Holy Saturday is an often overlooked part of Holy Week, but it has become one of my favorite Holy Days. The invitation of Holy Saturday to learn how to remain with pain & uncertainty for longer than what is comfortable; to learn how to grieve well. Some of us need this invitation. Some of us […]
Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Truth’s Table: Black Women’s Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation. Preorder your copy today! From the chapter, “DECOLONIZED DISCIPLESHIP” by Ekemini Uwan The irony of all ironies is that I originally wrote this essay, “Decolonized Discipleship,” years ago because an “urban” white evangelical organization reached out and […]
The Black church is at the center of emancipatory events like Juneteenth. In her book On Juneteenth, Pulitzer Prize winner Dr. Annette Gordon-Reed wrote, “Black Texans were determined, despite the early intimidating anger of Whites, to celebrate what was initially called Emancipation Day. Most of the first celebrations were in churches.” These first celebrations reveal […]
Southern Baptist leaders have chosen to prop up whiteness.
It is ironic that in their statement, these Southern Baptist seminary presidents claim they are “standing against the tide of theological compromise.”
There is no form of theological compromise that is more American than vigorously opposing those who advocate for racial justice while remaining silent about the racism and whiteness running rampant in the church.
Today’s episode is fire. Tyler Burns has the honor of interviewing powerhouse theologian and author, Dr. Willie Jennings. This episode is filled with powerful insights that will strike uncomfortably close to home. For the uninitiated, Dr. Willie Jennings is an Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School. Writing in the […]
Selected Important Works of Early African Christian Literature in the First 600 Years of Christianity The Christian religion was born in the Roman Empire and consequently spread under its influence and with its support. Christianity moved rapidly from Palestine, Asia, Africa, and then Europe, in that sequential order. The Continent of Africa was a significant […]
Read Part 1 here! Experience vs. Exegesis Both Candice Benbow and Dr. Howard John Wesley express value for the Bible, but challenge the idea of its reliability and therefore its authority. Benbow argues that experience should be prioritized over the Bible. Wesley also places experience as criteria that can be placed above the Scripture […]
My first impression of Christianity was that the God it spoke of said “white is right” and “black is bad.” Before I was born, my parents had left their Catholic and Baptist traditions to follow Minister Elijah Muhammad who started the Nation of Islam (hence the origin of my Arabic name). I understood early on […]
As a Black man widely tutored in White evangelicalism, I was conditioned to see James Cone as a heretic. When I first read him years ago, I also considered Cone’s theology to be dangerous. His claims of God’s blackness and a Christology rooted firmly in Christ’s solidarity with the oppressed cut against what I considered […]
“Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to live worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you […]
How shall we then move forward? How shall we live peacefully and in mutual understanding as Christians? Below, I suggest 10 possible ways toward this goal for Christians on both sides of the social justice debate, for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the Gospel, and for Christian witness in public. The task […]
No one has a monopoly on Biblical interpretation or theological hermeneutics.
God’s people are to glorify and image him in all that they do. God is glorified through his people assembling together in the community of the church.
Luther’s heirs are known as Protestants today because his movement was so centered on protest. Nearly 450 years later, King would likewise use public protest to confront the social devastation of false doctrine.
Celebrated for her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, her greatest contribution is the model she gave on the Christian life.
People of color often feel the burden of proving our pain to our white brothers and sisters and that is extremely taxing.
The primary sin of many in middle class white America is not that of commission but of omission.
There is a constant danger within the church to take book-sized concepts and reduce them down to Tweet-sized statements. I have seen and experienced this practice of sharing well-intended (but ultimately unhelpful) encouragement to single Christians. I like to refer to them as “fast food graces.” These are morsels of truth-like statements that fit into […]
In the days of Jim Crow law and custom mandated racial segregation, physical signs of separation included placards over drinking fountains, separate entrances at movie theaters, and train cars dedicated to one race or another. It took a costly movement for civil rights in the mid-twentieth century to bring down those barriers and allow racial […]
Overt expressions of White Supremacy engulfed Charlottesville this past weekend. The evil, hatred, and violence incited by White Supremacists resulted in a death and injuries of brave image-bearers opposing such hatred. Many Christians have rightly spoken out against these overt acts of White Supremacy. Those who willingly embrace a White Supremacist ideology might not necessarily […]
