A few nights ago, I had a dream that terrified me. Actually, it woke me up feeling physically ill in my waking moments. I was on the side of a mountain that had a series of large boulders lining it….
To reduce abortion humanely and justly, people of faith should back the ERA
Fifty years ago, Congress passed a constitutional reform to ensure “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged … on account of sex.” On March 22, 1972, a bipartisan supermajority sent the Equal Rights Amendment to…
Apparently not all children learned the same things as me in Sunday school
When I was child, I loved Sunday school. I loved hearing about Jesus and how Jesus loved everybody and talked to everybody and healed so many people. Had Jesus not been the Son of God, I probably would have said,…
Racial history is American history
We have seen the backlash against all things “woke,” a word and movement that means to become “awakened” to American history, particularly as experienced by Black Americans. The word “woke” itself, and its supporters, have been criticized as jargonistic, left-wing…
The Freddie Freeman Effect
Over the last two years, Freddie Freeman, the five-time All-Star first baseman for the Atlanta Braves, has become a focus for folks eager to extrapolate the meanings of a mixture of national crises that include health, economics and the forging…
Why praying for God’s will to be done is a dangerous act
Something remarkable and courageous, perhaps even miraculous, happened in Russia on Monday, March 14. Marina Ovsyannikova, a news editor at Channel One, the Kremlin’s leading news channel with 250 million viewers worldwide, suddenly appeared behind the news anchor during the…
Seeking the blessing of those who welcome us to the land
Edith and I travel a lot and have done so for years. We spent four years where we just traveled around from reservation to reservation across the United States and Canada and mentored a number of people. We also did…
The Civil Rights leader nobody knows on his 100th birthday
On March 18, 2022, Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the least known but most impactful figures in the Civil Rights movement, would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Unless you are a historian of that movement or one of my friends, you probably…
What could the church learn from Amazon?
In 1994, Jeff Bezos left a lucrative job as an investment banker on Wall Street to start a company selling books on a new technology called the internet. Two years later, I left a non-lucrative career in ministry and entered…
We don’t talk about periods, no no
Disney made a movie about menstruation and — surprise, surprise — American evangelicals got upset. The movie, Turning Red, directed by Domee Shi (a Chinese Canadian filmmaker), is the first full-length Pixar film to be directed by a woman. Let…
The preacher said it was ‘his time to go,’ but that brought no comfort to the family
The preacher at the memorial service no doubt thought he was giving a message of comfort to those who had lost a loved one. The central thrust of his message was that it was Jim’s time to go. Apparently, this…
Sleepless nights, parenting, biscuits and holy Communion
I’m fully awake a few ticks after 6 a.m., but I’ve been semi-conscious for a few hours. To say my oldest daughter hasn’t slept well is putting it nicely. When she hasn’t been exploring the different positions to rest her…