Jesus called out the hypocrites of his day with angry words. When white leaders misuse power to profit from past wrongs of racism and heap additional injuries on oppressed people, what words need to be heard?
After creating the universe, God took a nap: Why we need Sabbath rest
Western Christians today have a hard time celebrating Sabbath. That needs to change – for our sakes and for the sake of creation.
Is our gospel no longer the gospel of the early church?
My fear today is that the gospel being preached from Baptist pulpits is all too often an appeal to self-interest rather than to conscience. When the gospel of God’s grace comes home to the human heart, it does not appeal to our self-interests but rather to our sense of sin.
The president is correct: there IS an insanity gripping our nation
Trump is correct that we are experiencing a frightening dis-ease in America. Insanity – moral disorder – imperils our people, our nation, our earth. What he doesn’t seem to recognize is that he is the source of much of the chaos, the claims of many evangelical leaders notwithstanding.
Called to ‘go hard in the paint’ for Jesus: Trump isn’t our biggest problem; we are
Christianity is not a game of chess. Following Jesus is risky business. What we need are knees worn out from prayer, hearts captivated by biblical authority and a will surrendered to God’s will, committed to go, do and say whatsoever God desires, no matter the outcome.
Toni Morrison and the story of Rizpah: creating language that heals in a time of trauma
How the late Toni Morrison “did language” invited a greater intentionality in telling the stories that might make for a different future. What could be more important in these troubling and traumatic days than crafting language that heals a broken nation, a people concerned about the current dystopic narrative?
How churches that don’t think they are anti-Semitic promote anti-Semitism
The church has not just been on the wrong side of history, but on the wrong side of Christianity. Anti-Semitism is by definition a repudiation of Christianity as well as of Judaism, and an enemy of pluralism and democracy.
‘It feels like being hunted’: American churches, mass shootings and ‘the slaughter of the innocents’
It’s a question we have asked countless times: have we reached a turning point? Do our faith communities, whose history began at the place of the skull and the killing fields of a Roman coliseum, have a will or a witness for our assault-weapon-proliferated, executionary times?
Parallels between the racist rhetoric of Trump and Wallace are undeniable. But there is one important difference
Donald Trump rode to political power on words even more inflammatory and vitriolic than those of the early George Wallace in the 1960s. At least Wallace, late in life, demonstrated the moral capacity to re-evaluate himself. To this point, at least, Trump has not.
Anti-racist discipleship: a solution to the same death-dealing lies of white supremacy James Baldwin wrote about
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.
Tired of Christians ruining the name of Christ? A Turkish bath with strangers improved my outlook
Today, Christians in America tend to find ourselves in two reactionary camps: those into apologetics and those into apologies. Both sides come from a stance of fear. If we continue reacting from our defensive postures, then we have learned nothing from scripture, tradition, human experience or, God forbid, the Holy Spirit.
A Facebook post, a detained citizen and racial profiling right under our noses
White Christians in America must see racism for what it is: sin. Seeing our sin and our complicity is the first step to repentance. We must see this because it’s literally killing our neighbors of color, all created in the image of God.