The recent uprising in Baltimore has occupied our screens and dominated our conversations for more than a week now. Protestors there pricked the consciences of the nation in their cries for justice for Freddie Gray. At some point, a small…
That which you call Baltimore will always be Bawlamer to me
Is it funny, sad, crazy, or criminal when I experience what happened in Ferguson, New York, and North Charleston—among other places—that I have a restrained dimension of response? When it happens in Bawlamer my emotions run much deeper. My sense…
Southern Baptists, racism and Biblical inerrancy
While Southern Baptists believe that scripture is “truth without any mixture of error” it is obvious that Southern Baptists do not read the Bible without any mixture of error. Southern Baptists, along with everyone else, read the Bible as fallible,…
Be informed, not ignorant on Baltimore
Baltimore is a great city. It is home to the sports teams I follow, universities, churches, an inner harbor, and more importantly where people live. My mother was born and raised in Baltimore. I was born outside Baltimore in Maryland…
“Surely not me”: The death of Jesus and corporate sin
Last night, Jesus once again gathered with his disciples, washed our feet and called us to love, and then shared the unthinkable news that he would be handed over by one of his own. No sooner did the words come…
Racially segregated churches ‘blasphemy,’ SBC leader says
By Bob Allen Ethics head Russell Moore told 550 people at a conference March 26 he believes God is giving the Southern Baptist Convention a second chance to atone for its racist past, but “in order to do that we…
Must we choose between fundamentalism and ‘belief-less Christianity’?
John Shuck is a Presbyterian pastor in good standing who doesn’t believe a single thing you learned in Sunday school. In a recent Patheos post, Reverend Shuck issued a list of six affirmations designed to boil the blood of every right-thinking American:…
I thought by now racism would be a thing of the past
But I was wrong. On the night of April 4, 1968, there was a knock on my college dorm room door. It swung open and a leading vocal racist on our hall stood at the door with a smile on…
President Johnson’s scintillating Selma speech
Fifty years ago this month, the small city of Selma, Alabama, was much in the news. And now Selma is in the news again, partly because it is the 50 th anniversary of what happened in 1965 but also because…
Church shares racism with police forces, says minister and former cop in book
By Jeff Brumley Baptist minister Terrell Carter felt he could identify when a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last August. “I know what it’s like to be racially profiled,” said Carter, who is African-American. “But on…
An open letter to Tennessee
EDITOR’S NOTE: In an effort to report on the prophetic witness of Christians in America today, RLC has run several posts in the past year on the Moral Movement, which began in North Carolina and has now spread to 14…
“On the Pulse of Morning”
January 20, 1993, was a big day for the woman who was born in 1928 and named Marguerite Ann Johnson. You probably don’t know her by that name, for she was introduced as Maya Angelou before reading one of her…