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You never know the day your life will change—or the person who will change it. For me, her name was Om Hassan. I was 23, an American soldier…
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2021 #BlackHistoryMonth Recommendations for All Ages
This is my top 10 list of books and viewing for February 2021. Please engage these resources this Black History Month and beyond!
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A Former Confederate State Just Voted To Abolish Its Death Penalty
But it’s worth celebrating Virginia, the “home of the Confederacy,” as the first state in the old Confederate South to abolish the death penalty. The two facts are related, because…
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The Week After MLK Day
The misuse of his words imply that King was primarily teaching a minority people how to suffer well rather than pushing for personal change within the hearts of, and systemic…
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The Ministers of Insurrection
The Gospel of Matthew ends with the Great Commission; and no matter how much you twist those scriptures there is no amount of theological gymnastics that can get you to…
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Still Christian? A Prayer for the Reckoning
We are witnessing the ways that Christianity’s tentacles have bound themselves to patriarchy, nationalism, and white supremacy. For many of us rooted in this tradition, this is a moment of…
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Idolatry, Administrations, and Evangelicals: A Conversation Between Shane Claiborne and Johnnie Moore
By RLC EditorBut you know, I’m not a single-issue person either. I mean, my ethic is one of life. I believe every person is made in the image of God. So for…
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With New Executive Order, This Immigrant Is Leaving Church Sanctuary After 3.5 Years
Jose Chicas, a native of El Salvador who has been living in church sanctuary for more than three years, [moved] out Friday (Jan. 22) after President Joe Biden signed an…
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The Beginning of the End for Nuclear Weapons
By John DearFriday, the U.N. treaty declared that the manufacture, possession, use or threat to use nuclear weapons is illegal under international law, 75 years after their development and first use.
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Where Do We Go from Here?
Our country is aching to see the strength it takes to accept responsibility for more than our own individual acts. To be wrong, and admit it. To be the first…
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Revolutionary Love Is The Way To Racial Healing
Within our denominations, grassroots justice organizations, organizing networks, and movement partners, we have engaged in the best of our sacred traditions to pursue a vision of Beloved Community, of an…
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Insisting on Healing May be the Death of Us
Christians are often among the worst at calling for unity in the aftermath of great injustice; there is a pervasive idea that Jesus was a really nice guy who wants…
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This May Not be a Time for an Altar Call to Unity
Jesus doesn’t bundle salvation or healing. He touches individuals. He speaks to the particular pain of each person. He restores the soul of the singular that then speaks to the…
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What is In Your House?
“First and Only” is a leadership resource for Black women who have found themselves in the position of being the first or the only. Unlike most leadership books, my work speaks to the…
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Why I Cannot Stay: A Letter to My Church
There is no use pointing fingers. That is not them. That is us. We dragged Jesus—the one who died for us—into our tryst with Trump, while the church sat by with…
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‘Not Real Christians’: Communal Confession for a Faith Divided
We must still raise our voices to denounce Christian pursuit of power and boldly denounce cycles of violence perpetuated in the name of Jesus. We also seek that justice be…
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Who Has Your Trousers? Keeping Company in the Darkness
By Diana GruverI’ve spent time over the last few years researching people in church history who struggled with depression, but intertwined with their stories are those of their friends and family members…
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The Cost of Believing Liars
Trump supporting evangelicals have shown that while they may be honest in their personal lives among friends and family, their commitment to truthfulness in public affairs is absent. Their ethical…
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Is Killing Lisa Montgomery the Best Version of Justice We Have?
None of us is above reproach and none of us is beyond redemption. That is a core truth of the Christian faith. And it is a truth that is undermined…
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Capitol Storm: What Should Come as No Surprise
Let us tell our children the truth about what happened this week at the Capitol: white supremacists and domestic terrorists, deceived and deluded and power hungry, attempted to violently overthrow…
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Hope, Homelessness, and COVID-19
By Kevin NyeInstead, we perpetuate myths about homelessness that embolden our stance against policy that will set them free. We stay secure in our implicit and explicit beliefs that certain people have…
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La’s Skid Row Doesn’t Need Sean Feucht’s ‘Revival’
In an attempt to defend his event, Feucht accused these pastors of preventing him from “bringing Jesus to the streets of LA.” Dear Sean: Jesus is already on Skid Row.
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When Legal Is Unjust, Prophetic Resistance Is Required
By Bob EkbladPresidential pardons of soldiers and US Government contractors guilty of war crimes, billions of dollars in benefits for the rich and powerful tucked away in the 5,000 + page Congressional…
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Subversive Peace for this Christmas Season
By Joel JacksonIt is to this group of social outcasts that God chooses to make an announcement of astonishingly good news—good news in which God declares a true peace that subverts the…
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How Being Awakened to Death Can Help Us Live
It’s a mystery our culture often refuses to face, Peterson argues; and while her book was written almost entirely before the Covid pandemic, this contemplation of death—our cultural refusal to…
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Oh God, Where Are You Now?
