I have received a number of emails and seen a lot written about Obama’s decision not to send his girls to DC public schools.  People are saying he has thrown the urban public school system under the bus and betrayed the inner-city kids whose parents can’t afford to pay $30K/year in tuition for a private school. I can understand why people would want Obama’s daughters in their schools or school system, but I think that any critique of Obama or... Read more

I’ve received numerous emails from MoveOn.org, the Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and other organizations urging us to capture this moment by making good on the initiatives we have all hoped for, and this is no doubt important work. As a Christian, though, I wonder if maybe this is a time to step back and consider not what our favorite political group would have us do right now, but what God would have us do. (more…) Read more

The leaders of the Religious Left are so often troubled by the moniker "left" that they use language like this. Not left, not right, not center. A brand new paradigm will be created where people come together to honor life, raise the minimum wage, provide health care to all, and save the environment… Unfortunately, this does not happen.   (more…) Read more

Ignore the religious vote.  This thinking has been the conventional wisdom of the Democratic Party for decades; we cannot win religious voters so there is no point wasting the time and money trying to do so.  As a result, we restricted ourselves to an electoral map that resembled a sea of red washing up against narrow blue landmasses to the east and west.  Nevermind that Democrats only had control of the White House for three terms since 1968 until the... Read more

My grandmother had been born only thirteen years after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution had been passed. Her parents had been slaves and she had worked hard all of her life and at age fifty-three she took on the task of raising me. When I was twelve years old, I asked her did she think that a black man could be President of the United States. She replied, "Not in my lifetime baby but it might happen... Read more

On many issues in this election, Christian voters took different positions. In a political climate often filled with animosity, we are both winners and losers. Yet the outcome of this election should not prevent us from coming together along our shared values in support of our president and our leaders.   (more…) Read more

For America…whose self-inflicted wounds of racism and bigotry run so deeply…such a moment in history begs us to have unyielding hope. It asks us struggle with one another in rigorous honesty…for me to be rigorously honest with myself.   (more…) Read more

When I was a little girl, I can remember having to escape the burning homes in neighborhoods on the West side of Chicago because of anger that ensued over the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther king, Jr. Our family became exiles because we had to leave our home in the middle of the night to find safety and security. My dad drove us back to his home town of Anniston, Alabama so we could be safe. I can remember leaving... Read more

Sorry Mr. Schmidt, I didn’t vote for John McCain.  For a generation it worked like a charm.  Since Reagan, the Republicans could count on us White Evangelicals to come out to the polls organized and committed.  In 2000, I wasn’t old enough to vote, but it looked like we had gotten one of our own through the tough primaries and then on into the White House.  In 2004 White Evangelicals repeated another close victory propelling another 4 years of George... Read more