Of course, every life is significant — uniquely created by God and irreplaceable — and while I do believe every life matters, I don’t believe in #AllLivesMatter. I don’t believe in it because it is a cop-out, an attempt to…
The revolution will be standardized
“It’s like I’m expected to have this internal PR department quickly craft ‘a statement’ every time something like this happens. I can’t tell you how long I spent staring at a blank box at the top of the news feed…
Q&A with Doris Garcia Rivera: Seeking peace in turbulent times
Doris García Rivera saw just about everything during 23 years as an American Baptist missionary serving in Latin America. And it’s a good thing, because she arrived at the helm of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America just in time to guide it through the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive social unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd.
‘A shelter for conscience’ in a sea of racism: Black Churches Matter, too
We white Christians still have a lot to learn and a reprehensible past to lament. After 400 years, we’d better pray that black churches are still willing to teach us. And that we’ve got conscience enough to act on what we learn.
Baldwin’s ‘The Fire Next Time’ has arrived, and it burns inexorably toward liberation
As people rise up to declare that they will not endure or be complicit in racist, white supremacist oppression, let’s call their actions what they are: protest, freedom struggle and revolution, not rioting, looting or “disobedience” to the authorities.
Dear Church, don’t give up on justice yet
Justice is a tool for working out God’s care and showing that God is “with us” as a way of entering into the real, physical circumstances of those who hurt, not just a concept abused by the culture wars.
After crisis, what’s next for Charlotte?
Where do we go from here? That’s a question I keep hearing, in one form or another, around Charlotte, N.C. Now that we’ve had our crisis, the protests exploding out of the killing of yet another African-American male by police…
Where are the white clergy on Charlotte’s streets?
I walked the streets of Charlotte, N.C., four nights last week. I walked alongside protesters clad in Black Lives Matter t-shirts and all the signs: “Am, I Next?” “Hands up. Don’t shoot.” “End white silence.” I walked in blue jeans…
Confessions of a white preacher
Two stories. Two young men. One white. One black. It was a number of years ago now. I was a pastor in the suburbs of Washington, in a multi-ethnic congregation of people from the very poor to the quite wealthy….