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.
In America’s midnight hours, faith will improvise a way forward
From the formlessness of these midnight hours in America, out of the void of oppression and injustice, something is being born that will create a new song for all God’s people to sing. But the revolution, when it comes, will be improvised.
In our neighborhood, ‘eyes on the street’ takes on deeper meaning
From one perspective, Skeet was the embodiment of all the problems plaguing our neighborhood. When you can only see broken windows, Skeet looked only like a broken man. But no person or neighborhood is only broken. What the folks closest to the ground knew was that Skeet helped hold Enderly Park together.
Under the teaching tree, counting planes and keeping vigil with Brother Raul
The form keeps shifting, but the outcome has remained constant for generations. Those on the bottom of the hierarchy have calamity visited upon body and spirit and household. The trouble – racism, greed, violence – crushes people.
Changing racial injustice: ‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for’
The scourge of overt white supremacy has been with us all along, from the time the first Europeans washed up on these shores. It will persist until we fix it. And it is ours to fix. Now.
Praying the hard Psalms in the Age of Trump
Now is the time to pray the kinds of difficult prayers that might re-establish a common moral narrative around caring for the poor, making healthcare accessible, pursuing peace rather than war and building a just and inclusive economy.