Opinion
People dining amid the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease, in Austin, Texas, June 28, 2020. REUTERS/Sergio Flores/File Photo
As a shooting survivor who works to educate people about gun violence and advocate for gun reform in the United States, I have spent years trying to convince people that it is worth making personal sacrifices for the sake of the collective good. That’s how I knew that if surviving this pandemic was riding on the event that people would willingly choose to give up a small amount of personal freedom to protect someone else, we were already in a losing battle.
Every nonfiction book is personal, often arising from some faint but persistent insight, a kernel of awareness that blossoms into a story that demands to be told. White Too Long began with a growing consciousness of the abiding presence of white supremacy within the faith we white Christians have inherited and live within.
People hold a sign during a demonstration against police violence and racial inequality in Chicago. July 24, 2020. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
What remains for all who’ve hit rock bottom is the long road to healing.
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) waits in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda to enter memorial services for Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) as a group in Washington, Oct. 24, 2019. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Pool via Reuters/File Photo
I spent many hours just looking at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The words that kept coming to me were “courage” and “gratitude,” and the question that surfaced was: What bridge we will now have to cross?
Pollster Robert P. Jones speaks with Rev. Jim Wallis about how white American Christianity and white supremacy collaborate throughout our nation's history.
Demonstrators gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, July 8, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The Supreme Court recently issued a ruling that stripped the protections of anti-discrimination laws from thousands of teachers at religiously affiliated schools.
C.T. Vivian at The Summit for Change in 2015 in Washington, D.C. PHOTO: JP Keenan / Sojourners
While researching C.T. Vivian’s life, I had the honor of sitting with Vivian for hours, hearing about his life and work. “This was truly a religious experience,” he said. “People need to know that.”
I spent a year collecting ethnographic data in a predominantly white, conservative, Christian K-12 school. It troubled me that my tax dollars were being used to support the kinds of teaching and discriminatory admissions practices I witnessed.
Dr. Eddie Glaude speaks with Rev. Jim Wallis about the need for a profound change in America that he calls the "The Third Founding."
Social distancing dividers for students are seen in a classroom at St. Benedict School, amid the outbreak of COVID-19, in Montebello, near Los Angeles, July 14, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Families are anxious to hear whether, when, and how schools will reopen. They can’t. And it’s because of a failure of leadership.
I worry my children will be stunted by the solitary nature of our lives. Like how a tree during a hard season slows its growth, a ring for a year of strain nothing more than a thin encasement, the depth of skin. We’ve spent months in isolation, only briefly in the midst of others, but never close enough to touch.
A Palestinian woman takes pictures of her friend posing in front of the Israeli barrier with a mural depicting Iyad al-Halaq, an unarmed and autistic Palestinian who was shot dead by Israeli police, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank June 18, 2020. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
The tangled web of some U.S. and international evangelical and Pentecostal leaders blessing Israel’s expansionist ambitions toward the West Bank and more has a long and complicated history. President Trump has wrapped his political arms around those religious allies today in a craven attempt to preserve his evangelical base. But other Christians – including many prominent evangelicals – have consistently refused to condone Israeli occupation of Palestinian land as a supposedly “biblically sanctioned” real estate plan.
Living an embodied faith asserts meaning upon our bodies both as individuals, and in relationship to one another. This means that the places our non-white bodies inhabit tell a story in itself, just as God enfleshed “entered our lives, calling us from the tomb in which society has sought to confine us.” The shared space of believers living out the Christian faith in diverse, multi-ethnic communities is a witness to our world of the power of Jesus Christ.
Rev. John Ortberg Jr. preaching in 2019. Via Youtube.
Menlo Church pastor John Ortberg Jr. knew his son was attracted to children and failed to restrict his access.
FILE PHOTO: A general view picture shows a section of Itamar in the Israeli-occupied West Bank June 15, 2020. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The government of Israel could soon begin formally annexing a significant portion of the West Bank. As the leader of an ecumenical and nonpartisan organization focused on advocating for a just and lasting end to the conflict in Israel-Palestine, I am deeply worried annexation will entrench inequalities and abuses of Palestinian human rights.
Although more politically conservative and evangelical voices are joining in the #BLM chants of “No Justice, No Peace,” there are undoubtedly shaky voices and (perhaps hostile) minds who hold that while black lives do matter “in theory,” radical institutional change is far too dangerous and subversive, if not completely un-American.
People gather around a monument of Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Va., June 10, 2020. REUTERS/Julia Rendleman
Let’s be very clear: Tearing down symbols is not enough. Changing statues can never substitute changing policies and practices based on skin color and that still undergird this country’s systematic racism. But symbols do send clear messages about personal and national memory and about future possibilities.
"If you have people straining to live under the weight of a system that seeks to constantly dehumanize, then it doesn't matter how much training the police will get."
Photo by Ben Neale on Unsplash
Before I learned my town’s true history, I cared about racial justice.