Black America flipped the script on a racialized democratic state to make it more perfect. It is Black people’s fight that makes the United States exceptional. —Randal Jelks (2022) Many of us are profoundly worried about the health of…
A conversation with Anthony Reddie about the importance of James Cone
Last fall, I had the great honor of serving as a visiting fellow at the Oxford Center for Religion and Culture, headed by the renowned Black liberation theologian Anthony G. Reddie. Anthony and I became fast friends, and we had…
This Good Friday, I’ll be at the hanging tree
We cannot on Good Friday disconnect the crucified Jesus from what Ignacio Ellacuria, Salvadoran martyr, called “the crucified peoples of history.” American Christians must place the Cross alongside the lynching tree, as James Cone makes unforgettably clear in his last…
What if we cared about Black History Month as much as Lent?
Growing up in the ’80s and ’90s as an independent Baptist in an all-white church, the first 20 Februarys of my life came and went without any awareness of either Lent or Black History Month. Liturgy was considered something the…
In Georgia, demonizing Black Liberation Theology yet again
I am a Baptist theologian, and “professor of historical theology” is my specific job title. It is therefore of no little interest to me that a political controversy moving into the national spotlight involves a candidate who is a fellow…
In times like these: Love of hope and hope of love
Does hope mean anything anymore? What is the point of hope in this season? I’ve asked myself those questions, along with many, many others in the preceding months and today. I look at the mess we’ve made of the United…
‘A shelter for conscience’ in a sea of racism: Black Churches Matter, too
We white Christians still have a lot to learn and a reprehensible past to lament. After 400 years, we’d better pray that black churches are still willing to teach us. And that we’ve got conscience enough to act on what we learn.
We can’t talk about racial justice without addressing the ‘value gap’
What the eruption of protests – and subsequent riots – across the nation shows is that for too long black bodies have been harmed and victimized by the past and present values of white supremacy.
‘I can’t breathe’: three words that capture the crushing weight of systemic racism in America
Those of us who are white are asked by the cross to stand in solidarity with the crucified class to dismantle the structures of white supremacy that sustains itself through the use, abuse and destruction of black and brown bodies.