The View from Sardis

Joseph Wakelee-Lynch is a writer and editor in Long Beach, Calif., whose writing focuses on the nexus of religion and politics. A contributing editor for The Witness, he has been published in newspapers across the United States, including The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and in magazines such as The Utne Reader, The Progressive, Commonweal, Fellowship, and Books & Religion. For six years, he hosted a weekly radio interview program, which featured interviews with writers, in the Los Angeles area on KSPC-FM, based at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif.

Wakelee-Lynch's involvement in anti-death penalty ministry led to the founding of a group working on capital punishment at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Berkeley, Calif. Previously, he was a vestry member and senior warden at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, in Claremont, Calif. For most of the 1980s, Wakelee-Lynch was a member of the Sojourners Community and worked at Sojourners magazine, where he wrote editorials and was book review editor. He was also a peace and justice organizer in the Sojourners Peace Ministry, helping to plan prayer services, vigils, and demonstrations at the White House, the U.S. Capitol building, and elsewhere.

Wakelee-Lynch received a bachelor's degree from the University of Delaware in international relations and a master's from the London School of Economics and Political Science, in international politics. He may be reached by email at wakeleelynch@earthlink.net.

• January 2005: Evangelical Fervor in Foreign Policy

• December 2004: Conscientious Objection and the War in Iraq

• November 2004: Filtered Moral Values

• October 2004: The Doleful Dignity of Rodney Dangerfield

• September 2004: The L.A. Fissure in the Anglican Church Divide

• June 2004: Patriotism & Loyalty: America's Volatile Mixture

• May 2004: The Poisonous Dregs of War

• March 2004: The Mines in International Politics

• February 2004: The Fog of Military Service

• January 2004: The Spectacle of Campaign Religion

• December 2003: Evangelization in a Culture of Empire

• November 2003: Vocations Lost and Found

• October 2003: Moralism's Collapse in Iraq

• September 2003: The Goodness of Evil

• August 2003: Don’t Kill in Our Names by Rachel King

• July 2003: Finding the Heart’s Treasure: America’s Case for the War in Iraq

• Winter 2003: Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love by Daniel Homan, O.S.B. & Lonni Collins Pratt

• Fall 2002: Hope and Outrage: Will Death Penalty Reforms Foreshadow Abolition?

• Spring 2002: Bishop Paul Jones: The Cost of Questioning Church and Country

• Winter 2002: Death-Penalty Activism: Bringing Faith and Creativity to the Struggle

• Fall 2000: Communities Directory: A Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living

Additional related writing by Joseph Wakelee-Lynch

• Called Forth from Jail: A Prison Seminarian Hopes for Ordination and Freedom
• The Language of War and the Theology of the Enemy