Author Susan K. Williams Smith was sickened to learn that a passage from the New Testament inspired Samuel Bowers’ to launch the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. Smith’s new book, With Liberty and Justice…
White hysteria, Critical Race Theory, and eyes that dare not see
The hysteria over Critical Race Theory right now means many things. Most immediately, it means that the relationship between skilled right-wing demagogues and their audience in the U.S. these days is positively Pavlovian. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, rinse and repeat. If Tucker…
Losing my religion
Do we really wonder why so many people are leaving organized religion? A new Gallup poll has found that for the first time, the proportion of Americans who say they are members of a church, synagogue or mosque has dropped…
De La Torre calls for ‘badass believers’ to decolonize Christianity
Miguel De La Torre is no stranger to hate mail as the author of dozens of books, articles and blog posts challenging the theological foundations and racial assumptions of white political and religious power. “It’s ranged from being called the…
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…
Voting rights and the people who died for them: Jonathan Daniels et al.
A March 11 article in the Washington Post began with these two paragraphs: “The GOP’s national push to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to…
Racism is never an innocent joke
I don’t think Baptists today are particularly gifted in the spiritual discipline of confession of sin. We’re glad to echo Romans 3:23 and declare that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, but we tend to avoid candid…
Black church important antidote to social despair caused by white supremacy
The Black church in America plays a crucial role in empowering its congregants amid the reality of white supremacy that causes a growing number of Black Americans to feel insecure, new research finds. Despite the election of Raphael Warnock as…
Christian America’s betrayal of the kingdom of God
The storming of the American Capitol on Jan. 6 — with its profusion of Bibles, crosses and other Christian symbols — placed a gigantic exclamation point on the unease American Christians always have felt with the First Amendment to the…