I sometimes tell the story about how back during the pandemic, at the height of the Black Lives Matter marches, my friend Kelly Brown Douglas schooled me on racial reconciliation. That’s the sort of thing she does. Until then, I…
You can’t mandate colorblindness: Why the Supreme Court ruling is both wrong and immoral
A year and a half back, I was invited by Jake Owensby, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana and chancellor of the University of the South, to speak with his clergy about racism and white supremacy. That Saturday…
Broken covenant: An interview with Vann Newkirk II about ‘Holy Week,’ MLK and white supremacy
Vann Newkirk II is senior editor of The Atlantic and one of our most thoughtful and talented writers on race, politics and culture. I first met him years ago when Baylor University sponsored an annual film program on race and…
Contemporary Christian fiction? An excerpt from Bastille Day
On April 4, my novel Bastille Day was released from Raven Fiction, a new literary imprint of Paraclete Press. It debuted on Amazon as their best-selling new work of contemporary Christian fiction, and I have many and complicated feels about…
‘In a pluralistic democracy’: An interview with Jennifer Rubin
For years, Jennifer Rubin, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, and I didn’t see eye to eye on many issues. An ardent champion of the traditional Republican Party, she advocated for candidate Lindsey Graham in 2015 (“If being right is…
Stranger in the Village: James Baldwin and inclusion
In the summer of 2019, I rode a bus high into the Swiss Alps, a terror ride straight out of Six Flags, to visit the most important site in American race relations that nobody knows about. In 1951, the author…
Woke, awake or unfaithful? Racism in the white church
Feb. 16-18 at Baylor University’s Truett Seminary, we convened our second national conversation about racism in the white church, “Time to Wake Up.” Although those attending were passionate about the program and online and social media comments before, during and…
‘What can we forgive?’: An interview with Matthew Ichihashi Potts on Forgiveness
I’ve been diving deep on forgiveness lately. A few weeks back, my friend Ralph Douglas West and I led a Janterm retreat for Truett Seminary students and pastors where we read works including Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies (home to the…
Where God is: Preaching the hard truths about change
Last fall on the second Sunday of Advent, I preached a sermon at the American Cathedral in Paris on change, our fear of change, the difficulties of change. And on race. It was a pretty typical sermon for Advent, that…
We don’t talk about Brittney
Last week WNBA star, Olympic gold medalist and Baylor Bear standout Brittney Griner was moved to one of Russia’s most notorious prison camps to begin serving her nine-year sentence for possession of drugs. A remarkable all-round player, she led Baylor…
A conversation with Anthony Reddie about the importance of James Cone
Last fall, I had the great honor of serving as a visiting fellow at the Oxford Center for Religion and Culture, headed by the renowned Black liberation theologian Anthony G. Reddie. Anthony and I became fast friends, and we had…
Womanhood, white Christian nationalism and Queen Elizabeth
On Thursday evening, church bells began to chime in Oxford, where I am living for much of this fall while on research leave from Baylor University. I’d planned a long writing day, but I simply sat, my front door open,…