If you’re on any kind of a spiritual journey, there inevitably comes a day when all the usual “lights” go out.
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Kingdom of God, Kingdoms of Men
The Evangelical Church’s support of a president who counters the life and teachings of Jesus actually makes sense when you take Jesus out of the equation.
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Emmanuel Understands Limitations
By Sue FulmoreWhile rulers in Palestine at the time of Jesus’s coming clutched their power, the King-over-all was laying his down. He ushered in a new order, an upside-down kingdom.
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Hope’s Beautiful Daughters
Donald Trump may have lost the election, but it looks like Trumpism is here to stay. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined a well-defined ideology characterized by…
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True Prophecy in an Age of Deception
By Bob EkbladEndorsing, pledging one’s allegiance, and putting undue hope and trust in a human leader counts as “worshipping and serving,” and idolatry that must be named and renounced. Jeremiah’s words ring…
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Love is the Most Important Command
Maybe we fear that love is a zero-sum game, that if we give of ourselves there might not be anything left for us. But love is not about self-abnegation.
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God’s Up to Something: Laboring in Expectation
What a time to be alive. What a time to be a part of a movement, a revolution, a holy uprising of love in the world. Thank you for being…
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Next Most Faithful Steps in Healing Divided Community
By Dori BakerOur journey together ended with a question: What is the connection between the small acts of neighborly love that most Christians don’t think twice about in our everyday lives—stopping by…
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Midwives of a New World
We need a more robust theology of a God who suffers with us—who was born on the margins and executed on the cross, who knows what it feels like to…
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On Evangelical Conspiracy Theories
The conspiracy theory maintains the fear that fuels white supremacy. It grants power to those who have craved it all their lives. It maintains power for those who had always…
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Vulnerability Springs Forth Connection
By Andrew LeeThat kind of vulnerability touches on our deepest need to be known and accepted by another. It reminds us that we were not meant to be our own salvation. It…
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Patriarchy and the Gender of God
By Jon MathieuThis ought to disturb us on a theological level alone. Why are we using language about a non-gendered or gender-expansive God that makes us view God in accordance with deeply…
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Hope in Hard Times: An Element of Our Prophetic Vocation
By Julia WalshI continue to be challenged by the ongoing need for reconstruction, for the building of a society not based on the evils of systemic racism and environmental degradation; it’s big,…
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Liturgy in the Time of COVID
These days, my emotions are not a reliable source. They are up and down and back and forth and all over the place, telling me stories and lies and leading…
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Where Do I Put My Body this Advent?
And so dear friends, let the darkness cradle your weary body close. Then gather your candles, and find a place stand.
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A Year of No Thanks
We shouldn’t be grateful for COVID, for the political chaos, for the broken climate, for economic suffering. But we can be grateful through these times, while we are struggling in…
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Causing Others to Stumble: A Plea to Believers
Wickedness is white supremacy. Wickedness is supporting systems that discard women deemed “unworthy” by the rest of the world. I told her that my speck of dirt on a mustard…
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Liberty, Obedience, and Discipleship
By Bill CayleyCalls to use sensible public health measures to stop the spread of COVID are not persecution, they are simply measures to protect our society and those around us. If we…
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Moving On from ‘Cheap Unity’
By Jon MathieuPerhaps this contrast—the real, difficult version of something held up against the cheap and easy imitation—will help us navigate the disaster of American disunity.
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In a New Moment, Do a New Thing
Fully understanding how American democracy went all the way to the brink in 2020 will take years of study, and we must embark upon it in a spirit of honesty…
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William Barr and the Politics of Death
We are not executing the ‘worst of the worst,’ as some may believe, but the poorest of the poor, and disproportionately people of color.
