People of faith, whatever the specific tradition, now confront a 21st-century global reality: Worship can get you killed, anywhere in the world.
A Lenten reflection about repentance, reparations and resistance
An appeal to my white Baptist sisters and brothers: when it comes to talk about the issue of reparations, I hope you will embrace and maintain a penitent silence during the remaining days of Lent.
5 reasons why reparations talk makes white people crazy
We want our children to come of age hearing the same message of civil religion in church, at their “Christian school” and on Fox News. For those who live in this kind of environment, reparations talk sounds like heresy.
Pastor, judge, activist, agitator: As he strives for justice, Wendell Griffen stretches the lexicon of adjectives
Wendell Griffen, 66, is all of these things. But his persona is so large, his reputation so loud, his “rightness” so locked in and eagerly defended, that the man’s depth can be lost in the shallows in which he must wade.
Racially diverse church occupies campus where Baptist pastor once proclaimed racist views
In one of life’s delicious little ironies, New Millennium Church now meets on the campus associated with one of Little Rock’s most ardent racists of the 1950s.
Photo Gallery: Wendell Griffen
View the photo gallery of Wendell Griffen.
An ‘apology’ is not ‘repentance’: responding to clergy sexual abuse and other crises in American Christianity
“Our sins have “found us out.” Wrongs swept under the ecclesiastical carpet or committed inside the church’s dark corners have gone public, requiring us to move beyond casual piety to encounter the pain, depth and gift of repentance.
Black lives matter to me. Tragically, they mattered little in my segregated upbringing
Members of my (white) generation continue to recognize the pernicious stain of racism in our politics, economics and community relations. It seems we cannot ever fully repent as we learn how systemic racism is and how it has shaped the Christian imagination.
Evangelicals have lost moral credibility. But there are signs of self-confrontation that could lead to reconciliation, even revival
Whatever moral credibility American evangelicals once had, they have lost. They have chosen to die on the 45th hill, and it has been painful and despairing to watch. Our nation desperately needs strong faith communities that are able to articulate a clear moral voice, even if it convicts them, too.
Gov. Northam is not an outlier: American Christianity’s tolerance for white supremacy
Tragically, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam isn’t an outlier. He merely offers the latest, high-profile evidence of the deep and bitter truth about white Christianity’s toleration of, and complicity in, the sin of white supremacy.
10 bogus ideas my white culture taught me growing up
I posted a list on Facebook of 10 bogus ideas I learned growing up in America’s white culture. The responses were interesting and sometimes surprising.
A church sign for Robert Jeffress and other ‘wallers’: We don’t need a big wall; we need a big mirror
Yes, Pastor Jeffress, the New Jerusalem described in the book of Revelation might have a wall. But it’s not for the reasons you claim. How in the name of Christ can we possibly justify building a multi-billion dollar wall to keep people out when all that Christ teaches us is to draw our circles wider to welcome people in?