You know, my brothers and sisters in Christ, I have heard you say for years, for decades really, that you are trying to find a way to get people to listen to the message of the Gospel. I have listened to your plans to distribute literature, to film movies, to set up websites, to buy a Gospel Blimp (a book you should read, by the way). Constantly we ask ourselves, “How do we make the Gospel relevant? How do we get people to listen to the sweet story of Jesus and his love for us?” I need to tell you something: right now, the world is listening to you to…

I want to share more about someone who was killed this week in Charleston. TyWanza Sanders. He was 26, a graduate from college, and a young man on the cusp of life. He was at the Bible study / prayer service with his aunt, Suzie Jackson, who was 87. When that white terrorist stood up to shoot and kill black people, he stood up, too – to protect his aunt. The killer shot him dead, and then shot his aunt dead. He didn’t hesitate to give up his life to protect his family. He showed sacrificial love, and he did so without an audience. His Facebook page says this: “Your…

I have to tell us white people some very difficult truths about America. First of all, black Africans have been here as long as white Europeans. This is true. Look it up. And watch the news. They are as much a part of American history and the American experience and American values as we whites from Europe. We took them from their homes in Africa, and through cruel mistreatment and removal of their languages and learning, and through enslavement and direct suppression of education and opportunity and worth, we stripped them of their identity as either Africans or as Americans. This is true. Look it up. And watch the news.…

Say their names.Clementa Pinckney, 41.Pastor of the church.Shot dead.He was a state senator, a leader in the community.Nine people were shot and killed in his church.Say their names. Say their names.Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45.Reverend, coach, mother.Shot dead.She was the mother of three children attending a prayer meeting.Nine people were shot and killed in her church.Say their names. Say their names.Cynthia Hurd, 54.Librarian, community servant, volunteer.Shot dead.She was the person who encouraged her community to try harder, achieve more, be better.Nine people were shot and killed in her church.Say their names. Say their names.TyWanza Sanders, 26.Student, friend, giverShot dead.He tried to save the life of a family member in the church by…

#KaliefBrowder This man was a human being, a child loved by his parents, a man who had three years of his life taken away, a person of worth because he was like all of us, human. He was locked up at sixteen for a crime he didn’t commit, stuck in jail awaiting a trial that never came, put in solitary for two of the three years he was at Riker’s Island in New York. An innocent child enduring the harsh punishment we think worthy of a guilty man. He committed suicide June 3, 2015, because . . . well, for reasons we’ll never fully know, but the abuse of imprisonment…

The problem with the recent issues with some Christian business owners’ refusals to serve gay couples is this: they’re going after the small stuff, the stuff that’s not really emphasized in the Bible, the stuff that’s just the background noise for the bigger stuff. Don’t like gay couples marrying? Fine, I understand. You don’t like gay couples in general. I get that. But why are you turning your eyes from the really big problems, the ones that the Bible explicitly condemns? Why are you so eager to serve the rich who abuse the poor, the greedy who steal from the weak, the powerful who beat down the lives of the…

Short answer: why are you asking me? You can figure it out yourself. Long answer: well, let’s put it this way . . . I was not raised a Christian. I was raised in a house that had inherited Christianity. We had Christmas trees and Santa Claus. We went to church, occasionally, and my parents participated in church activities, mostly before my birth and then in my early childhood. By the time I became old enough to think things through, my parents were no longer active church-goers, but my dad (bless his heart) would get up Sunday to drive me to church and drop me off because I wanted to…

Let’s suppose Christians were a despised minority in America. Let’s suppose they were arrested at rates far higher than other religious believers, or even non-believers. Let’s suppose they were charged with crimes at far higher rates even though their actual behavior was right in line with all other groups. Let’s suppose they were far more likely to be in jail and prison, that their sentences were far longer, that their commutations rates were far lower. Let’s suppose they were far more likely to be killed by the state through legal execution. Let’s suppose that they were far, far more likely to be shot or killed by the police, whether they…

Love of Money, Love of Power Originally published May 23, 2015 Scripture says that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” I think we can amend that today to “the love of power is the root of all evil.” Christians today (I speak as a Christian here mostly to Christians) have a terrible temptation in America to use the power of the government to compel some actions and forbid others. We gained great political power by aligning with the Republican Party. We’ve managed to re-criminalize abortion after 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision. We’ve managed to destroy the social safety net at the state and federal level. We’ve…