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Over 13,000+ Christians Call on Pastors Franklin Graham and Paula White-Cain to Accept President-Elect Biden’s Victory
By RLC EditorDespite President-elect Joe Biden’s clear electoral victory and the complete absence of evidence behind Donald Trump’s lawsuits, multiple prominent evangelical leaders are continuing to enable the outgoing president’s dangerous attacks…
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Giving (Not Taking) is the Mark of the Believer
By Morf MorfordHow Christianity went from a faith based on sacrificial giving to an institutional blessing of taking will certainly be a challenge for historians untangle. If there were ever a faith with…
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To My White Evangelical Friends: A Response to the Exit Polls
How often does revival have to walk out of church in order to survive? How many awakened souls will have to leave the institution before the pain of staying the…
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A New Chapter in the American Experiment
So today, let us celebrate. And tomorrow, let us organize. We are still in a battle for the soul of our nation, and for the soul of our faith. This…
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When Religion Becomes Idolatry
By Suzie LahoudYes, I am talking about white supremacy, but the kind comfortably ensconced in a leather chair smoking a cigar. I am talking about xenophobia, but the kind safely domesticated behind…
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A Practical View of White American Folk Religion Contrasted with Real Christianity
81% of White Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump to Make America Great Again. But it was not Christianity that got him elected. White American Folk Religion (WAFR) did. This ideology,…
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Why I’m Voting for the First Time in 28 Years
For Republicans and white Christians who feel like they would be losing something by not voting in line with the Republican party: more is at stake in the 2020 election…
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We Ring Our Bells for You, America
At noon on each day of the week prior to November 3rd—and each hour on the hour as Americans vote on Election Day—faith communities in all 50 states will ring…
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For These Next Seven Days: A Prayer for Those Filled With Dread
Let not our hearts sink into anxiety and dread by the unceasing spin cycle of 24 hour news or the bread and circuses of the imperial intrigue. Instead . .…
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A More Perfect Idolatry
I am concerned that, for all our brave talk of the Gospel, there is a part of us that is still tempted to find our own way toward the knowledge…
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The Priority of Peaceableness in a Disruptive Election
Some individuals who have fled countries internally disrupted by bloody violence have warned that what they see taking place in the U.S. is troublingly similar to what they saw happening…
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Interceding for the Soul of America
Editor’s Note: This essay is taken from Keeping the Faith: Reflections on Politics and Christianity in the Era of Trump and Beyond. Each week between now and Election Day 2020,…
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The Burning Bush
Some realities are projected onto others disallowing them to be free. My father called this being Black in America. And some realities are not yet. Our children will call that home.
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1,000 Tongues, and the Job of Telling the Truth
She spoke with affection about her mother and grandmother and the struggles of their lives. “And my great-great grandmother,” she added in conclusion, “was a slave.” Her last sentence hit me like…
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Where Love Ends (And the Fight for Disability Rights)
By RLC EditorInvest your prayer, your money, your time, and your love in vulnerable people. Fight for disability rights and disability pride so expecting parents won’t be afraid after a diagnosis.
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Being the Other Voice
By Chris BrownWhatever motivated the shouts and signals from so many vehicles, it became clear to me in that moment that even if I knew nothing else about Jesus, I would rather…
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I’m Drinking Coffee With Jesus
Maybe with time things would have worked themselves out but I didn’t wait, I didn’t suffer through it. I bought the coffee and every morning I pressed the grounds down…
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Faith Is on the Ballot: A Call for the Latino Vote
That should matter to Latinos especially as a community that is more collective than individualists. One that cares for family forever and where strangers become family over a cup of…
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Love for Enemies
By Paul DemerAs we seek to do justice let’s not forget to love kindness and walk humbly with our God, even in 2020. They will know we are Christians by our love.
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The Fairy Tale of Caring
By Morf MorfordThe whole idea of “caring” is seen as weakness, and nothing in an era like ours invites attack – verbal or physical – more than even a hint of vulnerability.
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Scars of Honor: Fighting White Supremacy, Then and Now
My family has stood up for independence from England, for civil rights, and against fascism. I come from people who fight for what we believe to be right. Now honestly,…
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The Evangelical Gaze
By Jon MathieuWhen those privileges are threatened, it means danger for those in the margins and anyone who chooses to stand with them. Perhaps someday you’ll join me where it’s dangerous.
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Why We Do Not Celebrate Columbus Day
Christopher Columbus may have been a daring adventurer… but he is not someone we want our kids to think of as a hero or role model. A growing number of…
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Keeping the Faith: A Call to Prophetic Resistance
By Suzie LahoudIt is an anthology of dissent consisting of essays and articles by Christians who are calling out the false piousness of the Trump administration. It is a collective work, comprised…
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Why “All Letters Matter” isn’t a Good Response to Red Letter Christians
By Tim OttoTheoretically at least, a verse from Leviticus had as much weight as a command from Jesus. This kind of Bible reading has dangerous consequences.
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New Name, Same Mission
By RLC Editor“It was the right name—for a time. But the social environment is so different,” says Ron Sider, Founder and President-emeritus. In the wake of the Trump presidency, ‘evangelical’ has become…
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Christians Demand Binsar’s Release from ICE
Humiliated before the judge, he was read his rights, without any legal counsel and ordered to return to his home country. In the process of returning he caught COVID and…
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A Justice for All, In Memory of RBG
She remains a powerful role model. May we all find our own resilience and righteousness from the Notorious RBG in the consequential days ahead. May her memory be a blessing.
