I get nervous about declarations that our current times are the “most” anything in human history. So I hesitate to say our current situation is the “most” critical time to engage contemporary issues in the church.
Retweeting mercy in the midst of darkness
In her July 10 message at the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber retells the story of the Merciful Samaritan. The message is timely, coming as it does on the heels of a week —…
Dear non-racist white people: stop saying we’re not racist
In so many ways, we are still experiencing the beginning birth pains of an integrated America. In some ways, we’ve made significant and hopefully irreversible progress. In other ways, it might as well be the first day of integration or the mad years of Jim Crow.
The Baptist World Alliance: Truly global?
It takes increased finances for the Global South to participate in the global Baptist family. Adequate finances are often beyond its current capacity.
No more Samaritanizing
When we Samaritanize others we imply that they are fatally flawed by identities like their race or religion, their ethnicity or their uniforms, and thus are unworthy of care, understanding or perhaps even life itself.
When it comes to same-sex marriage, it’s all over but the shoutin’
I recently spent one day at the national convocation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which is just beginning a conversation about the hiring of non-celibate gay employees. That frustrating experience made me reflect on my own experience. I thought I…
Nurturing roots: strengthening ethnic and racial self-esteem
La versión en español está disponible aquí. Two days ago I started a journey with 10 members of the Latina Leadership Institute community. We traveled from San Antonio, Texas, to Mexico City to visit key historic, cultural and religious sites….
Nutriendo raíces: Fortaleciendo interacciones
An English version is available here. Hace dos días inicié un viaje con diez integrantes de la comunidad del Latina Leadership Institute. Volamos de San Antonio, Texas a la ciudad de México con la meta de visitar importantes lugares históricos,…
If the church won’t speak out, who will?
I told this story in my sermon Sunday: I met a new friend the other day, who, upon finding out I was a pastor, asked me a question framed with a story. “What should pastors be saying about this election?”…
Do this — not, believe this — and you will live
The Sunday school version of the story of the good Samaritan in Luke 10 simply admonishes us to be like the Samaritan and show love to our neighbor but leaves the question, “Who is my neighbor?” unanswered. The Sunday school…
Whiteness and racial identity
White privilege is mostly a non-experience for white people. White people are not criminalized because of their race, which is why a white man can carry an AR-15 in public and only receive a qualified response from police officers, while unarmed African-American men and boys are killed.
Empowering youth to speak when racism, discrimination loom
One of the lessons I learned this week is that most of our youth are way ahead of us adults on this stuff. They are aware of what’s going on, they are passionate about it, but they often haven’t felt empowered to speak.