Growing up, my parents — Evangelist Idella Cora Thomas and Leonard Thomas — guided me spiritually. They emphasized the importance of spiritual discernment in navigating the world and advocating for justice. They wanted me to understand where evil lurks within…
How the Black Church saved me from white evangelicalism
There was a time when I almost lost myself trying to fit into white evangelical spaces that never were designed for me. These were spaces where I was preemptively labeled a “liberal” and my passion for racial justice was dismissed…
Frederick Douglass Found His Mission in the Black Church
“The negro can go into the circus, the theater, the cars … but cannot go into an Evangelical Christian meeting,” an elderly Frederick Douglass exclaimed in 1885 to a crowd in the nation’s capital.”
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Yolanda Pierce
Yolanda Pierce serves as dean of the Divinity School and Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair of Religion and Literature at Vanderbilt University. One of America’s vital theologians, Pierce was founding director of the Center for African American Religious Life at the Smithsonian…
Dismantling DEI is about making America white again, Lewis warns
Donald Trump’s prohibition of government diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with subduing marginalized communities, pastor, activist and author Jacqui Lewis said during a recent episode of “The State of Belief”…
‘Credo’ calls Black Church to rise up amid Trump presidency
A group of Black ministers has released a new document to protest white Christian nationalism and provide moral and spiritual strength to African Americans during the coming Trump presidency. “A Credo to Legatees of the Black Church Tradition” is rooted…
What good is a law that’s not enforced?
If your pastor were to stand in the pulpit this Sunday and explicitly tell you to vote for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris for president, would your church be in legal jeopardy? Technically, yes. Realistically, no. The potential peril…
‘Theological revolution’ needed to bring liberation to jails and prisons, PNBC panel says
Viewing jail and prison inmates as more than souls to be saved requires the church to apply a social-justice lens to its theological understanding of incarceration and the incarcerated, insisted Jacqueline Thompson, second vice president of the Progressive National Baptist…
The evangelical campaign against abortion faces three big pushbacks this year
Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans have hotly contested emotional arguments. When it comes to the 2024 election, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds women of reproductive age (18 to 49), Black women and women who live…
Etiquette for whites visiting a Black space for the first time
With Black History Month upon us, some white folks will be moving across typical racial dividing lines and entering into what’s known as Black Space, which I define as a place where Black people are in charge and make up…
Black Christian leaders call on White House to help Gazans
It’s been 118 days since Hamas attacked Israel, and for more than 100 of those days, hundreds of Black pastors and Christian leaders have called for cease-fires, humanitarian assistance and peace talks for Palestinians. Many Black pastors have prayed for…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Leonard Hamlin Sr.
Leonard Hamlin Sr. serves as canon missioner and minister of equity and inclusion at the Washington National Cathedral. A Black Baptist pastor, Canon Hamlin oversees the Cathedral’s outreach and social justice work. Given the symbolic importance of its role as…