The pattern emerged in the biblical text when the prophet Nathan confronted the king of Israel and said, “Thou art the man.” And in the United States, that very same pattern now has become crystal clear. The pattern is contempt…
A small act of resistance: On teaching while woke
I remember well the day I heard the word “woke” for the very first time. It came from the mouth of a Black scholar addressing a conference on “Public Theology and Racial Justice” at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville. It…
The Servant-God, not Trump, is Lord of All
In September 2021, a massive billboard promoting Donald Trump loomed high above Highway 27 in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., with the words of Isaiah 9:6, a biblical text long cherished by Christians, emblazoned over an American flag: “Unto us a son…
How MLK’s questions became my questions too
When Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in April 1963, I was a sophomore Bible major at a church-related college in the South, studying to become a preacher. None of my professors suggested that I read…
Christian America’s betrayal of the kingdom of God
The storming of the American Capitol on Jan. 6 — with its profusion of Bibles, crosses and other Christian symbols — placed a gigantic exclamation point on the unease American Christians always have felt with the First Amendment to the…
A white Jesus, the American Creed, and a nation badly divided
I was young — perhaps only 3 or 4 — when I learned in Sunday school that “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight….