by C J RhodesR3 Contributor*This first appeared on the C J Rhodes blogOn January 15 Martin Luther King Jr would have turned 85 years old. This coming Monday our nation will pause, as it does every third Monday in January, to remember through word and deed (though mostly word) King’s transformative life and leadership. Or at least we will remember the parts that suit our particular and parochial political visions and philosophical worldviews. Indeed King was a civil rights leader,... Read more

An article in the New York Times last week tallied up the number of times President Obama has attended church while in office: more than Reagan, less than Bush, and when it comes to all presidents, probably somewhere in between. The piece sought to make a broader point about the president’s religiosity based on these rough metrics–but that equation misses a lot else in the process. So I thought it might be illuminating to provide just a glimmer of Obama’s faith, a few moments... Read more

When I was in seminary, one of my best friends came up with a brilliant theological … pick up line: “Hey, baby. What’s your hermeneutic?”Despite the genius of that question, we soon discovered that anytime you start a pick up line with “Hey, baby” you’re in some trouble.But it’s such a great question. Think of all the relationships that would have avoided painful break ups if they just defined the relationship in the beginning by answering the question “What’s your hermeneutic?... Read more

I recently came across a few statistics about black women and religion that weren’t surprising, but certainly can have surprising implications. According to one poll, Black women make up the most religious group in the U.S. This is no revelation—one can rarely see a movie about “black life” that doesn’t feature some sort of “Come to Jesus moment” or a climactic scene scored with a moving gospel tune. Another study found that 55% of black women say that they view... Read more

The first piece of writing I ever published was called “Christianity and Humanism.” All my life I’ve been interested in undoing any separation between everyday life and religion. For thirteen years, starting when I was thirteen, I lived a monastic style of life in the Catholic Servite Order, and since leaving there in my mid-twenties I’ve tried to have a mark of monasticism on my lifestyle. I tend to be contemplative and visionary, and I live a fairly simple life... Read more

New research from psychologists from the New York University suggests that the desire to feel unique can undermine consensus, cohesion, and mobilization—at least in political contexts. My hunch is that this may extend to religious contexts as well. Chadly Stern and colleagues reported in the journal Psychological Science in November 2103 on the findings of a study on “truly false uniqueness” and “truly false consensus” among political liberals, moderates, and conservatives. The study looked at two things. First, the researchers considered the... Read more

Spirituality is a big story in politics. Maybe as big a story as religion. It’s been more than a decade since evangelicals helped George W. Bush win the White House, and we’ve gotten used to the idea of the “values voter,” of religion as a political force. But while the evangelical bloc seems to have frayed a bit and liberal mainline religion continues to lose influence, another major religious category is gathering force and deserves politician and pundit attention—the “spiritual but not... Read more

R3 editor Dr. Andre E. Johnson will give a lecture on Martin Luther King Jr. and the African American Prophetic Tradition at the Learn and Learn Series held at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis,Tennessee. The talk will take place in the Freedom Sisters’ Building at 115 Huling Street on Wednesday January 15, 2014 at 12:00pm.  Dr. Johnson’s talk will focus on King’s prophetic discourse and rhetorical trajectory that moved him from the “Dream” to the “Mountain Top.” The event is free and open... Read more

By Andre E. JohnsonR3 Editor Read the series here I eagerly opened the email to read what he had to say. I thought he would apologize, but did not know how. Would he name the action? Would he offer words of contrition, regret, and disappointment? Would he own up to some biases that he may have had that led him to smack a man upside the head? While I did not know how he would say it, I did think... Read more

Candace L. M. Gorham, LPC, discusses her new book, The Ebony Exodus Project: Why Some Black Women Are Walking Out on Religion—and Others Should Too. Drawing on her own past experience as an evangelical minister and her present work as a secular counselor and researcher, she makes a direct connection between the church and the plight of black women, who are the single most religious demographic in the United States, yet among the poorest, least educated, and least healthy groups... Read more