Raise your hand if the U.S. Supreme Court decided whether or not you could marry. I see you, folks in interracial marriages and you queer folks. Now raise your hand if justices on the current Supreme Court want to invalidate…
I was trolled by the Right, and here’s what I learned
I knew Campus Reform was going to write about my Baptist News piece on white Christians and climate change. Campus Reform is a conservative news site that uses students as reporters to target progressive professors, and a young writer had…
I wrote about climate change; now I’m hearing from mean Christians
I’ve had an interesting weekend. People on the Christian right have been emailing me to take issue with my BNG piece about white Christians and climate change. Unfortunately, they haven’t really engaged my arguments. They’ve mostly just called me names….
Baptists, of all people, should work for voter participation
Donald Trump has spent the past several months attacking vote-by-mail, going so far as to encourage North Carolina voters to vote twice (by mail and at the polls — which is illegal). Nonetheless, white evangelical support for Trump remains high,…
Oregon is burning while most white Christians deny climate science
The smoke permeates everything. Even with every door and window closed tight. The whole house smells like smoke. This week, Oregon has erupted in wildfires. Nearly a million acres are burning, and unusual winds from the east have blown the…
Five ways to practice tikkun olam and repair the world
2020 is not going so well. There’s a devastating novel coronavirus. Millions of people are unemployed. Hurricane season has started. There are murder hornets and locusts and bubonic plague. And then the Feds came uninvited to Portland. Some folks are…
Ten reasons for hope in this time of dystopia
I am a huge fan of dystopian literature and film, although I am finding I am not a particularly big fan of actually living in a dystopia. And with staying at home so much, I am not sure my partner…
Transforming a multi-issue culture requires us to be multi-issue people
Intersectionality helps us see that the problem is systemic. We live in a social system with institutions – including the church – built to ensure the maintenance of white supremacy and patriarchy. Our solutions, then, also have to be systemic.
‘I can’t breathe’: three words that capture the crushing weight of systemic racism in America
Those of us who are white are asked by the cross to stand in solidarity with the crucified class to dismantle the structures of white supremacy that sustains itself through the use, abuse and destruction of black and brown bodies.
I have a few choice words for people protesting public health directives. Then I hear that still, small voice.
As disciples of Jesus, we do not have the luxury of hating people, writing people off, dehumanizing them or wishing them ill, even when they are acting in the worst ways possible.
I’ll get to hope. For now, I need to sit in the ashes and mourn
This pandemic is not a theological crisis. It’s a moral one. We would do well in this moment to take the prophet Jeremiah’s advice to “put on sackcloth, lament and howl.” We need to mourn and rage and contemplate what led us to this moment.
British clergy mysteries: some suggestions to help lighten the mood during a global pandemic | #intimeslikethese
More than simply being an entertaining way to pass the time, these fictional accounts of murder mysteries and crime dramas can help us ponder more deeply our own fears, hopes, vulnerabilities and values.