To understand my evolution as a reconciliation leader, you must first understand that I began my journey sincerely believing that if I could convince evangelical Christians that reconciliation was not some politically motivated agenda but a biblical calling rooted in Scripture, they would pursue racial justice. For years I tried to be biblical enough, nonthreatening …
I want at once to break down the association of “bad = dark” and “good = light” because of the way our stupid human brains will equate this to people and their skin. Like so many things about issues of race, the language we need does not yet exist; there is a paradigm void that …
But the departure from our past is visible not only in rising inequality and resultant pessimism – it is also apparent in the institutions that increasingly define our nation. Corporate conglomerates are replacing local and craft economies in almost every sector, including agriculture. America’s rugged individuals struggle against the loss of identity, autonomy, and mastery …
from The Reformed Journal https://reformedjournal.com/reconciling-our-differences-by-modeling-the-incarnation/
The church I served for twenty-four years in the Washington, DC, area was full of people like you. Many were raised Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Pentecostal but dropped out either because their questions were unwelcome or because the church’s answers were unsatisfying. But over time, life outside of a faith community was also …
Is it just your journey, or is it our journey too? Read More »
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/08/politics/black-voter-suppression/index.html
If, for ideological reasons, we cannot agree that human activity contributes to climate change, then we should consider it pragmatically, through the lens of risk-reward analysis. Even if we cannot prove the veracity of human-caused climate change, the most prudent approach is to act as if it is true. This is because if it is …
When the cost of error is too high, the wise hedge their bets. Read More »
I’ve traveled around the country working at the intersection of progressive politics and religion for the past decade and met countless activists bogged down by un-Christlike conservativism prevailing in our public square. Headlines in the media about conservative Christians doubting climate change or supporting a wall on the southern border defy a third-grade Sunday school …
Think about everyday experiences outside of politics – in your family, neighborhood, workplace, or the voluntary associations to which you belong. In settings of that sort, when was the last time you solved a problem by talking about people who weren’t in the room? Almost certainly the answer is “Never.” That kind of talk is …
Now more than ever, those who care about the reconciliation command of the cross must speak up and out about injustice and must go about the work of dismantling the structures of this injustice and combating the harmful, even deadly result of this country’s unchecked legacy of systemic inequality and discrimination. The church must talk …
Because I know the R-word freaks everybody out, let’s go about defining it too, because I mean something very specific when I use it. Racism refers to a system of hierarchy based on the belief that one race is superior to all others. Most often, and as is definitely the case in the United …
Were Alexis de Tocqueville to travel to America once again – further on in our national story – what might he find? Would America fulfill its promise of balancing individual liberty with the common good? Would equality of opportunity be realized, and indeed produce prosperity for all? And would shared cultural values, respect for democratic …
Back in 2011, Richard Rohr wrote a book called Falling Upward. Richard, a warmhearted Franciscan brother, Catholic priest, insightful teacher, and bestselling author, is founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, and I am honored to call him friend, mentor, and colleague. Falling Upward resonated with hundreds of thousands of readers because it told …
For Jesus, a politics of love manifests itself in the form of compassion, which in Latin means literally to “suffer with another.” Genuine compassion evokes a deep concern for the suffering and well-being of neighbor, and is expressed most fully in the “basileia tou theou,” the Kingdom of God. Life lived in the Kingdom of …
When historians look back at the history of Christianity and politics in the United States, 2016 will hopefully be marked as the turning of the tide. The alliance between the religious right and the Republican Party held strong despite Donald Trump’s rampant immorality, but it also shined a light on the nature of their unholy …
We need to begin to heal from all the horrors of our histories and heritages. from Religion News Service
from Religion News Service https://religionnews.com/2021/04/15/interfaith-campus-partnerships-are-building-bridges-to-overcome-our-divisions/
As I listen in on private and public conversations about the problems of American democracy, I’m struck time and again by how often our political talk is about people who aren’t in the room. We almost always talk about them – “those people” in Washington, D.C., or in our state capitols – the people we …
White privilege means that even though your life may not be easy, the color of your skin does not provide additional obstacles to your success. Because privilege is often invisible to those who have it, here’s a handy list of some of the ways white privilege may operate – in society, and yes, in your …
A dictionary for these polarized times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/09/opinion/infrastructure-democrats-republicans.html
After decades of regional tensions at the Triennial Conventions, where Baptists gathered to coordinate their church and missions work in the early eighteen hundreds, Baptists in the South brought the issue of the compatibility to slaveholding and Christianity to a head. The lead architect of these efforts was Reverend Basil Manly Sr., president of the …
