Ten years ago, a priest at an inner-city Episcopal church in Delaware (Saints Andrew and Matthew in Wilmington) invited me to lead a Lenten retreat on race and film for his congregants. His parish, he told me, was made up…
We also need a reckoning with racist words that cut like a knife
In North Texas last week, all eyes were on a trial in Frisco, a northern Dallas suburb. The person on trial was Karmelo Anthony, a 19-year-old accused — and now convicted — of stabbing to death 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at…
To understand today’s SBC, listen to history
Across America this week, Baptist women are carrying a familiar weight. Some are pastors who have faithfully answered the call of God, only to watch the Southern Baptist Convention debate whether God possibly could have called them. Some are seminary…
From cannabis to marijuana: The racializing of weed
America did not merely criminalize a plant. It criminalized a people. Before “marijuana” became America’s most politically weaponized slang term, the plant was widely known as cannabis — used in medicine, industrial hemp and natural remedies. But in the 1930s,…
Developing a new conversation on race
Jesus had a lot to say about putting new wine in old wineskins, and those words need not to be lost on us as we imagine our way forward in our racial healing work. It not good enough to put…
The Bible is not just a white man’s book
You’ve been told the Bible was a white man’s book. You’ve seen the images — pale-skinned angels, a European Jesus, blonde-haired apostles. Church walls lined with Renaissance art have shaped a quiet but powerful assumption over time, that holiness somehow…
It’s time to try a new approach on racial healing
In order for any old ways and systems to change, there must be people with the capacity for vision who can imagine that change. Bridging the Rivers of Difference, A Proclamation of Unity In Resistance is my new book that…
Fighting fear and dehumanization in Richmond
Actions speak loudly, but words also count in a time when many who should be speaking out about injustice remain silent. A public statement read by a group of Christian leaders Feb. 27 on the steps of First Baptist Church…
Groups sue to block Trump from rewriting history at national parks
A coalition of conservation, history and scientific organizations is suing the Trump administration to stop its ongoing efforts to censor displays and monuments in the federal park system. The National Parks Conservation Association and Union of Concerned Scientists were among…
‘That isn’t right’
My father told me a story about my Granddaddy this past summer that I’d never heard before. My paternal Grandfather was Baptist, like me. A real Baptist. The one who believed in organizational autonomy and the beauty of the Lottie…
America’s unfinished civil war
We are in the midst of an American civil war. This time, wool uniforms have been replaced by whistles, backpacks and face masks worn by ICE agents, and drafts have been replaced by calls from community organizers and federal recruitment…
American Christians morally and spiritually fractured
I rarely read an op-ed by John Pavlovitz without exclaiming, “I wish I had written that!” That was especially true when I saw his Dec. 5 piece on “America’s Divide Isn’t About Politics Anymore.” I may not be able to…