“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?
Trump’s shutdown: a malicious spectacle of moral, political and humanitarian failure
The fate and futures of our neighbors, the security of our nation and the legitimacy of our claim to be a force for morality in the world has been taken hostage by an autocratic president with a lifelong penchant for immorality and inhumanity.
Yet more racially charged remarks beg the question (again): Is President Trump a racist?
I find it appalling that President Trump has used both Wounded Knee and Pocahontas as political fodder. The history of the United States regarding indigenous peoples is rooted in the genocide of millions of men, women and children. For the president to make light of that reality demonstrates his ignorance, arrogance or outright racist views.
White Baptists and racial reconciliation: there’s a difference between lament and repentance
Imagine what the Holy Spirit might accomplish if Southern Seminary spent the next 150 years intentionally preparing people for ministry careers based on the gospel of liberation and justice rather than the slaveholder theology and hermeneutic and heresies of white supremacy, white religious nationalism and imperialism.