It’s been a year. A full 365 days have passed since the day of the shooting in Atlanta where eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian-American women. I remember following the news of this event and feeling shocked…
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…
Beyond heedlessness: Finding the sacrament of an ‘us’ without a ‘them’
Evangelicals have made it clear: Don’t call us racists. We are not racists. Rather than debate the issue, I volunteer to take the word “racist” off the debate table. Instead of calling evangelicals “racists,” I will use the word “heedless.”…
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…
Those who threatened HBCUs failed to shake these resilient institutions
Domestic terrorists who recently threatened to bomb nearly 20 historically Black colleges and universities utterly failed if their goal was to shake student commitment to their schools and to each other, institutional leaders said Feb. 8. “They are disappointed. They…
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…