Whether you identify as a Christian, a follower of Jesus, or something else, one thing is overwhelmingly clear. The world desperately needs positive examples of authentic Christian living.

When they sang together, you could hear the harmony that should define this country’s relationships across race.

The context for this article is the proposed new curriculum for the instruction of students on African American history.  Outrage over the proposal is mounting every day. 

Vice President Kamala Harris has been in office since 2020. Harris struggles to carve out a lane for herself, and she feels the weight of being the first Black and Asian American to be the nation's V.P. However, with an approval rating no higher than 39 percent from multiple polls, can Harris convince the American public for a second term?

Abraham Lincoln was a progressive Christian. While being raised in a small fundamentalist Baptist church, Lincoln rejected the Christianity of his parents.

Auburn gathered individual groups of Black, Latinx, and White leaders of faith and moral courage to discuss what it means to belong to each other in a profoundly divided world.

Smith may have thought he was defending Jada's honor, but rather, he desecrated his intentions with his violence. Moreover,  to believe Jada could not defend herself is part and parcel of heteropatriarchy. Violence is merely one of its components. 

How I wear my hair is my business. Ironically, the Commonwealth decided it is now legal for me to do so.

Maybe my evangelical kin — who believed themselves to be reformers of lukewarm or dead faith — wouldn’t have welcomed a real Reformer in their midst. Because they were already right. They didn’t need reform. They certainly wouldn’t have embraced anyone who challenged their worship, theology, or leaders.

Antisemitism should be tied to other hate crimes, like racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, to name a few, but understood as having a distinct history and motivations. Holocaust Remembrance Day reminds us of the history.

How should people honor Martin Luther King on this year’s observance of his holiday on January 17th? It depends. As of this writing there is no clear assurance of the passage of two Voting Right Acts both stalled in that profoundly and structurally undemocratic institution, the U.S. Senate.

"bell hooks has always been the truth. Now perhaps more than ever, it's paramount that we lean into her work. On this day of her passing, let us celebrate the rich published legacy she leaves behind."

This week is Canada Day and July 4, two celebrations of national life in North America. Both holidays are particularly complicated - even painful - this year as citizens in both Canada and the United States struggle with legacies of colonialism and racism in history and our political lives.

Since it is impossible to say with 100% accuracy what the man from Nazareth looked like, we all need to seriously question our own perception. Who is the Jesus we accept, or reject? Are we open to thinking new thoughts, or are we captivated by the past?

The struggle to get president-elect Joe Biden to the finish line first with 270 electoral college votes was unquestionably an epic battle. However, Joe's battle wasn't a century-long one like women finally winning the right to vote in 1920 with the 19th Amendment, hoping a female would one day be elected to one the highest offices in government.

Be part of the change our country needs by voting to protect the rights of all.

With a group of extended family members, all white, I’m in a book study group focused on “Me and White Racism” by Layla Saad. Together we’re reflecting on the ways we are personally implicated. It’s not a wallow in white guilt, but rather a bracing, clarifying look at what is, so that we can begin to see what could be.

  Religion News Service was quick to point out that Kamala Harris, the newly selected Democratic vice-presidential candidate, is both bi-racial and bi-religious: Harris,

When I told Ambassador Young of my Laurinburg experience, he smiled and said: “You know, Rick, the problem of systemic racism in this country is not all that difficult to understand. As your Laurinburg example tells us, the cause is primarily economic. When white folks have good jobs, they make good neighbors. When they are unemployed and scared or underemployed and resentful, there are problems.”

  "This is the Day that the Lord has Made" In May 2020, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, Joe Biden committed to adding a

Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.

Violence against people of color. Violence against women. Authoritarian and confused reaction to a pandemic. A fundamentalist distortion of Christianity. And controlling influence by the rich and powerful.

In Remembrance: Growing up the son of an Alabama sharecropper, John Lewis practiced preaching to the chickens; from whence he clearly developed his oratorical style. He matured and went on to devote a lifetime of service as the “conscience” of the Congress; often preaching, as it were, to a flock of chickens of another sort. But this time with a calmer, constant, steady and unwavering voice.

Whenever we are engaging difficult issues in a complex and multicultural world, vocabulary and language can either help us understand one another — even in our disagreement — or fail us, and add to misunderstandings. When it comes to the issue of “re-imagining” policing or “defunding” police forces, language is failing us.

I’ve been feeling somewhat discouraged lately, as I guess we all have. Every day, it seems, more bad climate news slaps us in the face. Add to that the covid pandemic, unrecognized by Trump and disregarded by his followers, and racial injustice, not unrecognized but rather played upon by Trump and his sycophants.

This Fourth of July, Americans are being forced to see the nation's celebration for independence differently. The combination of the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately affected Black Americans, and the ongoing protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd have brought attention to this nation's centuries-old history of anti-Black violence. 

On April 16, 1963, while sitting inside a jail cell after being arrested for protesting and demonstrating peacefully in Birmingham Alabama, King wrote a response  to eight white Alabama clergymen. The eight clergymen wrote a letter criticizing his presence in Birmingham and the aggressive approach to securing civil rights for black people in the state of Alabama.

The cries of ”I can't breathe" have apparently awakened America to much needed new conversations on race.  As the national outpouring of support for Black Lives Matter has gone global, perhaps, indeed, a new movement is afoot in our country.  Whatever is happening, it boils over with passion.  

June is Pride Month for LGBTQ+ communities across the country. And while COVID-19 and social distancing guidelines have forced Pride to go virtual this year, our struggle and triumph will not go uncelebrated.

In the space of a month, once again we have witnessed here in the US the murder of black people by white people, both civilian and uniformed, and we have witnessed the instant and total poverty of a major segment of our population. The two are not unrelated.