A historic African-American Baptist church in Alexandria, Virginia, received a bomb threat during a Saturday evening worship service, one week after 11 Jewish worshippers were gunned down at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The service, one of four services held…
The language of violence and the sound of white people clapping
I kept hearing the sound of white people clapping and chanting “Lock HER up!”, “Lock HIM up!” (referencing Hillary Clinton and George Soros even after bombs mailed to them were found), and “CNN sucks!” (also after a bomb was found). And clapping their agreement for rhetorical images that include “enemies of the people,” “immigrant invaders” and a “low IQ” black woman.
I talked on TV about the Pittsburgh massacre. Our 11-year-old’s response said more
American Christians cannot sit on the sidelines when hate and anti-Semitism are so brazenly displayed in the public square. We cannot be silent in the face of evil.
SBC leader under fire for comments about divorce, abuse
The president of a Southern Baptist Convention seminary has defended an 18-year-old recording describing his counsel to a woman in an abusive marriage that is finding a new audience on social media in the age of #MeToo. Paige Patterson, president…
‘Anticipatory mourning’: America’s youth on death, guns and dissent
We’ve ritualized death away from the young in this culture, in funeral homes and hospice facilities, but it has overtaken them with a vengeance in what were once safe spaces for learning.
Have some evangelicals embraced moral relativism?
By what ethical framework do we say that individuals and churches are supposed to take one stance towards the poor and dispossessed, but as a collective nation we should take a different — even opposite — stance? If something is right or good depending solely upon who carries it out, is that not a form of moral relativism?
Muslims held to double standard in cases of faith-based violence
Americans hold double standards about cases of religiously motivated violence, with white evangelicals most inconsistent and the religiously unaffiliated the most consistent. In a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, Americans were asked if people who perpetrate acts…
Retweeting mercy in the midst of darkness
In her July 10 message at the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber retells the story of the Merciful Samaritan. The message is timely, coming as it does on the heels of a week —…
Jesus, the man of violence
When we think of Jesus, images of a peace-loving, gentle pacifist comes to mind, at least it did to the mind of Howard Yoder. We read our particular ideology into the biblical text when we claim Jesus was a pacifist….