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…
Baldwin, Bobby and the necessity of hard conversations
I’ve been engaging in hard conversations about race for the past seven years. Sometimes I’m asked if they matter, if anything can change hearts and minds. Not long ago, a friend who is a devout Christian and a person of…
The end of the status quo: Why white people must overthrow white racism
Last month at the American Cathedral in Paris, where I serve as canon theologian, I gave a talk on my journey from “quirky American theologian” (as the UK’s Greenbelt Festival advertised me when they invited me to give talks on…
Want to get started reading Black authors? Here are 10 curated suggestions
Christians needn’t fear reading Black literature that bears painful witness to the historic and ongoing brutality of racism in America, author Claude Atcho said during a webinar hosted by the Equal Justice USA network for evangelicals. After all, congregations that…
Moving lightly through this world: Reflections on the weight of white Christian innocence
In the wake of recent travels, I’ve been thinking about the novelty of the experience against the backdrop of the pandemic. What was routine now seems exotic; what was comfortable seems unsettling. I’ve seen a lot of discussion about the loss…
White liberation: Toward a theology of recognition and repentance
Over the past month, I’ve had the great gift and responsibility of traveling the country talking to primarily white Christians about racism in the church and in America. At Trinity Church, Wall Street, America’s wealthiest congregation, I shared some of…
Was Adam and Eve’s ‘worldview’ the original sin?
Snowed in with my family over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, I stole a few moments away to read and reflect on racism in American society, how it persists even as its forms change, and ways to…
White hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and eyes that dare not see
The hysteria over Critical Race Theory right now means many things. Most immediately, it means that the relationship between skilled right-wing demagogues and their audience in the U.S. these days is positively Pavlovian. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, rinse and repeat. If Tucker…
How American exceptionalism is killing America
Many ironies define the United States, but none is more harmful than this: We routinely silence the life-giving voices that can save us and amplify the death-dealing voices that can kill us. The voices that can save us are those…