“The Weekend Wanderer” is a weekly curated selection of news, stories, resources, and media on the intersection of faith and culture for you to explore through your weekend. Wander through these links however you like and in any order you like. Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed within these articles but have found them thought-provoking.
“Global Displacement and Refugee Crisis” – Mark Labberton interviews Myal Greene on Conversing: “Myal Greene (president and CEO of World Relief) joins host Mark Labberton to discuss the global humanitarian crises, refugee resettlement, and the church’s responsibility to respond with courage and compassion. From Rwanda’s post-genocide reconciliation following 1994 to the 2025 dismantling of humanitarian aid and refugee programs in the US, Greene shares how his personal faith journey fuels his leadership amid historic humanitarian upheaval. Rooted in Scripture and the global moral witness of the church, Greene challenges listeners to imagine a more faithful Christian response to suffering—one that refuses to turn away from the world’s most vulnerable. Despite the current political polarization and rising fragility of moral consensus, Greene calls on the church to step into its biblical role: speaking truth to power, welcoming the stranger, standing with the oppressed, and embodying the love of Christ in tangible, courageous ways.”
“Why Have Children?: Thinking with patience, rigour, and generosity about a contentious topic” – Brian Dijkema interviews Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman about their book, What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice in Comment: “Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman’s book, What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice, was published in June 2024. A year later it continues to resonate. As it should: their book is a model of wisdom and discernment on a topic that—whether we like it or not—has become fraught and contentious. Questions of whether and why to have children, they argue, are too important to leave to the world of culture wars, sound bites, and hot takes. Because at their heart these questions are philosophical, asking what it is that makes us human and gives us meaning. Comment senior editor Brian Dijkema met with the authors to discuss the book and the issues it addresses.”
“The Damascus church bombing and the collapse of Middle East Christianity” – Daoud Kuttab at Religion News Service: “The suicide bombing at St. Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus that killed more than 20 worshippers on Sunday (June 22) and injured dozens more is a tragic reminder of the vulnerability of Syria’s religious communities amid a fragile security situation. The attacker entered the church during Sunday Mass, opened fire and then detonated a bomb strapped to his body. Syrian authorities have linked him to a sleeper cell of the Islamic State group, known as ISIS. In the aftermath, according to Syrian TV, security forces raided suspected ISIS hideouts, killing two militants — including the suspected facilitator — and arresting six others, among them the cell leader. The interim government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, now faces a pivotal test of its ability to protect Syria’s diverse communities while rebuilding broken institutions in a deeply fractured nation. This attack should not be seen in isolation. It reflects a broader strategy by ISIS and its remnants to reignite sectarian tensions and destabilize Syria’s fragile pluralism. Christians, Alawites, Druze and other groups have long been targeted by such extremists. A response limited to reactive raids will not suffice. What Syria needs now is a comprehensive national strategy grounded in justice, equal citizenship and the rule of law.”
“The Fruit of the Spirit as the Framework of Eternal Living—and as the Character of Christ” – Dallas Willard at Conversatio: “The important thing I think for most of us is to understand that spiritual transformation is among other things an achievement. I use that word hoping it will make you uneasy, see? But it is an achievement, and it’s presented in that way in the scriptures, and it is experienced that way in people throughout the history of the church. Now, that means that it’s something that you engage in and if we do not take appropriate action, it will not happen. And so, constantly in the New Testament in the gospels and the book of Acts and the letters and the whole deal, it is presented as something we do, and many people have a very hard time thinking that thought but it’s one we have to think. And then that is where the disciplines come in and the key idea here; we can put in one word, which is “indirection;” indirection—funny word. That means that you achieve by doing something different—something other.”
“The Temptation of the Good: Satan tempts Christ with the power to do good. John Milton’s Paradise Regained holds lessons for those trying to reject tyrants and reform nations” – Andy Rasmussen in Plough: “Reconciling personal faith and civic service has never been easy. Even before relatively modern concerns about the separation of church and state, Christians recognized a tension between the state’s divine duty to enforce justice and its tendency toward fallen corruption. Augustine famously dealt with this in The City of God, distinguishing between the earthly city that serves temporal needs and the city of God that serves true and eternal justice. Understanding that human rulers are unlikely to perfectly serve justice, he exhorts Christians to pray for their rulers and endure even unjust laws that do not oppose the laws of God. This exhortation is complicated in a democracy, where citizens are also the rulers for whom they must pray. Is a Christian culpable for the actions of a ruler that she helped elect? Is she culpable for a ruler elected through her inaction? In recent years, such questions have dominated Christian political discourse. Those looking for answers should take an afternoon to read Paradise Regained, a seventeenth-century poem by John Milton dramatizing the temptation of Christ in Luke 4.”
“Texas will require public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments under bill signed by governor” – Sameea Kamal in The Texas Tribune: “Come September, every public school classroom will be required to display the Ten Commandments — part of a larger push in Texas and beyond to increase the role of religion in schools. On Saturday, Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 10, despite a federal court ruling that a similar Louisiana law violated a constitutionally required separation of church and state. In May, the proposal passed the Senate 28-3. The bill preliminarily passed the House 88-49 on the Jewish Sabbath day. The Ten Commandments forbids work on that day, Rep. James Talarico noted in an effort to highlight legislative hypocrisy. The lower chamber’s initial approval came after more than two hours of debate and despite last-ditch Democratic efforts to water down the law, including giving school districts the opportunity to vote on the policy, and adding codes of ethics from different faiths into the bill.”
Music: Sons of Korah, “Psalm 131” from Resurrection.
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Matthew Erickson 