When the Nazis invaded Holland in 1940, Gerrit tenZythoff was 17 years old and leading the sort of life that was common for teenage boys even then — a life filled with schoolwork and sports and good friends. And then…
Pledging allegiance to the kingdom of God
It is no small thing to grow up in a religious tradition that claims for itself the title, “the one true church.” To be taught that I alone was right while all my friends were wrong and on the road…
How the oldest American lie sustains our racial malaise
I have spent 50 years teaching college students from coast to coast and points in between, and while much has changed over the course of those 50 years, one thing has remained unchanged: the students’ abysmal ignorance of the negative…
How American exceptionalism is killing America
Many ironies define the United States, but none is more harmful than this: We routinely silence the life-giving voices that can save us and amplify the death-dealing voices that can kill us. The voices that can save us are those…
How slavery still shapes the world of white evangelical Christians
Without meaning to do so, Henry Louis Gates’ two-part series on “The Black Church” dramatically exposed the gaping chasm that divides the way Black Christians and privileged white Christians — especially white evangelicals — understand God, protest and politics. For…
Why I long for the church of my youth
In this age of alternative facts, when truth means whatever people want it to mean, I find myself longing wistfully for the Christian tradition in which I was raised — although, for the most part, it has long since passed…
Remembering Amos: Where white evangelicals lost their way
I have spent 50 years teaching religion to mostly white evangelical students at Christian colleges and universities from California to Pennsylvania and points in between. Most of those students came from evangelical homes and grew up in evangelical churches, and…