Our country is politically torn apart. This is the reality that greets us every day in the national media, regardless of which network, website or newspaper we follow. Our states are labeled by their Republican or Democratic governors, eliciting opinions…
Bonhoeffer moment No. 2: ‘I am now praying quite simply for freedom’
In a letter to his close friend Eberhard Bethge, written from Tegel Prison and dated Nov. 18, 1943, Lutheran pastor/theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: I am finding (I expect you are, too) that the most difficult thing is getting up in…
On teaching history, the president has a point, but he goes too far
A few weeks ago, the President made headlines at the National Archives Museum when he denounced the teaching of American history classes as a “left-wing cultural revolution … designed to overthrow the American Revolution” and responsible for everything from tearing…
Don’t be left behind in this apocalyptic autumn
This will be an apocalyptic autumn. While the biblical concept of “apocalypse” has been historically appropriated in some fantastic ways, its meaning in the Greek — “to reveal” — is what leads me to make this claim. Many Americans will…
Juneteenth should remind us of all the things we don’t know
The more we learn about someone else’s story, the more understanding we gain about their perspectives.
Re-setting broken bones: Why the oft-lamented division in our culture is necessary and helpful
This moment does not call for cheap unity, but for a clarified division.
‘Broken Churches, Broken Nation’: Yes, Pastor Jeffress, words do ‘mean something’
If words really do “mean something,” as Robert Jeffress asserted, correctly, then the rhetoric of “civil war,” “treason” or “coup” used by president, pastor or any of us is not only divisive but dangerous.
Pro-Trump pastor Robert Jeffress defends tweet invoking Civil War
Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress defended controversial comments retweeted by President Trump linking impeachment proceedings in Congress to the prospect of civil war but clarified that he was not talking about a literal shooting war.
Pray for immigrants? We need them to pray for us, minister-activist says
Religious leaders gathered at a vigil in December to declare support for Rosa Gutierrez Lopez, an El Salvadoran immigrant who had just taken sanctuary in a Maryland church to avoid deportation. Baptist minister and immigrant rights activist Julio Hernandez was…