To summarize: ‪#‎JoshDuggar sexually molested his sisters (many, and many times), and it’s called “youthful indiscretion,” and at least one prominent Christian politician running for President (Huckabee) is standing by him. Travyon Martin was shot while walking home, and he’s called a “thug.” Michael Brown was shot while walking home, and he’s called a “thug.” Freddie Gray was killed in the custody of the police, and he’s called a “thug.” Tamir Rice was shot by the police while playing in the part, and he’s called a “menace” and a “disruption.” John Crawford was shot by store security while minding his own business, and he’s called a “threat.” Eric Garner was…

I had a discussion recently with a friend over whether certain Constitutional statements had the same meaning when written/enacted as they do today. The first answer we want to say is “of course the meaning of Constitutional statements is exactly the same as in 1787.” We don’t want the applications of Constitutional guarantees to change, because the Constitution is fixed. The only way to change the Constitution is through the amendment process (28 times so far, once to fix a major mistaken amendment, others to enact new rights or to amend earlier amendments) or through an Article V convention (a method so rare as to have never yet been done).…

Monty today talked from Isaiah 58, the great passage about God’s heart for social justice: “Is not this the fast that I choose:to loose the bonds of wickedness,to undo the straps of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free,and to break every yoke?Is it not to share your bread with the hungryand bring the homeless poor into your house;when you see the naked, to cover him,and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,and your healing shall spring up speedily;your righteousness shall go before you;the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard.Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;you shall…

The biblical illiteracy in America is astonishing. Nowhere in the Christian scriptures, dogmas, teachings, or the example of Jesus do we find a directive to make non-Christians obey the peculiar religious instructions of a Christian denomination. (And by “peculiar” I am echoing the words from the book of 1 Peter, of course.) No one can speak for all Christians in saying that “Christians believe that a certain behavior is required of all people, Christian or not.” These demands are made as if a spokesperson represents all Christians, or all members of a denomination, or even all members of a certain church, but it is a completely false statement. The best…

I just preordered this book “Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062268678 Two things about this fascinate me:1) The movement to close down whites-only public schools rather than integrate them in the 50s and 60s came from conservative white Christians who would rather harm themselves, their children, and their society rather than admit that their prejudices were wrong.2) There is a similar movement today to close down public marriage licenses rather than allow same-sex couples to get marriage licenses, a movement again coming from white Christian conservatives. There is a pattern here among my own tribe of Christians that we…

50 years ago tonight Malcolm X was shot to death. He was both opposed and dismissed by many, perhaps loved and admired by some, but in all that, he was a voice of a man speaking up for himself. I read his autobiography a few years ago, and while I had to return to the 50s and 60s to understand his world, the book did bring back to mind what it was like to live in that America where there was a complacent ruling class and a voiceless, powerless underclass. He said some awful, violent things, no more violent nor awful than his opponents said about him and those like…

We none of us are Pharisees, you know. We read the text of the New Testament and we are both entertained and appalled at the rigid self-righteousness of the Pharisees, their comical inability to see the wisdom and truth of the sayings of Our Lord, their unbelievable lack of self-awareness about their status in the eyes of each other, in their own eyes, and in the eyes of Our Lord. We laugh at how easily they are consumed with righteous anger at the smallest and most trivial of things such as seeds and sand and salt. How could anyone not get the point, that when Jesus is with us it…

Recently someone (a graduate of the University of Virginia) wrote elsewhere that white privilege is a myth, and that as a white male he was certainly not privileged in his lifestyle. He wrote this before the events in Ferguson which occurred after the grand jury failed to indict Officer Wilson, but recent events apparently have not changed his mind. I do not know what kind of history is taught at the University of Virginia, but it is an incompetent one if it fails to teach a history of America that includes the experiences of Black Americans, specifically the experience of capture, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and even the continuing de…

Bad cops killing unarmed civilians do not invalidate all police officers or even the necessity of a police force. We hope they are not common, and we hope that the good cops would speak up about bad cops and work to eject those bad cops from the police force. A deranged man who tried to kill his girlfriend, killed two cops, and then killed himself is no more representative of all men everywhere than bad cops are of all cops. The difference seems to be that the vast, vast majority of people who are protesting bad cops are also vehemently denouncing anyone killing cops. We’d still like to see the…

We ‪#‎tortured people who did not crash planes into the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. We tortured people who were later declared innocent. We tortured people who died from the torture. We tortured people who were our allies and working for us. We tortured people who had no charges filed. We tortured people with the made-up reason of “we might get information.” We tortured people because we were angry, and fearful, and needed to lash out to punish someone, anyone, everyone who looked guilty—and a lot of people looked guilty to us. They had strange names. They had a strange religion. They had strange skin and strange tongues and strange…