2020 was definitely a year for the books. If someone would have told me a year ago what we were about to endure once March came, I never would have believed them. Social distancing, mask-wearing, “stay at home” orders, and…
Broken churches, broken nation: Will evangelicals ‘recalculate’ or rebel?
On Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was attacked by the Empire of Japan, an event that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called “a day of infamy.” On Jan. 6, 2021, the land of the free…
We need to call Trump Christians back to the faith they left
Joe Biden is the next president of the United States. Despite allegations, falsehoods and lies, no election fraud affected the outcome of the race. That’s simply a fact. I’m not sure what will become of evangelical Trump supporters now that…
Remember that Epiphany ends with Herod’s terror
In the days and verses after the Epiphany story, Herod goes on a campaign killing boys under the age of 2 in fear of losing his power. I imagine there were some in the region who could not believe that…
We knew there would be a reckoning for religious leaders enabling Trumpism, we just didn’t know it would be today
For four years, more than half of Americans and most of the rest of the world have wondered where supporters of Donald Trump would draw the line, what would finally push his cult-like enablers to see through his mountain of…
Do you see Jesus as a power broker or a liberator?
A couple of decades ago I had the privilege of serving at a well-known Black church in Brooklyn. One day, some visiting German theologians, who were examining the Black church in America, asked our pastor if the God of the…
On Epiphany, let us resolve to go on
Today is the Day of Epiphany. It is the day the church sets aside to remember the journey of the magi to see the young child Jesus and his family as recorded in the second chapter of the Gospel of…
On Epiphany, tend the light of Christ with truth and love
On Epiphany, which the worldwide church celebrates today, we should ask ourselves how we, the church, will rise and shine in these dark days of discouragement so that we will be a light to the world. The answer has to…
Of wonders and wounds, cloister gardens and chasmic Christianity
The day I walked out of church, I had just finished assisting our children’s church lesson about how God created the world in six literal days. God had put the first two humans in a garden with one rule, and…
An invitation to the SBC seminary presidents — and all white Christians — to enter the moral struggle as articulated by Howard Thurman
At the dawn of 1955, civil rights leader and Black theologian Howard Thurman preached on the Apostle Paul’s moral struggle in the Letter to the Romans. Mid-letter, Paul confesses he desires to do right, but there is a war within…
As Georgia goes to the polls: Win or lose, we’ll keep preaching the truth
I’ll never forget that moment. It was the late spring of 2008, and I was sitting in the pulpit of Covenant United Church of Christ in South Holland, Ill., where I had the privilege of serving for nearly eight years…
Southern Baptists need a vaccine for racism
As we have recently celebrated the birth of Christ, we would hope that our nation would rededicate itself to the true Christian ideals of the season: peace, love, goodwill toward all. Yet, after four years of the Trump presidency, and…