Almost three decades ago, a coworker of mine — now a close friend — used to amuse me when she referred to The Ten Commandments as the “Top Ten.” Even before that in college and seminary, where I was taught…
Evangelicals and a happy new year
’Twas the night before the night before Christmas and the preacher was being stirred by the memory of a childhood experience. Walking down the street, listening to his transistor radio playing the holiday classic “Snoopy’s Christmas.” This merry little Christmas…
Should ‘real’ Christians really vote Republican today?
Numerous conservative pastors and commentators have declared to their flocks that true Christians must vote Republican if they are faithful. Chief among those is Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who told a conservative political action group this…
After Uvalde, let us dream of impossible things
Tuesday night, May 24, 2022. Election night. I turn on the TV to watch the returns come in. The polls close in five minutes. Before I can even get comfortable in my easy chair, the “Breaking News” sign, the crawler…
The Civil Rights leader nobody knows on his 100th birthday
On March 18, 2022, Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the least known but most impactful figures in the Civil Rights movement, would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Unless you are a historian of that movement or one of my friends, you probably…
The long, dry line from 9-11 to Jan. 6
Every year, just before the end of the old year and the beginning of the new, my wife and I always watch CBS’s annual broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors. We love it. We weep with the honorees, the masters…
Color-blindness, consistency and the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict
Right there in the middle of the most famous speech in 20th century American history —Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech — was essentially a pipe-dream prayer that King’s “four little children will one day live in a nation…
George Floyd and the silence of white evangelical America
This God-forsaken red stain on our white hands will never be washed clean until we white Christians repent and through peaceful, nonviolent protest declare, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take any more dead black men at the hands of white police.”
Parallels between the racist rhetoric of Trump and Wallace are undeniable. But there is one important difference
Donald Trump rode to political power on words even more inflammatory and vitriolic than those of the early George Wallace in the 1960s. At least Wallace, late in life, demonstrated the moral capacity to re-evaluate himself. To this point, at least, Trump has not.