Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson visited Charlotte, N.C., in January 2020 to announce changes to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules. AFFH was an Obama-era initiative that targeted ongoing racial segregation through exclusionary practices in the construction of affordable…
What about the science, faith and ethics of a coming coronavirus vaccine?
The race to find a safe and effective vaccine against the novel coronavirus is heating up, as society longs to get back to some sense of normalcy. But finding a vaccine is only one step on the journey that also…
What I fear as a white woman married to a Black man
Conversations on race and racial justice in the United States have become so polarized that too often these discussions result in people talking at one another, and an invisible distance is created between “the issue” and the humans affected. Today,…
‘We are Cain’: Owning up to the reality of racism in America
Inside both the National Memorial for Peace and Justice visitor center and the Legacy Museum in downtown Montgomery, there is an installation composed of rows and rows of glass jars on wooden racks, containing soil samples from lynching sites. These…
America, these are self-inflicted wounds
The United States has now lost 150,000 people — almost three times the number of people we lost during the Vietnam War – due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is spreading unchecked across the nation. Meanwhile, national, state and…
Amid its own racist history, United Methodist Church unites against racism
Two months have passed since the world watched George Floyd die under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. In that two months, United Methodist bishops have mounted an initiative echoing the Black Lives Matter movement that they call…
Ideas for churches studying the need for reparations
The July issue of Sojourners magazine included “A Christian Call for Reparations” by Kelly Brown Douglas, dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary and canon theologian at the Washington National Cathedral. Douglas’ call for reparations echoed the voice…
If you would have marched with Dr. King, where are you now?
Editor’s note: In October 2017, Freddy Haynes of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas wrote an open letter to Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, asking his cooperation in fighting racism in America. Haynes is a nationally known figure…
‘OK, we live in a racist society. What do we do next?’
The videos don’t lie, and we can’t turn away from the images of George Floyd gasping for breath, from the truth of his story and so many like it. So over the past few months as demonstrators have taken to…