I’m still reeling from the experience of standing in George Floyd Square in Minneapolis on the same afternoon a white supremacist terrorist gunned down 10 people in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo, N.Y. I reflected on that experience in…
Secular revolutions and religious counterrevolutions
In 2015, highly esteemed Princeton political philosopher Michael Walzer published The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions. The title itself immediately arrested me, as it crystallized a current intuition of mine. I believe the United States and several…
Are Black people cursed?
She was a sweet white Christian woman in her sixties who was a seasoned saint. She even brought a Black friend with her to this particular author event on race. That is why her question baffled me. “Are Black people…
Exiles in Babylon conference gets so much right but can’t apply its logic about race to sexuality
While many conservative evangelicals focus on fighting culture wars in an attempt to save the United States from progressive ideologies, New York Times bestselling author Preston Sprinkle seems to have accepted that Christians should reimagine their identity as exiles rather…
Stacey Abrams aims to stand in ‘shoes no one’s ever worn before’
When I sat down to interview Stacey Abrams, I remembered the day my daughter, Zyan, was born. As with many parents who see their children for the first time, that remains a memorable and even profoundly spiritual moment. I remember…
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…
We need to talk about Voddie … and fast
I’ve learned recently that the value of a disagreement in 2022 is fairly low, nearly completely devoid of any real value at all. This is due mostly to the constant stream of information for which we are able to, and…
Apparently not all children learned the same things as me in Sunday school
When I was child, I loved Sunday school. I loved hearing about Jesus and how Jesus loved everybody and talked to everybody and healed so many people. Had Jesus not been the Son of God, I probably would have said,…
Racial history is American history
We have seen the backlash against all things “woke,” a word and movement that means to become “awakened” to American history, particularly as experienced by Black Americans. The word “woke” itself, and its supporters, have been criticized as jargonistic, left-wing…
The annoyance of unwanted experiences
Have you ever encountered a situation in which you were made to feel “less than” by someone? The incident may have occurred on a subway, in a restaurant, in the workplace or even at a worship service. The place where…
Trayvon and Ahmaud: If schools can’t tell their stories, churches must
“I recall a Sunday morning in the spring of 1968 when the pastor of the Southern Baptist Convention-related church in Mesquite, Texas, where I was youth minister, offered his sermonic response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. It…
Litton and McLaurin urge SBC Executive Committee toward compassion and Christlikeness
The Southern Baptist Convention must address its “stains” of racism and tolerating sexual abuse, President Ed Litton told members of the SBC Executive Committee Monday night, Feb. 21. He spoke just hours after a group of sexual abuse survivors held…