Is there any fairness in the American justice system? Can people of every racial/ethnic group be confident that they will receive equal treatment under the law? The shooting of Michael Brown raises these questions and more. Unfortunately, how you answer these questions is largely determined by your race, your upbringing, and where you grew up in the world. These factors and others shape the way we view the world. Remember the Rodney King police brutality case and the O.J. Simpson... Read more

On October 3, theaters across the country will be lowering their screens for the much talked about reboot of “Left Behind,” a film installment based upon the popular book series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins and a remake of the previous film by the same name. It’s been the “year of the Christian movie” with films like “God’s Not Dead,” “Heaven is For Real,” and “Son of God.” (I would include “Noah” but that was apparently condemned as... Read more

Jesus may have been crucified because his followers were carrying weapons, according to a scholarly analysis of New Testament books. Dale Martin, a professor of religious studies at Yale University, says that this aspect of stories about Jesus, as told in the gospels, has received too little attention, but could alone explain Jesus’s execution and also show that the man from Nazareth was not the pacifist he’s usually made out to be. The biblical books of Mark and Luke both... Read more

“In these days of uncertainty, the evils of war and of economic and racial injustice threaten the very survival of the human race. Indeed we live in a day of grave crisis.” (p.Xiii, Strength To Love) These are the words that begin Martin Luther King’s work Strength To Love. Although these words were published in 1963 it is certainly not a stretch to note their relevance to the state of current socio-political issues in the United States. Whether it is... Read more

One of my biggest frustrations with religious discussion is the unestablished baseline for the concept of God. Each individual has his own concept of what God is. More times than not, these do not align. What follows is a point/counterpoint argument to what attributes God has, what ones he does not have, and how God does or does not interact in the lives of individuals. The problem here is that each individual has a different understanding about what God is.... Read more

On June 19 of this year, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) hosted its second annual “March for Marriage” in Washington, D.C. An article posted on NOM’s website two days before the march expressed hope that the event would “encourage each of us to continue standing up without fear in the legal, political, and cultural spheres to preserve marriage and every child’s right to both a mother and a father.” In an email to supporters sent out the same day,... Read more

The National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. has morphed into the Southern Baptist Convention. Sadly, few have noticed. Even more disheartening is no one seems to care. When Rev. Jerry Young was elected as president of the National Baptist Convention, no one stopped to question his position on women in ministry. Young, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi, was elected during the 134th annual session of the convention last week in New Orleans. Young received 3,195 of the 6,400... Read more

In 1913, Charles Russell, a restorationist minister from Pittsburgh, was accused of bilking his followers on grain sales. Russell, it seemed, had been charging his flock exorbitant rates for a “Miracle Wheat” that, on further inspection, was not all that different from regular wheat. The scandal, according to a newspaper editorial at the time, proved “that ‘Pastor’ Russell’s religious cult is nothing more than a money-making scheme.” Although Russell’s followers (now known as Jehovah’s Witnesses) still maintain his innocence, the... Read more

THE indictment last week of the N.F.L. player Adrian Peterson by a Texas grand jury for reckless or negligent injury to a child has set into relief the harmful disciplinary practices of some black families. Mr. Peterson used a “switch,” a slim, leafless tree branch, to beat his 4-year-old son, raising welts on the youngster’s legs, buttocks and scrotum. This is child abuse dressed up as acceptable punishment. While 70 percent of Americans approve of corporal punishment, black Americans have... Read more

Theology of Ferguson Read more