By Michael Parnell The 2016 Academy Awards nominees were announced on Jan. 14 and for the second year in a row there were no actors of color nominated. That is 20 nominations and not one for an actor or actress…
Dr. King didn’t do everything
We miss the significance of the Civil Rights Movement if we attribute everything to Dr. King. In fact, if one studies the record carefully, it is amazing to note that most of the major Civil Rights Movement campaigns were actually…
Unprofessional Christianity, part 2: Dying
The stories of Zaevion Dobson, Freddie Grey, Tamir Rice, and the birth of Jesus decenter everything we think we know about the meaning of life and Christmas. This season has nothing to do with where you go after you die,…
It’s time to abandon reason
By Greg Jarrell On Monday, Dec. 28, Timothy McGinty, district attorney of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, announced what everyone suspected, and many hoped would not be true — that there will be no charges in the slaying of 12-year old Tamir…
Black, white ‘First Baptist’ congregations unite after 150 years
By Bob Allen Two historic congregations that went separate ways after the Civil War worshipped for the first time in more than 150 years as a unified First Baptist Church of Murfreesboro, Tenn., Nov. 29. First Baptist Church at 200…
Before we say, ‘I forgive you’
By Starlette McNeill I am in a place that I had not anticipated and certainly could not have prepared for. It is the same feeling that I had after the shooting of nine bowed heads at Mother Emmanuel AME Church…
Protestors to SBC: ‘All souls matter’ in campus ministry
By Bob Allen African-American demonstrators gathered Nov. 18 near James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., to protest what they claim is racial bias in the Southern Baptist Convention’s efforts to evangelize students at American colleges and universities. About two dozen…
Confronting the silence of structural racism
By Scott Stearman There is recognition at the United Nations that people of African descent have been subject to a fairly specific kind of insipid global racism. This racism is somewhat unique in that it isn’t simply based on standard…
SBC leader says racism alive and well
By Bob Allen Proclamations and public gatherings aside, racism is not gone from the Southern Baptist Convention, says the convention’s top spokesman for moral and public-policy concerns. “Racism is alive and well within the Southern Baptist Convention and within many…
7 reasons not to participate in Operation Christmas Child this year
Each and every year around this time, thousands of churches around the country participate in an organization called Operation Christmas Child. If you are unfamiliar with Operation Christmas Child, the gist is this: churches distribute pre-printed shoebox-sized cardboard boxes, which…
How a Baptist preacher learned about mass incarceration
These days, everybody seems to agree that mass incarceration–the policy of fighting crime by locking up as many people as possible for as long as possible–was a really bad idea. Charles and David Koch, Ted Cruz, and a steadily lengthening…
Evangelicals, admit racism is real
By Alan Rudnick News broke on Wednesday that South Carolina deputy Ben Fields, who brutally abused a student in school — WWE-styled — was fired. The abuse was caught on tape. This incident was the latest in a series of…