Trillia Newbell gives us the racial background of the natural hair movement, and explains why Black Christian women should have the right answer to the question: Am I more than my hair?
Author: Trillia Newbell
Trillia Newbell is the author of Fear and Faith: Finding the Peace Your Heart Craves (2015) and United: Captured by God's Vision for Diversity (2014).
Her writings on issues of faith, family, and diversity have been published in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Desiring God, Christianity Today, Relevant Magazine, The Gospel Coalition, and more. She is currently Director of Community Outreach for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention.
For fun, she enjoys group fitness (she used to be a fitness instructor!), cycling, and listening to a variety of music.
Trillia is married to her best friend, Thern; they reside with their two children near Nashville, TN.
You can find her at trillianewbell.com and follow her on twitter at @trillianewbell
Today we combine two chapters, “Good Expectations” and “The Forever Good Life”, for our final post in the book discussion. I will not do chapter synopsis, instead I’d like us to think through this discussion with questions for each of us to consider as we pursue the good life. Chapter 11: Have you had a […]
“Our culture has fed us the lie that feeling good is the highest good.” – Trip Lee Go and enjoy your life. Have sex. Party hard. Travel the world. Do all that you can and do it to the fullest. YOLO!! You only live once, guys! That’s the motto of the day. Do all you […]
“I want you to keep dreaming big, but to do so in line with God’s will. I want you to dream big by faith.” How we measure success has been heavily influenced by how our culture measures success. Trip Lee uses the example of two athletes. We might consider a famous an athlete successful but […]
“We’ve been told by our culture that the most important thing in life is the stuff we can acquire. A lot of people point the finger at hip-hop—but hip-hop isn’t the source of the problem. American culture is dripping with staunch materialism…We’ve bought into the lie that we are what we have, so we spend […]
We are in the third section of the book and it’s time to apply what it means to have the good life. This section is about practical application and we start by addressing good works. “Our sinful hearts are cruel dictators. And as long as they rule over us, we’re not free. We’re robots. But […]
“I’ve learned that the good life is not lived in isolation, but rather in community with ‘good people.’” [Tweet ““I’ve learned that the good life is not lived in isolation, but rather in community w/ ‘good people.’””] Christians are adopted into a new family—the family of God. We are God’s children and as Trip explains, […]
Note: Because of our previous discussion we are skipping chapter 4. Today we take a look at The Good Book “God’s Word is the oxygen that He uses to bring us to life. And God’s Word is the very same oxygen that we need to continually breathe as we press forward. If we stop taking […]
“Whether or not we live the good life depends on what we have faith in. The good life is living by faith in a good God.” (p. 38) Many believe that God exists, but Lee believes that it’s more than simply believing in God; it’s believing what He says and ordering your life around it. […]
Editor’s Note: This is a short article for the purpose to generate conversation based on the book The Good Life by Trip Lee. Please join us on each Thursdays for our book discussion.* Last week we looked at some of the lies we believe when we consider what the good life should look like. Today […]
Editor’s Note: This is a short article for the purpose to generate conversation based on the book The Good Life by Trip Lee. Please join us on each Thursdays for our book discussion.* We don’t want to admit it, but we fall for lies every day. Each day we are presented with a promise of […]
What exactly is the good life? Is it retirement, riches, relaxation, minimal responsibility, ease? Sounds rather good to me. But maybe there’s something more. I want to find out and I’d love for us to discover it together. Over the next several weeks we will be going through The Good Life, written by hip-hop artist […]
My son identifies himself as peach, the crayon color. His grandmother, my British mother in-law, asked him what color he thought she was and he said, without hesitation, “Peach!” She said, “Good.” There are times when I wish we all would identify with each other in such creative descriptors. God is much more creative than […]
Trillia Newbell makes a case for why uncle tom should be removed from the Christian vocabulary.
By Trillia Newbell My editors are constantly encouraging me to develop a catchy introduction that captures readers’ attention to encourage further reading. When I was thinking about writing about why writing on race and ethnicity can be difficult I literally thought I’d just skip the introduction and get to the facts. Why? Because writing about […]
By Trillia Newbell, Main Contributor Over at Desiring God, I share four reasons why Christians should consider celebrating Black history month–as Jemar Tisby has also suggested–but should not stop there. Here are four reasons I encourage us to learn throughout the year: we gain perspective, it opens doors for evangelism, we can welcome a greater […]
By Trillia Newbell, Main Contributor So Lance Armstrong lied. He not only lied, but he lied vehemently for several years. And who backed him? His fans, his loyal organization, even a faithful ESPN writer, backed Armstrong until the very last minute. CNN reported, “Armstrong reminisced on his storied past of being a hero who overcame […]
By Trillia Newbell, Main Contributor I remember when I first heard Barack Obama had won the presidency of the United States. I was thrilled. The first Black President of the United States. I thought about how proud my father would have been if he were alive. I thought about the men and women who fought […]
