In a previous blog I suggested that The idea that the human relationship to religion is of questioner to provider of answers may ultimately destroy both religion and our humanity. If theological education is intended primarily to form leaders in Christian ministry, then within mainline denominations dominated by post-Schleiermachian liberal theology it may need to undergo dramatic changes away from its current model. That model, shaped by modernity, assumes that Christianity is an answer to a human question, the solution... Read more

Scholars have written a lot about the difficulties in the study of religion generally. Those difficulties become even messier when we use the words black or African American to describe religion. The adjectives bear the burden of a difficult history that colors the way religion is practiced and understood in the United States. They register the horror of slavery and the terror of Jim Crow as well as the richly textured experiences of a captured people, for whom sorrow stands alongside joy.... Read more

In August 2014, a Ferguson, Missouri, policeman shot and killed an unarmed black teenager. Michael Brown’s death and the resulting protests and racial tension brought considerable attention to that town. Observers who had not been looking closely at our evolving demographic patterns were surprised to see ghetto conditions we had come to associate with inner cities now duplicated in a formerly white suburban community: racially segregated neighborhoods with high poverty and unemployment, poor student achievement in overwhelmingly black schools, oppressive... Read more

It amazes me that the small town of Ferguson, essentially unknown to most of the country just 10 weeks ago, is now a part of conversations happening all over America and around the world. Its story has so impacted us that we use Ferguson as a noun, not to describe the city, but to more concisely say “the black community whose legal protests and acts of civil disobedience showcased to America that distrust of police is often the result of... Read more

Midterm elections are all about turning out base constituencies. Over the last few decades, there have been few more reliable voters for Republicans than white evangelical Protestants. This year, however, GOP candidates may be getting less help from this group—not because white evangelical Protestants are becoming less supportive or less motivated, but simply because they are declining as a proportion of the population, even in Southern states. White evangelical Protestants have remained a steadfast Republican constituency in both presidential and... Read more

by R .Drew Smith, PhD. First Posted on KineticsLive We are isolating persons infected and affected by the Ebola crisis, but not along the lines the medical and public health sectors are promoting as a strategic response to the outbreak. Rather, America’s response to the recent Ebola outbreak throughout much of its deadly march across Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone has been largely one of “out of sight, out of mind.” Though fairly visible to Americans through media sources, the... Read more

In Ferguson, MO, faith leaders led a Moral Monday civil disobedience action today. Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, chief architect of the Moral Movement in North Carolina, sent the following letter of support, encouragement, and lessons from the struggle. My brothers and sisters, I bring you greetings and offer solidarity from the Forward Together Moral Monday Movement in North Carolina. I so wanted to be there with you as you take this bold step toward addressing injustice, racial profiling,... Read more

Thousands of people from around the nation have traveled here under the banner #FergusonOctober to protest the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. And while local citizens and politicians, visiting demonstrators and even media personnel have been subject to police confrontation since the earliest days of action, the latest round of demonstrations around the city have resulted in dozens of arrests – including those of Union Seminary professor Cornel West... Read more

Sisters and brothers on the Ferguson police force, Grace and peace to you. On Monday I stood outside the Ferguson police station with hundreds of other clergy, asking for justice for Michael Brown, and for a change in our police culture. I was one of the faith leaders reading a litany through a bullhorn. As part of that demonstration, I watched my colleagues in ministry – Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist – approach those of you who were holding the... Read more

The events in Ferguson and Forney have made more visible to more people the divisions that many of us have long known are present in our society. This time of heightened visibility offers us an opportunity for a sustained response across our subdivisions and invites reflection on some recurring and enduring patterns and, the potential for their disruption and transformation. The response evoked by the title of this teaching— turning tables — is a holy, wholly prophetic, kinetic, theologically justifiable, violently disruptive... Read more