When the 2015 Urbana Missions Conference tackled race head-on last December, it seemed that the evangelical Christian community could finally say “Black Lives Matter” without hedging. Some dug through Urbana’s archives to find one of evangelicalism’s best preachers breaking down the American church’s history with systemic injustice and making the case for people of faith […]
From Jobs to Dreams
August 28 marked the 52nd anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Each time the anniversary rolls around, I notice how little we collectively remember the specific, concrete ideas about education, employment, housing, voting, and public accommodations (the right to be served without discrimination in public businesses and government services) […]
The Movement Moment: Change, Denial, and the Fall of Empire
A director at one of the organizations I support recently asked me what I thought “the movement moment” was. What’s the spirit of this time? What’s rising up? The movement, I said, is life. The system demands we assimilate, and teaches us resistance is futile. The movement is not about the right to assimilate. The system calls […]
Get Lit: Pro-Literacy Poetry
“The greatest lessons you will ever teach us will not come from your syllabus. The greatest lessons you will ever teach us, you will not even remember… “There are things missing from our history books. But we were taught that it was better to be silent than to make Them uncomfortable.” —The Get Lit Players, […]
Flying Pigs and Other Adventist Miracles
Earlier this year I wrote about my denomination’s long track record of taking no action during critical human rights cases. So this week has stunned me twice over. The first shock came after the non-indictment of NY police officer Daniel Pantaleo for the death of Eric Garner. As Garner’s mother Gwen Carr said at a […]
A Few Words on World Vision USA
“The quest for doctrinal purity & the exclusion it necessarily brings about is the very definition of missing the point.” —Carla Jo, 3/27/2014 There’s been a lot of e-ink given over to World Vision USA this week. I’ve had no personal dealings with this organization, though I’ve known of the work other World Vision branches […]
