginning of Lent 2025, I joined a group of students, scholars, and activists on a Sabeel trip to the “Holy Land.” While I was reflecting on what exactly is “holy” in a moment in which the region is filled with strife and conflict, the arid landscape echoed back to me as a forceful impression of my dreary thoughts.

We Got Us: Interrupting Violence Through the Arts

(A Storytellers Collective Feature)
On Chicago’s West Side, Pastor Phil Jackson learned early that justice doesn’t begin behind a desk.
When he joined Lawndale Christian Community Church in the mid-1990s, Phil quickly realized that traditional models of ministry weren’t going to reach the young people he cared most about.

Eating Alongside the Poor for Lent

By Scott Bessenecker

For me, Lent has long been an invitation to hunger and thirst for God’s kingdom to take deeper root in my life and in this world. It is a season that gives shape to longing, a hunger for Easter, for resurrection, and for the unfolding of God’s good-news-to-the-poor kingdom among us.

Selective Moral Outrage: What the Epstein Files Expose About the Church

By Terence Lester, PhD

One of the most pressing challenges facing the Christian faith right now is not simply political division, but moral inconsistency and the lack of courage to speak out against blatant injustices that are anti-Christian, wrong, destructive, and harmful to vulnerable people and targeted communities.

Finally Free: Grace, Recidivism, and the Christian Call to Liberation

By Rev. Dr. Allen L. Hollie Jr.

“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing… O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:18-24)

The Epistle and the Experience
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Rome, admitting that a war raged within his own members, he was not offering abstract theology.

We Got Us: Health Care at Risk and the Power of Proximity

(A Storytellers Collective Feature)
Across the United States, health care systems are straining under the weight of policy decisions made far from the people most affected by them. For millions of families, access to care is fragile — shaped by underfunded systems, racial inequities, and growing threats to Medicaid and other safety-net programs.

Petitioning for My Immigrant Wife While America Criminalizes Immigrants

By Anonymous

(Editor’s note: We are publishing this reflection anonymously out of concern for the safety and well-being of the author and their family. As the author describes, immigrants and their loved ones are increasingly vulnerable to surveillance, retaliation, and denial of legal processes simply for speaking critically about U.S.

Online Articles

Loving the Profits While Hating the Prophets

Shalom in a Shattered Land: A Biblical Vision for Peace in the Holy Land

We Got Us: Interrupting Violence Through the Arts

“There Can Be No Justice Until We Change This System”: The Gospel Case Against the Death Penalty