“Denial is not a river in Egypt.” I used to hear that sarcastic and humorous pun without really understanding it. After reading too much news for the last year, I understand it too well now. If you’re as slow as…
We will continue to teach Critical Race Theory
Our schools will continue to discuss ideas such as Critical Race Theory, and we will continue to have difficult conversations about how slavery, Jim Crow (a term coined in Louisville), and the constructed notion of white superiority shaped our history…
Nice white women participate in white supremacy too
The term “white supremacist” tends to elicit a stereotypical image of a raging, gun-toting, Confederate-flag-waving white man. The image is fueled by recent acts of extremism like the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., four years ago or the…
BNG plans three-day event to explore hidden history of racism in Virginia
Baptist News Global will offer a three-day interactive educational event in Virginia this September focused on exploring the hidden history of racism in America. The event is open to all BNG readers. Participants will engage with BNG Executive Director Mark…
Author was called to action by hearing KKK leader describe his racist ‘Damascus Road experience’
Author Susan K. Williams Smith was sickened to learn that a passage from the New Testament inspired Samuel Bowers’ to launch the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. Smith’s new book, With Liberty and Justice…
Pharaoh is the model for American politicians who want to forget our history
The stories we tell matter. The stories some try to silence matter, too, maybe even more. Legislatures across our country are using the rhetoric of fear to push through bills that seek to control the story of our country. So…
We can’t have two Independence Days
There was great fanfare over the decision by Congress earlier this month to establish Juneteenth as a federal holiday. The president acknowledged that it was long overdue (and indeed, it was). But many within the Black community lamented that the…
Organized foes of Critical Race Theory shouldn’t set the direction of our school district
Last week, a phalanx of protesters showed up in force at the Fort Worth Independent School District school board meeting to challenge the racial equity and cultural inclusion initiatives our nearly 90% Black and brown district has instituted in recent…
Samuel Hill was prophetic in 1966 when he predicted Southern churches in crisis
In his monumental work, Southern Churches in Crisis, published in 1966, Samuel S. Hill Jr, then chair of the religion department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, wrote: The cultural-social complex in which revivalism-fundamentalism came to birth and…
45 years after the Soweto uprising, religious leaders call for more racial harmony among South Africans
Forty-five years after a group of young Black students in Soweto, South Africa, took to the streets to protest an educational policy of the ruling South African apartheid government, leading to the death of more than 170 of them, the…
Does the SBC indicate where we are headed?
When the largest Protestant denomination in the United States recently met in Nashville, it was notable what thousands of Southern Baptists did not think were major concerns. An armed insurrection took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,…
BJC speaker asks: ‘What if anti-racism became an essential way of doing faith?’
Churches must boldly support racial, gender and LGBTQ equality in every aspect of ministry by accepting the inherently and radically political message of the gospel, Jacqui Lewis said during a June 18 virtual gathering hosted by Baptist Joint Committee for…