Fifty years ago, in 1974, the Combahee River Collective was founded in Boston by several lesbian and feminist women of African descent. As a sisterhood, they understood that their acts of protest were shouldered by and because of their ancestors—known and unknown—who came before them.
Today, the NAACP has an LGBTQIA Committee Chairperson, Demar Roberts from S. C., who works to protect and advance the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
‘This is evil. We condemn it in the name of Christ,’ writes LCMS President Matthew Harrison.
As our world faces the spectacle of Russia still harming civilians while it rampages through Ukraine, we re-visit our award-winning series, “The Power of Nonviolence”. The focus is to tell poignant stories about alternatives to military destruction and other violence, and to illustrate that there are more humane and saner ways to resolve conflict — a theme urgently needed now.
Three Theological Responses to Suffering
Revisioning ancient faith for the modern world is not an easy task. No simple answers exist. The process will be long, complicated, conflicted, and uncertain.
The time has come to recognize an inconvenient truth. Christianity for many has become a political ideology with no connection to the love and goodness that comes from God.
A little Episcopal church on Martha's Vineyard flipped the anti-immigrant scripts of Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis by embracing, with open doors
The Supreme Court has become a clear and present danger to us as well as certain provisions of the Constitution. We must mitigate them all now.
The recent death of “Engaged” Buddhist Thich Nhat Hahn has prompted new looks at his remarkable relationship with “prophetic” (proto-progressive?) Christians Martin Luther
How I wear my hair is my business. Ironically, the Commonwealth decided it is now legal for me to do so.
Who ever thought we would say this, but it seems to be the case that society could be collapsing before our very eyes. The common bond that forges a basis for unity is disintegrating, indicated and exemplified by the litany of headlines that continue to bombard us.
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.
Voting rights has been the central focus of the Democratic Party for the last month. Evangelical groups like the Family Research Council and the Faith and Freedom Coalition provide cover for Republican voter suppression efforts by arguing there is no biblical basis for supporting voter rights.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the evangelical church saved me in every way a person can be saved. They introduced me to Jesus. They became the family my childhood family could not be. They loved and affirmed me. They educated me. They gave me a vocation. And they gave me exceptional opportunities of service. Although I left the evangelical church years ago for a more progressive expression of faith, I’ve always appreciated the gifts they gave me.
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.
Smollett's hoax exploited black trauma. Smollett testified that his assailants were white because one purportedly shouted "MAGA country," then-President Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again," and both men put a noose around his neck.
When a predominately white jury found the McMichaels and Bryan guilty of felony murder among other charges in the Ahmaud Arbery case, many assumed justice was served compared to the Rittenhouse verdict. The juxtaposition of images of the two trial cases conjured hope for change in our two justice systems: Rittenhouse went home, while the McMichaels and Bryan went back to jail.
Bean was the first black openly gay gospel singer to join Motown. However, his time at Motown was short-lived when he refused to croon heterosexual love songs. Bean eventually left Motown in the 1980s, abandoning his singing career.
The least of the Olympics' concerns should be that of swim caps for black hair. However, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) of the IOC said the design of the swim caps does not fit "the natural form of the head," a statement eerily reminiscent of the Eugenics Movement propaganda to substantiate both black anatomical and intellectual inferiority.
To those affected by the discovery of mass graves of First Nations' children In Canada.
This July 4th, America will celebrate 245 years of independence from British rule. However, when President Joe Biden signed into law Juneteenth as a federal holiday, it forces Americans to take a sterner look at what this July 4th means.
Over the weekend, the second annual Trans Resistance March (TRM) and Rally took place. Noticeably missing, guiding and participating in the march from Nubian Square in Roxbury to Franklin Park Playstead, was the presence of police and law enforcement. Numerous chants were heard along the route from marchers, revelers, and onlookers, bringing attention to many of the issues the black transgender community confront specifically. One chant was, "No racist police!"
The struggle for Black Tulsan survivors and their descendants to receive reparations has been a century-old controversy, one that is a pox on this country's unwillingness to redress the human rights violation and the generational loss of accumulated wealth.
Very little of the 19th century theology and practice, designed precisely for coexisting comfortably with slavery and segregation, has been reformed. From colonial America on, white Christians have literally built - architecturally, culturally and theologically - white supremacy into an American Christianity that held an a priori commitment to slavery and segregation.
Deep-rooted, systemic racism and other forms of exclusivity, potential reparations, and related issues are complex and will take strong yet peaceful activism, advocacy, and commitment to satisfactorily address.
Thoughts & Dreams on the Nightmare in Atlanta
Is Mr. Long, the monster who brought suffering and sorrow to Atlanta, simply the product of a racist, misogynistic socio-political environment; the victim of mental illness, the prisoner of a defective personal genome he has no control over?
For Queer folks in the Christian world, experiencing hate, bigotry, and theological oppression is nothing new. In many cases we dwell in a space that is brimming with silence from half allies while simultaneously teaming with fodder from traditional elitists.
Most of us have gone quietly on saying how terrible it is and doing nothing. We (I) am all too comfortable in our (my) innocence and ignorance of the grim reality of the life of those oppressed. But the move is on. The age of innocence is over.
The one thing I never imagined was that fascism could come to the United States. Unfortunately, the myth of American exceptionalism has been totally discredited. Fascism came close to coming to our shores during the last four years. Let’s hope that we as a society can take the steps necessary to see that such a threat never happens again.
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?