The Color of Compromise is both enlightening and compelling, telling a history we either ignore or just don’t know. Equal parts painful and inspirational, it details how the American church has helped create and maintain racist ideas and practices. You will be guided in thinking through concrete solutions for improved race relations and a racially inclusive church.

Covid-19 will also have a casualty count among congregations. Which churches will survive into the 21st century and, frankly, which ones really shouldn’t? If loneliness is the number one form of suffering in the western world, surely the connections made in a faith community should be a major solution to that isolation.

What should Christians think about Donald Trump? His policies, his style, his personal life? Thirty evangelical Christians wrestle with these tough questions. They are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. They don’t all agree, but they seek to let Christ be the Lord of their political views.

A statement on why the Bible isn’t partisan but is inherently political.

A beloved nun and social activist offers a soul-stirring guide for all who feel disillusioned and dissatisfied with the power-hungry institutions and systems of this world

For generations, the Bible has been employed by settler colonial societies as a weapon to dispossess Indigenous and racialized peoples of their lands, cultures, and spiritualties.  Given this devastating legacy, many want nothing to do with it.  But is it possible for the exploited and their allies to reclaim the Bible from the dominant powers?

The figure of the Virgin Mary comes loaded with baggage and preconceptions. She is usually depicted as the perfect, obedient, and highly esteemed woman, much like the Victorian notion of the “”angel in the house.”” For many black women, nothing could be more inaccessible. This book considers the relationship between African American women and Mary of Nazareth.

I was 5 years old when a white spiritual leader called me the n-word. Hoping to expand our cultural horizons, my parents had enrolled my siblings and me in a Vacation Bible School (VBS) program at a predominantly white church in our San Francisco suburb.

In this volume of essays, I turn toward images of Christ on the cross. As I continue my exploration of the wholly holy female face of God, I ask a deeper question. What does God’s femaleness and blackness practically mean for my particular black female experience?

How did we get here? All over the world people are marching in the streets proclaiming, “Black lives matter.” Millions have defied the fear of the corona virus, and taken their lives into their hands to venture out into the streets to protest the systemic racism that permeates institutions all over this planet.

In response to the killing of George Floyd, the latest victim of racist violence against persons of color in the United States, Melanie DeMore, vocal activist and friend of URI, wrote on Facebook, “I feel the pain of loss deep in my bones. Another innocent lost…blatant brutality.” And then she sang the words of an African-American Gullah lullaby, “Somebody’s baby just killed someone else’s baby, leaving somebody’s baby, cryin’. When will it all end?”

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul said, “Everything is lawful, but not everything is beneficial.” This was toward the end of a letter in which he had urged the members of the church in Corinth to follow a higher law — to submit to the law of love. Later in the same letter, he said, “Don’t look for your own advantage, but look out for one another.”

I feel like we are being strangled, the life choked from us – disbelief, sorrow, fear, rage. Violence in the streets, jails, and cages at our border, targeting black and brown men, women, and children; a virus stalking us all, turning familiar comforts into threats.

Some people are highly devotional because it is scary having one’s paradigm shattered. This is to be exposed to the chaos of one’s own mind (the devil!). It is much easier to cling to the established artifacts of one’s own thinking then to fall into the pit of chaos. Most people would rather die than admit that the belief system/paradigm that they have carried most or all their life is wrong in spite of proof of error time and time again.

Houses of Worship all over the world are discerning how and when to open.

Dr. Rick Herrick’s work reconsiders foreign policy from the perspective of Christianity. It considers all the issues concerned with foreign policy through a religious frame of reference.

Dr. Rick Herrick’s work reconsiders foreign policy from the perspective of Christianity. It considers all the issues concerned with foreign policy through a religious frame of reference.

As long as we treat Biblical and political statements as distinct, we have given up the power of the divine message.