When the Super Bowl halftime stage centered Grammy-winner Bad Bunny, Spanish was not a provocation — it was a translation of reality. What unfolded was not controversy but clarity: a portrait of the United States as it actually exists, a…
Waiting in the cold
On the 101st day of the venerable monks’ Walk for Peace from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., I was able to offer my blessing and receive theirs. They were walking up historic U.S. Route 1 not far from where we…
When Christ knocks at the door
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Revelation 3:20 often is heard as a quiet, private invitation — Jesus asking politely to enter an individual heart. But to John’s first hearers, living under the pressure of empire, this image…
Love on the loudest stage
When I watched Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio sing on the Super Bowl stage, I didn’t just hear music. I heard a prayer disguised as rhythm, a sermon stitched together with bass and breath. In a country that often tells people like me…
Mohler worries about dignity of presidency — from Clinton era
In what might be considered a mild rebuke of President Donald Trump’s posting of a racist video last week, Al Mohler spins out 1,500 words before he mentions the president by name. And then he says Bill Clinton was worse….
Letter to the Editor: Pro-life immigration policies
As a Baptist opposed to abortion, my pro-life position is rooted in seeing every human being created by God as holding immense value to our Creator. When we view humans as image bearers of the divine, we are obligated to treat one…
Black History Month is not about you, but it is for you
I want to speak directly to my white friends, white Christians and especially white clergy colleagues during Black History Month. I’m writing to you not as an adversary or a critic, but as someone who has prayed with you, eaten…
Let holy curiosity guide you this Black History Month
Last January, I had the opportunity to spend a week in Richmond, Va., exploring the complicated role of religious freedom in our country. Specifically, the group I was with pressed on the wounds of race, power and inequality. We explored…
Everyone has a part to play in the fight against ICE
I was in Minneapolis the week Alex Pretti was shot more than 10 times by Customs and Border Patrol Agents. I originally went to Minneapolis to write about the aftermath of Renee Good’s murder by an ICE agent. As I…
Working where grass is trampled
There is an African proverb that states, “Where elephants fight, the grass is trampled.” Nowhere is this a truer metaphor than the effect of global politics on international development and, ultimately, the marginalized at the bottom. Imagine our surprise and…
How do white Christians ignore Trump’s obvious racism?
The question is not if President Trump is a racist. That question was settled long ago. The receipts are in hand. I was 5 years old in 1989 when he spent $85,000 on full-page ads calling for the execution of…
By Trump’s definition, Jesus ‘engaged in domestic terrorism’
There’s a lie that’s been rattling around my mind since federal agents murdered Alex Pretti Jan. 24. It’s the lie that Pretti, an intensive-care nurse at a Veterans’ Administration hospital, was “engaged in domestic terrorism.” Realistically, dozens of videos have…