Letter to the Editor February 15, 2022 Dear Editor: Per your article on Feb. 7, 2022, I was smeared for filing bills trying to protect the religious freedom of religious and Christian citizens in Oklahoma. Although I did remove the religious…
Christian masculinity, culture and racism: An interview with Kristin Du Mez
In a time when the descriptors “evangelical” and even “Christian” are taking on destructive meanings they have not heretofore known in America, we need wise guides who can help us unravel the political from the theological, who can help us…
‘Yes, they are children of Nazis, but we are Christians, and we will stand with those who suffer’
When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, Gerrit tenZythoff was 17 years old and leading the sort of life that was common for teenage boys even then — a life filled with schoolwork and sports and good friends. And then…
Lessons from Birth of a Nation (the second one)
A few years ago a controversial movie with an even more controversial title was released about the life of Nat Turner, a 19th century Black preacher who led a slave revolt in Virginia. Birth of a Nation was an ironic…
For Black South Africans, wearing traditional goatskin jewelry can cause bans from white Christian schools
Zandile never forgets the day her overwhelmingly white Christian high school asked her to leave classes. The offense of the 14-year-old from the Zulu tribe was donning the “isiphandla,” a traditional bracelet made out of goatskin and worn by the…
It’s time to stop the insanity that is killing public education
I am the child of a public schoolteacher. I am the parent of a son who has been a public schoolteacher and who remains a private instructor in a public high school. Many dear friends are public schoolteachers. As a…
Lament should be the order of the day
Lament should be the order of the day. Yesterday, we began Black History Month with bomb threats made against at least 13 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) throughout the country. Unfortunately, that these threats coincide with the beginning of…
Stop threatening HBCUs
This week, as Black History Month began, numerous Historically Black Colleges and Universities were terrorized with bomb threats. This infuriates me. Black people are creations of God and loved by God. That should mean something to people of faith. This…
Of statues and stories: Reckoning with the Lost Cause
A few years back, as I wandered across a broad hill overlooking Washington, D.C., I discovered a monument, the statue of a woman atop a 32-foot decorated pedestal rising above the untold thousands of gravestones in Arlington National Cemetery. I…
The sacred work of white discomfort
In Florida, a state Senate committee wants to make it illegal to cause discomfort to white people. This bill, which reads like a scene from 1984, is a doozy. You can, and should, read the full text of it here. The bill…
America’s conscience: Moral bankruptcy and communal decay
For if the disinherited get such a new center as patriotism, for instance — liberty within the framework of a sense of country or nation, then the aim of not being killed is swallowed up by a larger and more…
Are you sleeping through the revolution?
In the last chapter of the last book he wrote titled, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Martin Luther King recalled the Washington Irving story of Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep for 20 years on a…