Each day we are bombarded with multiple news reports of government dismantling, people being abducted by unmarked officers, orders by judges ignored, criminals pardoned, war plans texted on apps, job loss, Social Security at risk, tariff wars starting a Trumpcession,…
12 things you can do to resist Trump’s reign of terror
“There’s nothing I can do,” two people lamented yesterday. Somewhere a Trump minion got their wings, or horns, more likely. Overwhelming us, discouraging us, and depressing us — that’s one goal of the flurry of executive orders, pronouncements and outrages…
Fulfill your ministry
Elie Wiesel, who as a teenage prisoner in two Nazi concentration camps watched his family taken away to be killed, wrote out of that experience one of the most important books of the last century, Night. How he began has…
Wage prophetic resistance, panelists urge Christians
Religious communities in the U.S. cannot sit idly by as the Trump administration persecutes immigrant families and cuts assistance programs to pay for it, said Bishop Dwayne Royster, executive director of Faith in Action. “We are truly living in unprecedented…
Be ‘hopeful doom-scrollers,’ Pritzker urges
Those working tirelessly to challenge the chaos of the Trump administration must be “hopeful doom-scrollers,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker told participants in a “Together for Democracy” conference in Washington, D.C., Feb. 25. The Democratic governor was a keynote speaker at…
The silence is too loud!
On a cold day in January 1983, I sat on a bus in Beirut, Lebanon, stunned by my inability to speak. I was with a handful of my fellow Americans who had been invited by Americans for Middle East Understanding…
‘Your actions do matter,’ panelists urged those fearful of Trump authoritarianism
Americans overwhelmed by the prospect of authoritarianism under Donald Trump must not abandon hope or succumb to inaction in the struggle for democracy, activists cautioned in a webinar organizing faith-based political opposition to the incoming administration. The lure of just…
The Baptist Bonhoeffer
Political party leaders around the globe, including Donald Trump, are openly flirting with fascism to consolidate power by exploiting economic and cultural conflicts. When considering how to respond to these troubling developments, many Christians rightly turn to the example of…
Don’t shrink back
The late Bishop E. Anne Henning Byfield writes in Toward a Theology of Holy Black Rage, published in 2022: The nomination of Sen. Kamala Harris has again brought this issue of rage to center stage, especially with the church. It…
What is left is to resist
Since Nov. 5, I’ve been thinking a lot about what is left for progressives after this nation has clearly shown its preferences for white supremacy, patriarchy, ignorance and hate. People have asked me where we’re supposed to find hope as…
‘In a pluralistic democracy’: An interview with Jennifer Rubin
For years, Jennifer Rubin, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, and I didn’t see eye to eye on many issues. An ardent champion of the traditional Republican Party, she advocated for candidate Lindsey Graham in 2015 (“If being right is…
Baptists under Nazism and Baptists amid America’s current political crisis: a call to ‘disruption’
What does the story of Baptists under the Third Reich reveal about how we respond to political crisis? I believe the church is meant to be a disruptive church. That means first “disrupting” a theology that prioritizes relevance over resistance.