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Poverty: Jesus, Jubilee, and Reparations
By Jon MathieuGod clearly was not concerned with capitalist sensibilities. God’s sense of justice was not constrained by the laws of the free market or Friedman’s shareholder theory. What is fair and…
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Cathedral of the Tropics and Worshipping Through a Pandemic
Our reactions and feelings of loss toward having our weekly temple worship stripped away might reveal something of an idolatry within us. Have we become too dependent, too anchored, too…
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Communities of Moral Deliberation
By Nathan WarfShould we emphasize personal rights over the responsibilities we owe each another? Should we emphasize what the law permits over what the Gospel demands? Of course not, yet these attitudes…
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On Gender Equality: We Have Made Great Strides & We Are Not There Yet
There is a difference between being “allowed” a vote and being listened to. There is a difference between being tolerated in a position, and being valued for the unique contributions…
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Fire in the Sky: On Divisions and Forgiveness
Our country is at the boiling point in the divide between these two people groups. We listen to different news sources and make up our minds accordingly. There is a…
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Good News About Tony
By RLC EditorIn the meantime, it continues to be a delight for us to read the emails, cards and notes you send to Tony. Many begin with something like, “You don’t know…
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An Adoptee’s Apocalypse
God has a deeper understanding of us. God gets the nuances of adoption and understands our pain—all of it, even the parts we think we’ve kept totally hidden. Jesus, too,…
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On Turning the Other Cheek (And How It Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means)
By Corey FarrIn the Bava Kamma Mishnah (the traditional Jewish interpretation of the law), a slap incurred a fine of 200 silver coins – but a backhanded slap required a payment of…
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Review of Reading While Black
By Bill CayleyReading While Black is not, in the end, just about Black Christianity, Black church history, or Black Biblical theology. Rather, it is a significant contribution to the larger Christian conversation…
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The Compass of the Beatitudes
By Terry WebbMany of Jesus’ followers were angry. They had been anticipating the culmination of what God had promised, that once again the land would be theirs. But now they were subjects…
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When Hope is Poisoned by Despair
By Susan SmithThe killing of black men by police is a relentless beating against the souls and the spirits of people who believe in justice and who operate in hope. But with…
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Jesus Isn’t on the Ballot. That Doesn’t Mean Christians Can Opt Out.
We had some solid ideas for serious change in America back then. Like putting the Amish in charge of Homeland Security and melting all of our weapons into garden tools…
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What Do You See When You Look at Protestors?
Who do we have to thank for liberating and freeing our country from the dehumanizing practice of “whites only” water fountains, schools and churches?
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Lunchtime Grace: Lessons from the Meal Line
By April KeechFor this man revealed the compassion of Christ to cover someone who was exposed, to protect someone in their nakedness, and at risk to himself, broke the rules of the…
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2020 is the Year of Religious Women Voters
We’re just 8 Sundays away from the 2020 election. Between now and then, a moral reckoning among women of faith will determine the future of this nation and, I dare…
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Inclusive Hymn Rewrite Challenge
By RLC EditorThere is nothing gratuitous about the arts right now. They are not added, they are essential—like spirituals in the hell of cotton fields, anti-war songs of the 60s, AIDS blankets…
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Why Should I Reparate?
There is a certain amount of community guilt that comes with all the benefits of being an American. As Christians, we should know this. Did you eat the fruit in…
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A Common Thread: Adaptation from Liberation is Here
By Nikole LimI was twenty years old when I first met Nekesa. I landed in Kenya to capture stories for my thesis film about women who inspire hope in their communities. A…
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For Every Time: A Prayer for Moral Revival
For every time we preached about the blood of Jesus and did not talk about the blood of Breonna Taylor…George Floyd…Ahamad Arbury…Jacob Blake…and so many more…[Say all their names!]. We…
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Faith and Politics: Which Guides the Other?
Jesus is someone who really made a change where he was, and his love was sacrificial. If that’s the Jesus that we teach, especially in my Evangelical spaces, that would…
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A Prayer for the King
I want our political system to treat every life as precious and to protect people from oppression and violence. We can then argue about different strategies, but that’s what I…
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Environmental Racism & COVID-19
The best thing that we’ve known to do is to truly take on that Jeremiah 29. How do we seek the peace and prosperity of those who don’t have the…
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Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
The Statue of Liberty is weeping at some of the viciousness of these policies. There are 92 scriptures that specifically talk about hospitality to the stranger.
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We Go There: Abortion
I theorized maybe this is not so much about being pro-life. If this is the only thing that is guiding your vote, maybe there is something deeper, a kind of…
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Repentance and Redemption Inside the White Church
I began with Charles and asked him, “As a Choctaw man who follows Jesus on the Red Road, are there parallels that you see between the politics of the White…
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My Testimony, My Party
I started with a very simple question, “We are all evangelical. We all have a testimony. How did you come to Jesus? And tell us the story of the first…
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The National Town Hall on Evangelical Faith and Politics
Politics, however, is not synonymous with partisanship. Politics is the conversations we have with each other about the decisions we make about how the polis will be led. In fact,…