In the wake of the violence of January 6, 2021, some observers wondered why the insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol weren’t charged with domestic terrorism. The reason is simple: There is no standalone federal crime on the books for domestic...
I’ve been tired, and I know I’m not alone in that. People are tired. Not inconvenienced. Not stressed but tired, bone tired as the seasoned saints used to say. Wars are waging in the Congo, Iran and Palestine while cable…
After Easter worship several years ago, I spoke briefly with a pastor standing alone near the back of the sanctuary while the congregation drifted toward fellowship hour. Children were running through the hallways. People were laughing, hugging and talking about…
On Sunday mornings across America, many Black pastors stand behind pulpits carrying far more than sermon notes. Some are preaching only days after burying another teenager lost to gun violence. Some are trying to comfort congregations anxious about layoffs, housing…
Growing up in rural South Georgia, my only exposure to New Orleans was Greasing of the Poles on the national news, on Mardi Gras day. It was so scandalous, these revelers sliding their bodies and props on poles in the…
America did not merely criminalize a plant. It criminalized a people. Before “marijuana” became America’s most politically weaponized slang term, the plant was widely known as cannabis — used in medicine, industrial hemp and natural remedies. But in the 1930s,…
There’s a video circulating of Al Mohler speaking at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where something critical happens to him that stops him from speaking without explanation. The audience there and those who watch the video can hear him…
Our neighboring city, Frisco, Texas, appears to be a test site for the next manufactured culture war bogeyman. Remember when it was the immigrant caravan? And then wokeism and DEI corrupting public ed? And then trans people just … existing?…
Living into its new identity, The United Methodist Church has a prime opportunity to liberate Wesleyan theology from past conflicts to become a vital framework for today’s world, says one of Methodism’s most noted theologians. Joerg Rieger hopes two of…
Tennessee news has my stomach churning. To comply with the legislature’s newly mandated guidelines, Knox County Schools recently banned several books including Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Roots, which depicts the horrors of enslavement. Two weeks later, the county…
Complacency has become one of the biggest threats to marriage equality since the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the constitutionality of same-sex unions in 2015, according to a report by Interfaith Alliance. The landmark ruling in Obergfell v. Hodges held that…
A federal judge has reopened President Donald Trump’s $10 billion IRS lawsuit to determine if the action was a ruse to create a nearly $1.8 billion slush fund to secretly pay political allies. U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami…
Psalm 1 opens with a warning that feels hauntingly modern: “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.” The verse is not simply about personal morality. It is about influence, power, allegiance and the…
