A space where we can learn about white supremacy and the church together
Join me in June for Duke Divinity's 'Summer Institute for Reconciliation' to learn together how we can subvert the currents of racial hierarchy and racism that permeate our lives.read more
View ArticleEthics
At the Altar of Wall Street: The Rituals, Myths, Theologies, Sacraments, and Mission of the Religion Known as the Modern Global Economy, by Scott W. Gustafson. Money has become a kind of god and our...
View ArticleReckoning with racism
Why does the church participate in modern-day lynching, or at most turn a blind eye, rather than protesting as our faith would dictate?read more
View ArticleTransformed by Spirit-Chi
The Spirit’s loving, life-giving, transformative power—Divine Eros—connects us, moves within us, and can heal the wounds of our division.read more
View ArticleSpiritual striving for American identity
The question of American identity has historically been both complex and contested. What’s more, it often yields mythic notions rooted in exceptionalist dogmas like election, commission, moral...
View ArticleHow old is racism?
Many will look at the tribal and ethnic tensions that exist all around the world as a problem as old as human civilization. Isn’t this a strong argument for the reality that the racism that was...
View ArticleSeeing whiteness
I used to lead activities like the "Privilege Walk" and "Cross the Line." I couldn't shake the feeling that they were not taking us very far.read more
View ArticleA time for empathy, a time for history
On Sunday, after a tragic week of race-related killings in Dallas, Minneapolis, and Baton Rouge, I took a seat in my white evangelical middle-class megachurch in central Pennsylvania. I didn’t know...
View ArticleThe power of small sins
Far from being meaningless slights with minimal harm, microagressions intrude on the spiritual lives of those who are already marginalized and oppressed.read more
View ArticleNeed to confess
The whole church needs to encounter the courage and truthfulness of the fact that God created us good, to love and be loved.read more
View ArticleI, too, am America
I was born in California. One side of my family immigrated to the United States in the early 17th century. The other side of my family arrived on tightly packed ships filled with misery and tears. We...
View ArticleWhite supremacy in American Christianity
Christianity isn’t inherently white supremacist. But Christian faith in America has been interpreted in a way that upholds the tenets of white supremacy, which is built on 18th and 19th century Western...
View ArticleStructural sin and resistant knowledge
“White privilege is your history being taught as a core class and mine being taught as an elective,” wrote a tumblr user in February of 2014. The post, which went viral, highlights the point that sin...
View ArticlePeyote and the racialized war on drugs
A summer of racial unrest throughout the country has led to calls in the presidential campaign to “restore law and order.” It’s the same line used by Richard Nixon in 1968 to appeal to white...
View ArticleLearning to be wrong
I was working with a group on racial reconciliation, and I felt frustrated. I mostly listened, but then every time I spoke, the words coming out of my mouth were all wrong. And I’m a type-A, liberal,...
View ArticleCharleston Syllabus, edited by Chad Williams, Kidada E. Williams, and Keisha...
When Dylann Roof murdered the Charleston nine at a Bible study in June 2015, his intent was “to start a race war.” He didn’t succeed.read more
View ArticleRace on the ballot—again
In 1900, W.E.B. Du Bois named the color line as the problem of the 20th century. The color line, which still persists, is on trial this presidential election.While Donald Trump polls low among black...
View ArticleUlysses S. Grant’s fight against voter suppression
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University stated earlier this month that “14 states will have new voting restrictions in place for the first time in a presidential election.” Enacted by...
View ArticleBalance the scales
We can no longer pretend that the scales of justice in America are fair and balanced.read more
View ArticleNeighborhoods real and imagined
Ideas about the ghetto matter. They always have.read more
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