black lives matter

Call their names. Tell their stories. Confess our role.

It got stolen, and I got scared.

The next Reformation is about interpretation, but not of a book.

“At any given moment, I may need to be a psychologist, centurion, street lawyer, or soothsayer.”

Today's laborers are more likely cleaning toilets than mining coal. But there's still a need to organize.

In 1900, W.E.B. Du Bois named the color line as the problem of the 20^th century. The color line, which still persists, is on trial this presidential election.

While Donald Trump polls low among black voters, these numbers have improved slightly. 

In ministry here in Harrisburg, in the past five years our congregation has lost eight sons—all murdered in cold blood. Gun violence is a national nightmare, experienced locally and felt personally by so many of us. It should be a Civil Rights issue of our day.

We believe Black Lives Matter. Scripture speaks of the infinite worth of ALL of humanity (Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 9:6), and the Triune God distinctly created us with intentionality and purpose. God loves us in our DIFFERENCES and reveals that the Body will only find true unity in this midst of seeking the purpose of our divinely composed diversity (Revelation 5:9; Revelation 14:6). The holy writ portrays a  sovereign God as caught up in the scandal of particularity moving through the lives of the powerless from the election of Abraham, Moses, and the Hebrews out of Egypt to their Gentile neighbors in ancient Syria, Ethiopia, Persia, Egypt, and Palestine (Amos 9:7).

“Make America Safe Again,” said the signs and speakers on the first night of the Republican National Convention. The desire to feel and be safe crosses political boundaries; it informs a litany of human actions. Yet the very concept seems unexamined. What makes for safety? Is it the same as feeling safe? Is it the same as comfort?

The president’s speech in Dallas this week was an excellent performance of a difficult task. There was just one point where I thought he missed it.

This summer, I worked with the good people of UNCO to start a publishing company. We published our first book, Faithful Resistance, by Rick Ufford-Chase. In it, Rick brings together a chorus of voices. In this midst of the shattering violence of this week, I want to introduce you to one of those voices, in particular. Annanda Barclay writes about why Black Lives Matter.

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 regeneracy, sacred land, and innocent past.

Embedded in religious American exceptionalism is the American Dream: if an individual works hard, perseveres, and is a good citizen, there is no limit to how far she can advance. 

Why does the church participate in modern-day lynching, or at most turn a blind eye, rather than protesting as our faith would dictate?

In 1911, Afro-Caribbean intellectual activist Hubert Harrison wrote in the New York Call that “politically the Negro is the touchstone of the modern democratic idea.”

This touchstone metaphor is both startling and profound. 

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.

BLM is writing a new chapter in the history of black people's struggle for full equality. What are the implications for churches?

The young people leading this movement have heard enough about Martin Luther King's dream. It is not enough for church leaders to reply that they don't know much history.

Black people can eat at most lunch counters and travel across state lines without being consigned to the back of the bus. But the fundamental right to life continues to be haunted by white supremacy.

White Christians have to decide: will we show up and act for racial transformation, or will we sit idly by? But BLM isn't waiting to see what our verdict will be.

The BLM movement has issued a clarion call to the church, the black church in particular, to affirm a theology of resistance, not respectability. This means reckoning with who Jesus is.