What Pulls At Your Heart

Column by Rev. Deshna Charron Shine on January, 28 2021

My church was my extended family. And in my years of searching, I have yet to find a church like it, although I am sure they are out there.  So, why did I feel like, at 29 years old, that I was done with Christianity?

At Cross Purposes

Column by Rev. David M. Felten on January, 21 2021

As one who’s had to endure a career in a denomination whose global trademark is a burning cross, it once again raised the question in my mind of how the cross, burning or otherwise, had become a symbol of hate and White Supremacy.

Where Do We Go from Here, Redux

Column by Rev. Irene Monroe on December, 31 2020

The year 2020 has been a stressful one. With George Floyd’s death as an inflection point about race and racism in America, an unprecedented presidential election, and social unrest during an ongoing pandemic with a rising death toll, something is deeply broken in America’s body politic. 

A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part III

Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on November, 19 2020

Too many whites argue that slavery is a thing of the past for which present day whites are not responsible. In the previous two essays, I tried to debunk that myth. It is the cause of so much pain today for black and white Americans.

Racism – How Did We Get Here

Column by Rev. Dr. Velda Love on October, 15 2020

The documentary Africa’s Great Civilizations is an in-depth study of the world’s first humans, the cradle of civilization, and the birthplace of the Christian religion. Episode one begins a journey through anthropological and scientific discoveries where viewers learn that Africa is the genetic home of all currently living humanity.

A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part 2

Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on September, 17 2020

When I write as a white man about calling for reparations, this is the source and origin of the damages for  which we bear responsibility and for which we seek repair. The question I want to ask in this essay is this: how far removed from that source are we. Is it a distant relic of the past from which we are now utterly disconnected

When Everything Becomes Sacred

Column by Rev. Lauren Van Ham on September, 10 2020

We could describe the pain we’re in right now as the colonial anesthesia wearing off.  In epic fashion, events of the past many months have connected all the threads of the story: white supremacy and racism, detention centers and prisons, militarism and policing, the wealth of a few at the expense of  essential workers, broken healthcare, hurricanes, derechos, and wildfires, and certainly others.

So… if we care, what do we say?

Column by Brian McLaren on September, 3 2020

Recently, I received an email from a reader who asked, “Hi Brian. I would love to know your thoughts on speaking with close family members who are active or retired police officers during this time. I’m seeing so many black activists and white allies calling for the police force to be defunded and dismantled.

A White Man Makes the Case for Reparations, Part 1

Column by Rev. Dr. John Dorhauer on August, 13 2020

Of all the things white allies were willing to activate for, through decades of civil rights movements, reparations were the one thing that even the most committed white leaders have avoided talking about, much less fully committing to.

The “Good Trouble” of John Lewis

Column by Rev. Irene Monroe on August, 6 2020

John Lewis, the ‘conscience of Congress’, preached a lived theology and activism of “good trouble.” Good trouble was the work of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and it was an expression of Lewis’s faith. The immediacy of his “good trouble” was heard in his jeremiads, inviting all to action. “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” Lewis repeatedly said throughout his lifetime.