In 2003, the Coen brothers released their romantic comedy Intolerable Cruelty. The movie wasn’t great. In fact, it’s entirely forgettable, which is why I was surprised I remembered it at all. After reading the news lately, though, I’m now convinced…
Another racist mass shooting and our failure to tend Jesus’ sheep
In worship on May 1, Village Baptist Church read together the words of Jesus when he asks his disciple, “Peter, do you love me?” When Peter responds to Jesus, “Of course, Lord, you know that I love you,” Jesus gives…
America is addicted to white supremacy
This country is addicted to its belief in and adherence to white supremacy. It is an addiction that displays as do all addictions: The desire for the power of white supremacy is part of the political circulatory system of this…
It’s time to stop the insanity that is killing public education
I am the child of a public schoolteacher. I am the parent of a son who has been a public schoolteacher and who remains a private instructor in a public high school. Many dear friends are public schoolteachers. As a…
Of statues and stories: Reckoning with the Lost Cause
A few years back, as I wandered across a broad hill overlooking Washington, D.C., I discovered a monument, the statue of a woman atop a 32-foot decorated pedestal rising above the untold thousands of gravestones in Arlington National Cemetery. I…
We are the coalition of the unwilling
Back in the 1970s, church growth experts fell in love with the “homogenous unit principle.” “People like to become Christians,” Donald McGavran noted, “without crossing racial, linguistic or class barriers.” The pushback was immediate. If the gospel is all about…
America’s conscience: Moral bankruptcy and communal decay
For if the disinherited get such a new center as patriotism, for instance — liberty within the framework of a sense of country or nation, then the aim of not being killed is swallowed up by a larger and more…
The Capitol insurrection, the Lost Cause and the Confederate flag
On Jan. 6, 2021, I was in quarantine, recovering from COVID-19. As I read and watched TV to pass the time, I began to see early reports of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. I saw the events of that…
White supremacists are hell-bent on repeating history
Mark Wingfield recently wrote an article reporting on the defeat of a Black pastor who had served for 17 years on a public school board in Houston. The defeat was orchestrated by right-wing white parents opposed to Critical Race Theory and…
Kyle Rittenhouse, whiteness, and a divinely ordained license to kill
Friday, the news broke that Kyle Rittenhouse had been “acquitted on all charges in the shooting deaths of two men and wounding of a third at a Wisconsin protest against racial injustice last year,” as AP put it. I don’t say this…
There is no them
Warning: Politics, religion and beagles ahead. Author’s note: Three years ago this week, on a Sunday morning, I set down these words in a downtown Austin hotel after a white supremacist attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. This…
Seven things white Christians can do to address white supremacy at church
Since my book White Too Long came out in the summer of 2020, amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with dozens of predominantly white congregations and denominational…