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…
Lent, confession and the ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy
These 40 days of Lent are designed to be opportunities for sober reflection and acts of confession, both individual and corporate. This period of introspection leads to the high point of Holy Week, the commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus…
Dig deeper when looking for your church’s racist or anti-racist history, Gardner advises
A church may have a racist past even if its archives reveal no evidence of support of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation or other racist structures, author and historian Andrew Gardner said during a recent webinar hosted by the Alliance…
How Santa figures into the not-so-merry Supreme Court case about LGBTQ discrimination
One of the key sticking points in the hotly contested debate over LGBTQ discrimination is whether that issue is in any way equivalent to racial discrimination. Now, Santa has gotten involved. White Santa, that is. During oral arguments before the…
Emotions run high as BNG group walks the sacred ground of Richmond’s mass grave that got paved over as a parking lot
The morning exploration of a long-hidden slave processing site in downtown Richmond, Va., was so overpowering for Kan’Dace Brock that she had to be comforted by others touring the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail and historic burial ground. Walking the location where…
In Colonial Williamsburg, a paved-over parking lot and an almost-lost school teach lessons about racism
Recent archaeological and architectural discoveries revealed part of “the hidden story of racism in colonial America” for participants in a Baptist News Global educational tour of Colonial Williamsburg and Richmond, Va. In Colonial Williamsburg, they visited the original building site…
Teach Baptist history and Bible history to debunk Christian nationalism, historians say
Failure to teach Baptist history in Baptist churches has made congregants susceptible to Christian nationalism, according to Baptist historians from two generations. In Baptist churches today, the history of the movement is rarely mentioned or taught any more, and this…
This Supreme Court’s dangerous vision of ‘history and tradition’
To kick things off today, just a quick reaction to last Wednesday’s Jan. 6 House committee hearings, which featured Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. Her testimony contained startling new revelations, even in…
The French Dreyfus Affair and Trump’s Big Lie
We are witnessing an extraordinarily disturbing juxtaposition in U.S. politics right now. In Washington, the January 6 Committee, primarily using testimony from Republicans and former Trump administration officials, is once again shredding Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election…