Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leaders and pastors across the country released a statement Sept. 6 condemning individual and systemic racism and renewing the 1,800-church movement’s commitment to “seeking out authentic relationships across racial lines.” The statement, signed by more than 100…
‘The Cross and the Lynching Tree’: A broken gospel
It was a killing field, and accounts of those brutal murders make for heart-rending but necessary reading.
Donald Trump stole my old church
I am not going to defend my old church any more. If you are acting like a racist, homophobe or misogynist in 2017, then you are a racist, homophobe or misogynist.
The curse of Ham: Black Baptists question their place in the SBC
A proposed resolution condemning the alt-right which was submitted to the Southern Baptist Convention last month included a reference to the “curse of Ham.” The statement eventually adopted by the SBC omitted the reference. And that’s a problem.
In annual meeting do-over, Southern Baptists denounce ‘alt-right’ white supremacy
The Southern Baptist Convention condemned white supremacy in a resolution adopted 24 hours after a mostly white resolutions committee initially rebuffed a black pastor’s appeal to allow the issue to make it to the floor.
Living out the ‘fierce urgency’ of the prophets in U.S. culture
Prophets rarely fare well in their own historical setting. Their clarity of vision disturbs the nonchalance with which most people engage their personal context. Prophets scrutinize those policies and practices that most of us blithely ignore, and they shine the…
Banned by LifeWay, hip-hop artist says white evangelicals don’t get black culture
A popular hip-hop artist whose album was dropped by Southern Baptist retailer LifeWay Christian Stores after customer complaints says white evangelicals are trying to reach people in urban contexts without understanding their culture. Amisho Baraka Lewis, a 38-year-old Christian hip-hop…
Post election thoughts and raising bicultural children: fears, challenges and opportunities
La versión en español está disponible aquí. During the recent presidential election, I observed with dismay the counting of the electoral votes. As I tried to deal with the night’s stress, I resorted to intense cooking (at least for my…
The great white backlash continues
Hatred has won. Violence is the new means of communication. We have gone from a political correctness which masked racism and ethnic discrimination to a full blown demonstration of revenge for the years in which people of color strived to…
The Black Male, the White House and the White Knight
Donald Trump’s unsophisticated rise in this presidential election cycle has been referred to in some corners as a redefining of electoral politics. It is not. It is simply a third, national galvanizing of the historical white backlash to substantive African-American advancement and the browning of America.
After crisis, what’s next for Charlotte?
Where do we go from here? That’s a question I keep hearing, in one form or another, around Charlotte, N.C. Now that we’ve had our crisis, the protests exploding out of the killing of yet another African-American male by police…
Where are the white clergy on Charlotte’s streets?
I walked the streets of Charlotte, N.C., four nights last week. I walked alongside protesters clad in Black Lives Matter t-shirts and all the signs: “Am, I Next?” “Hands up. Don’t shoot.” “End white silence.” I walked in blue jeans…