“Dividing voters based on race is wrong and unconstitutional.” Those are the words of Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin, according to a statement he issued concerning his effort to terminate a federal judicial redistricting agreement established more than 35 years…
Lessons from this year’s Theology Beer Camp
The theology nerds who show up at Theology Beer Camp are steering a middle path between Christian nationalism and anti-religious secularism. We think the Christian church went off the rails in the fourth century when it climbed into bed with…
Whose Christian values?
Last week, I attended a conference on rural poverty. It was the annual meeting of Together for Hope, a coalition of nonprofits scattered from the North Carolina coast west to the Four Corners region and from Northern Minnesota to the…
Black, female, Republican and still not welcome
Imagine driving two hours to support a political candidate, spending your own money, using your own platform and bringing more than 200,000 social media followers into the Republican political conversation — only to be escorted out like an unwanted stranger….
There’s a Texas GOP candidate worse than Ken Paxton
Believe it or not, there’s a Republican candidate for public office in Texas who is worse than Ken Paxton. Bo French is so bad that even Sen. John Cornyn called him out on social media this weekend. That’s right, Cornyn,…
In conversation with Robert P. Jones
Robert P. Jones is founder and president of Public Religion Research Institute, a vital resource for anyone interested in religion, race, politics and justice, and also the New York Times bestselling author of a new book, Backslide: Reclaiming a Faith…
In conversation with Kendall Mariah
I’m wearing Jordan sneakers. Kendall Mariah is wearing Lilly Pulitzer. That probably tells you almost everything you think you need to know about us. It also tells you almost nothing. I met Kendall while interviewing to become her pastor. She…
There was more to Aunt Leila’s dining room table
Growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, I lived with a sense of youth and an aloofness to social issues. It’s not that I didn’t care about the struggle for fairness, equality and love or even about social justice; none of that was…
The stories we tell define us
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,…