A Palestinian minister’s Good Friday sermon portrayed Israel’s continuing massacre of Gazan civilians as a mirror image of the passion and subsequent crucifixion of Jesus at the hands of a brutal foreign power. “Today, we place the cross in the…
Israel’s war on Gaza and occupation policies are quietly erasing Christian culture and presence this holy season
While all eyes are on Gaza, Israel’s occupation policies continue to quietly erase the presence and identity of ancient Christian communities of the Holy Land. Israeli policies limit the ability of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to access ancient…
Wrestling with the reality of sexual abuse in the Easter story in Surviving God
In their new book, Surviving God: A New Vision of God Through the Eyes of Sexual Abuse Survivors, Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan Shaw offer a feminist and intersectional understanding of God that challenges traditional ways of Christian thinking. Kim…
The last word is hope
One of the most important things I learned over four decades of ministry is that hope saves people’s lives. Hope saves them spiritually, emotionally, relationally and sometimes even physically. People hope for many things. They hope for forgiveness, reconciliation, healing….
I thought I didn’t have any more time in my Holy Week schedule, and then I learned about the Trump-endorsed Bible
Every pastor I know is busy. I haven’t come across one who tells me they have time to kill. The pastors in my circles aren’t on golf courses. They’re not at the gym or the spa. They haven’t signed up…
It’s Holy Week, and Trump is comparing himself to Jesus once again
On the second day of the Christian Holy Week, Donald Trump once again compared himself to Jesus Christ. Huffington Post reported that as Trump attended a court hearing for his upcoming criminal trial over hush money payments to porn star…
The cleansing of our temples and our forgiveness of church
This coming Holy Week, Christians remember Jesus’ “cleansing of the temple” in Jerusalem. He was setting his opposition to the temple priesthood and their collusion with Rome to sustain an unjust social order that oppressed the weak and poor. As…
Raushenbush’s children’s book emphasizes the love of God in Holy Week
Paul Raushenbush’s new children’s book, Together We Rise, was written to share the meaning of Holy Week and the joy of a loving God with his own kids. “It was a story I intended for my two sons. My oldest…
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…