The prophetic movement in the streets has begun a good work. There is no stopping until every vestige of white supremacist ideology is erased, not only from public squares, but from laws, institutions, churches, theologies and families.
The vital work ahead: evangelizing the evangelicals and demythologizing the empire
We are being called to die for an economy that only works for a handful of people. The racial caste system brutalizes black and other communities of color, while dangling just enough opportunity to white people to keep the system intact and to prevent most of us from revolting.
‘Watch with me’: on the other side of our long night of grief, space to reimagine our world
The people who die from COVID-19 will come from every walk of life in every town in the country. But in aggregate, the pattern shows now and will continue to show that deaths by the disease are political deaths – ones set into motion by racism and oppression.
Re-setting broken bones: Why the oft-lamented division in our culture is necessary and helpful
This moment does not call for cheap unity, but for a clarified division.
A failure of discipleship: Iran, Iraq, and American Christianity
There are plentiful reasons to question whether white American Christians, as a group, learned the right lessons following the so-called “War on Terror.” Our default settings have not changed.
Impeaching ‘the deeply held faith values’ that brought us a President Trump
In these moments of impeachment, the court prophets have lined up to defend the president, led by a few prominent, white evangelical leaders – none more outspoken than Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress.
Move so our kids get ‘better’ schools? Why our family is staying put on the wrong side of the tracks
The urban neighborhood where we have chosen to live is not always joyful. My heart has been broken more than a few times. But this place and its people have been my salvation.
The simple gift of attention: an antidote to the abstraction and alienation of our culture
Sustained, uninterrupted attention is an unusual gift, both to ourselves and to others. It may be the thing that saves us. The moment of pure attention contains within it the possibility of a future worth having.
Anti-racist discipleship: a solution to the same death-dealing lies of white supremacy James Baldwin wrote about
Baldwin’s “mystical” solution to the lies of white supremacy is immensely practical. Such spirituality looks like organizing our communities to attend to the political and economic wounds our nation inflicts and to bring into practice a community that is at once more grounded and more beautiful than we have dared to imagine.
Reading Apocalypse in an Age of Revelation: the uncovering of white Christian nationalism
Despite their disturbing, even demonic, histories, both white supremacy and nationalism are back. Now they are fused with Christian zeal, a mixture that has only ever been – and will only ever be – toxic.
Returning from sabbatical, I was reminded: I am unnecessary but not insignificant
I have a role, just as each of us who gets caught up in the in-breaking of God in the world has a role. But that role only has meaning in the context of a community that struggles together.
A world still charged by flame: finding God in the singed pages of the Old Testament
In Fire by Night, author Melissa Florer-Bixer invites us to encounter the God of the Old Testament in new ways. Joining in God’s liberative work in the world is an urgent matter, which makes the patient care of reading these old, old faith stories all the more important.