Two months have passed since the world watched George Floyd die under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. In that two months, United Methodist bishops have mounted an initiative echoing the Black Lives Matter movement that they call…
Ideas for churches studying the need for reparations
The July issue of Sojourners magazine included “A Christian Call for Reparations” by Kelly Brown Douglas, dean of Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary and canon theologian at the Washington National Cathedral. Douglas’ call for reparations echoed the voice…
‘Disremembering’ our history: Pastor John Onwuchekwa, the SBC and the rest of us
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — James Baldwin I first learned of the ministry of Rev. John Onwuchekwa, lead pastor at Cornerstone Church, Atlanta, when a friend sent…
What Toni Morrison taught me about my people, the Quakers
As a little Quaker girl, I read about the childhood of Lucretia Coffin Mott (Girl of Old Nantucket), who grew up to be a noted Abolitionist, and about a family of Quakers from North Carolina who journeyed with a family…
The Ethiopian Regiment and the work of redeeming America
“Liberty to Slaves.” Those were the words that were emblazoned on their uniforms as they went into battle as members of the Ethiopian Regiment. The regiment had gathered in response to the proclamation issued by Lord John, the Earl of…
Slavery, race and biblical authority: Before we claim the Bible is ‘inerrant,’ let’s confess that we aren’t
Albert Mohler’s hermeneutic of biblical inerrancy led him 25 years ago to reaffirm a scriptural mandate for slaves to dutifully ‘submit’ to their masters in whatever era or culture slavery might exist. His repentance regarding slavery, albeit delayed, is a lesson for all of us.
‘Victimization’ and injustice: Why the new film, ‘Harriet,’ evoked anger in me
I felt anger rise in me as I watched “Harriet,” the new film about the famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman. The anger came from an awareness that the distorted use of victimization by the oppressors and the enslavers is still prevalent 100 years after Tubman’s death.
Twin doctrines of slavery and complementarity: time for evangelicals to ‘budge’ on biblical interpretation?
John MacArthur’s public pronouncements open a door to issues that confront us all when it comes to faith and doctrine, biblical authority and hermeneutics, church and family.
Racial justice: apology without restitution, lamentation without transformation
We must not only deal with the ongoing effects of atrocities, we must also change society itself. Lamentations may acknowledge sorrow over atrocities committed, but they do not repair the harm nor transform the world.
The Color of Compromise: American Christianity’s legacy of racism calls for ‘repentance and repair’
In his new book, The Color of Compromise, Jemar Tisby documents the ways in which white Christians, churches and religious institutions inside and outside the South manifested, acquiesced to and facilitated racist responses to people of color in general and African Americans in particular.
Petition demanding Southern Baptist seminary pay reparations collecting signatures online
Former faculty members at a Southern Baptist Convention seminary and Baptist professors at other schools joined a call urging financial reparations to American descendants of slavery in a petition now collecting signatures on change.org.
Southern Seminary leadership nixes idea of reparations for historically black college
A Southern Baptist seminary that in February lamented its historical ties to slavery is unwilling to make monetary reparations to a nearby historically black Baptist college, according to the seminary’s president and trustee chairman.