A dear friend from Chicago visited me recently in Los Angeles. Both of us are Christians, and while we agreed that violent force was not preferable, I think he felt I was too radical in implying that any show of violence is unchristian. “I agree,” he told me, “that we shouldn’t kill people, I just hope you’re never in a situation where you have to shoot someone.” I paused for a moment to think about what he had just said, to picture my loved ones in a moment of life-threatening danger. And…

Overcoming My Fears with Faith

Last year our pastor, Ryan Bell, invited members of our church to participate in a ten-week dialogue with Muslims from a local mosque. He explained that we’d be working with curriculum from a program called Standing Together, which provided videos, questions and conversation topics for our bi-monthly interfaith meetings. We’d meet both at our…