Note: This post is an excerpt from a chapter titled “Juneteenth” in the author’s forthcoming book, Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith and a Nation After the Christian Turn Against Democracy, which will be published September 8 and is now available for pre-order....
Gazing around the auditorium, I knew I was out of place. A lot of indicators pointed to this fact, but none more so than the observation I was several inches taller than those who filled the seats around me. This…
Growing up, I yearned for freedom. Freedom to make my own decisions. Freedom from my parents. Freedom to be myself in a world that didn’t really like headstrong girls or women. When I questioned Sunday School teachers or offered a…
I’ve been preaching the need for a “theology of reality” for years. We need the same kind of revolution in country music. My first musical love was the drum set, but when I got to middle school band, my dad…
As a minister, I mostly deal with grief among parishioners as a process that follows the death of a friend or loved one. When a friend or loved one dies, a bereavement process begins, launching a journey that allows those…
Georgia McKee excelled at sports throughout childhood and played Division I college softball, which enabled her to know some of the nation’s best athletes. But she also encountered what she recognized as some of its most dysfunctional religious attitudes, practices…
James Russell is dismayed by an apparent lack of commitment to preserve Black grave sites in Canada. He’s so disturbed, he has taken it upon himself to secure their dignity. ‘What bothers me is this ground has no markers on…
Religious repression remains widespread in Iran, according to a new report released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Minority faiths — even including some Muslim sects — and women are most vulnerable to persecution in the predominantly Islamic…
A nationwide speaking tour featuring prominent white Christian nationalists has rescheduled a stop in New York state after pro-democracy advocates succeeded in urging a venue in Rochester, N.Y., to cancel a mid-August event. Main Street Armory a former military facility…
During the summer of my Clinical Pastoral Education residency at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, all eight of us in the cohort experienced many deaths and sleepless on-call shifts. One day during education, we were noticeably and collectively “out of it.”…
So, here we are again. Summer has come, another change of seasons. The 4th of July has passed, another celebration of America’s independence from England. And another young unarmed Black male killed by police. Another march in protest and another…
I’m attempting to wrap my mind around the idea of a former Army general telling me I should preach from the U.S. Constitution. I mention this only because Michael Flynn has been occupying American pulpits, recommending the Constitution as a…
Jesse C. Fletcher Seminary, a ministry-training school launched in the wake of Hardin-Simmons University’s 2020 decision to close its Logsdon Seminary, will begin offering two graduate degrees this fall. Fletcher Seminary is based in San Antonio in facilities of Baptist…
