Drick Boyd's Blog
Educational Justice
Educational justice has been at the heart of my work over the last 13 years.In 1997 I left pastoral ministry and turned my interests and talents to education. While I was working in higher education, I did not teach the typical 18-22 year old college student; instead...
An Open Letter to Joe Sestak and Pat Toomey
Note: The following letter was sent to both candidates and the Philadelphia Inquirer. For those outside Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak (Democrat)and Pat Toomey (Republican) won their respective primaries and will face off in the November's election for the U.S. Senate now...
Arizona and Goldman Sachs – What They Say About our Nation’s Soul
Two recent events have gotten me thinking about the soul of our country. While I have never been accused of being a patriot, I do value the ideals of “liberty and justice for all” at the heart of the pledge of allegiance. Every time I go to the National Constitution...
Good Friday, Guns and the Cross of Christ
Today, (April 2) is Good Friday. For me Good Friday has always been the most significant point in the Lenten-Holy Week-Easter drama. I remember as a college freshman sitting alone in the Duke University chapel on Good Friday, and feeling like the world was going on as...
Shame on you Tom Corbett!
One of the serendipities of the courses I teach is that often the news is filled with real life examples of the theories and concepts we discuss in class. Such has been the case this spring in my Leadership Development course. We have been studying the process of...
Big Government or Big Business – Hold Your Nose Because Both Stink!
Last May my daughter graduated from college. Because of the recession, she has not been able to find a full time job. In October she caught a virus (not H1N1 gratefully) and had to go to a hospital emergency room. She had no health insurance. As a single person with...
Seeking Leaders of Grit and Integrity
During our recent trip to Atlanta, my wife and I took the better part of a morning to tour the Carter Center and Library, the presidential library dedicated to preserving the memory of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. What both amazed and troubled us was the current...
Why Do The NRA and The Gun Industry Want to Keep The Truth Hidden?
For folks who might not have time to read this whole blog here is the short version: urge your representative in Congress to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment. Let me explain why.On February 20, Heeding God’s Call held a peaceful demonstration in front of The Shooter Shop...
How The Poor Have Been Dropped from our Political Vocabulary
There was a time when politicians of both major parties talked about the poor. While they had different philosophies as to the causes of and solutions to poverty, they fell all over themselves and each other to convince the public that they cared about the needs of...
Why Legal Gun Owners Ought to Support Gun Violence Prevention
It has been just over a year since I, along with eleven others, were arrested for our direct action against Colisimo’s Gun Shop. We had focused on Colisimo’s because ATF statistics had indicated that his shop was a major source of illegal guns used in crimes. As it...
Haiti, Christians & Being At Our Best
For the past several days the attention of much of the world has been fixated on the devastation and suffering of the Haitian people. The images coming to us via the media have been heartbreaking, as have the stories of people in this country concerned for the...
The God That Fails
I was thinking about all the wasted energy being spent by the media and others trying to find a scapegoat for the fact that a would-be terrorist got through the checkpoints and protocols and nearly blew up a plane on Christmas Day. As awful as such a tragedy might...
Infidel: Troubling Insights from a Muslim Woman's Story
Just before Christmas I finished reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s memoir Infidel in which she recounts her personal journey out of the oppressive form of Islam she grew up with in her native Somalia. Ali recounts in vivid detail the mutilation, abuse and degradation of women...
The World As it is….?
On December 20 as we Philadelphians were digging out from a 12-20 inch snow storm (depending on where you were and what station you listened to), the Philadelphia Inquirer’s headlines announced that the Senate had garnered the 60 votes needed to move forward on the...
Paradoxical Hope in the Age of Obama
Last year when Barack Obama was running for president the overriding theme was Hope. He had even written a book called The Audacity of Hope that outlined his vision for the United States. Many if not most the people who voted for him saw his election in almost...