Nineteen children were shot dead on Tuesday at their school in Uvalde, Texas; 10 elderly Black people were shot dead on Saturday while shopping in their local grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. The rage of people is palpable but there…
They were attending a conference on Scripture and violence when the Uvalde massacre happened
Participants in a May 23-25 virtual conference on Scripture and violence came prepared for discussions on topics such as restorative justice, trauma and biblical interpretation, and criminal justice and the church. What they weren’t ready for was an elementary school…
Sick of war, church leaders in South Sudan recommit to finding peace
In the 11-year history of South Sudan as an independent country, the East African nation has known more conflict than peace among its disparate tribes. The conflicts, which began in 2013 as a political dispute between the country’s leading politicians…
It’s time to stop giving Christianity a pass on white supremacy and violence
I’m still reeling from the experience of standing in George Floyd Square in Minneapolis on the same afternoon a white supremacist terrorist gunned down 10 people in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo, N.Y. I reflected on that experience in…
Louisville police training quoted Bible verse to say officers are God’s agents of wrath
The police department that wrongly shot Breonna Taylor dead in her own apartment in 2020 had trained its officers just three years earlier that they are avengers who carry out “God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” New reporting by the Louisville,…
In the war of words over guns, ‘wisdom is better than weapons of war’
We fight the “gun battle” in many ways. Some hurl statistics like darts, trying to puncture the other side’s position. Their opponents are adept at this, too, reminding us: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics”…
From the war in Ukraine to the slap in Hollywood, violence plagues our world
It’s time we rethink our definition of violence. As the war rages in Ukraine, many people’s attention this past week shifted to the moment of violence at the Academy Awards. I understand why the incident is captivating people’s attention. In…
Those who threatened HBCUs failed to shake these resilient institutions
Domestic terrorists who recently threatened to bomb nearly 20 historically Black colleges and universities utterly failed if their goal was to shake student commitment to their schools and to each other, institutional leaders said Feb. 8. “They are disappointed. They…
Nigerian State government shuts down Baptist school over hijab conflict
A Baptist school in Ijagbo, Kwara State, North Central Nigeria, has been shut down by the state government after a breakdown of law and order in the school. The decision to close Oyun Baptist High School, Ijagbo, was announced Feb….