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This week offered many examples of failed U.S. leadership, both on Capitol Hill and around the world. Amid these crises, Adam Russell Taylor points to a lifesaving global health program that has upheld some of “our nation’s best values of human dignity and the sanctity of every life” — but is now under threat from anti-abortion groups, including Christians. Here in Washington, D.C., I often feel like moral, bipartisan leadership in politics is on life support. This week, news headlines detailed the ongoing saga of a speakerless House amid an escalating crisis in the Middle East and another potential government shutdown. But beneath the headlines, there are other costs of our ongoing political dysfunction, including a story I think deserves more attention: Congress’s failure to renew a bipartisan program that has helped save 25 million lives in its nearly 20-year history. First authorized in 2003, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is one of the most hopeful examples of what bold, bipartisan leadership can accomplish. Yet as I write this, PEPFAR has not been reauthorized due to unfounded claims from conservative advocacy groups that the program helps support access to abortion in other countries (it doesn’t — but more on that later). In the late ’90s and early 2000s HIV/AIDS was ravaging sub-Saharan Africa as well as many other parts of the world; many people lacked access to treatment. As a disease associated with sex and sexuality, AIDS was shrouded in stigma, shame, and silence; many churches in Africa (and, for that matter, in the U.S.) initially responded with fear and judgment rather than compassion and justice. With the cost of antiretroviral drugs being prohibitively high, the political and public health establishment viewed providing treatment in low- and middle-income countries as either not feasible or cost effective. And while groups like Partners in Health and Doctors Without Borders had already shown how HIV/AIDS treatment could be done in the global South, the political and moral will to fund such a program at an international scale was sorely missing.
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Our Latest Amid Horrific Violence, the Gospel of Peace Feels Foolish. It’s Not (by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson) There’s no military solution in Israel and Palestine; the Christian call is more radical. For Decades, Churches Forced Unwed Mothers Into Adoptions (by Rebecca Randall) Now these women want apologies. “I just want someone to say to my son and my grandchildren: ‘We stole him from her.’” ‘Lock Him Up’? Should Christians Want Trump To Go to Prison? (by Josiah R. Daniels) Hannah Bowman on the joy of being a Christian abolitionist and the tough questions about police and prison abolition. Christian Leaders Condemn Violence, Yet Urge Justice for Palestine (by Betsy Shirley) “Neither tragedy negates the other,” said Rev. Mae Elise Cannon. “If there is ever to be long-lasting and sustainable peace, the core causes of the conflict must be addressed and resolved.” |
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From the Magazine AI: Humanity's New Grab for Divine Wisdom (by Gretchen Huizinga) Can ChatGPT be righteous? |
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