Last week, I welcomed Robert P. Jones back to Baylor University for a conversation about race, religion, James Baldwin and American democracy. Jones was a keynote speaker for our first Baylor conference on racism in the church in 2021, and…
Never say never: The Now and Forever Windows at the National Cathedral
On Sept. 10, 2017, I sat in Washington National Cathedral as Dean Randolph Hollerith announced that after almost two years of discussion, prayer and discernment, the Cathedral Chapter had decided to remove a set of stained-glass windows donated by the…
American idols: Andrew Whitehead on American faith and Christian nationalism
So many of us look at America’s religious, political and racial landscape and wonder what on earth has happened. How is it possible that American evangelical Christians, who once insisted moral fitness matters, could vote for a creature such as…
White reflections on racism: An interview with Frederick Allen
I sometimes tell the story about how back during the pandemic, at the height of the Black Lives Matter marches, my friend Kelly Brown Douglas schooled me on racial reconciliation. That’s the sort of thing she does. Until then, I…
You can’t mandate colorblindness: Why the Supreme Court ruling is both wrong and immoral
A year and a half back, I was invited by Jake Owensby, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Louisiana and chancellor of the University of the South, to speak with his clergy about racism and white supremacy. That Saturday…
Broken covenant: An interview with Vann Newkirk II about ‘Holy Week,’ MLK and white supremacy
Vann Newkirk II is senior editor of The Atlantic and one of our most thoughtful and talented writers on race, politics and culture. I first met him years ago when Baylor University sponsored an annual film program on race and…
Contemporary Christian fiction? An excerpt from Bastille Day
On April 4, my novel Bastille Day was released from Raven Fiction, a new literary imprint of Paraclete Press. It debuted on Amazon as their best-selling new work of contemporary Christian fiction, and I have many and complicated feels about…
‘In a pluralistic democracy’: An interview with Jennifer Rubin
For years, Jennifer Rubin, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, and I didn’t see eye to eye on many issues. An ardent champion of the traditional Republican Party, she advocated for candidate Lindsey Graham in 2015 (“If being right is…
Stranger in the Village: James Baldwin and inclusion
In the summer of 2019, I rode a bus high into the Swiss Alps, a terror ride straight out of Six Flags, to visit the most important site in American race relations that nobody knows about. In 1951, the author…