LifeWay’s recent apology issued at the Mosaix 2013 conference is a sign of hope that the Evangelical church I love is moving forward toward greater multi-ethnic inclusivity. Having spoken at the conference, I was present to hear the recorded LifeWay apology for the decade-old offense for caricaturing Asian people and culture in its Rickshaw Rally VBS curriculum. Fellow Mosaix 2013 conference presenter and dear friend Soong-Chan Rah had this to say about the apology: I’m really moved that LifeWay would go to these lengths to do this. It’s... Read more

Pagan leader Jason Pitzl-Waters spoke in my world religions class yesterday. Jason is perhaps best known for his blog, The Wild Hunt: A Modern Pagan Perspective. Jason travels from Eugene to Portland (not a short ride) to put a human face on Paganism for my students. One of the things he asks himself is: “If I don’t come and speak, who will the Christian seminary professor bring in as a guest speaker?” He shared his internal musings with my class and... Read more

Interfaith or multi-faith discourse can easily fall prey to agreeing to agree on everything, even where there are significant differences. Such agreement and affirmation may come across as disingenuous at worst, naïve and exaggerated at best. As I have had to tell various people of non-Christian faith communities over the years when engaged in such discourse, we are not saying the same thing. A more straightforward and plausible approach is that taken by the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy with which... Read more

One of the questions I asked at the end of the post “Reconciliation Is More than a Hugathon” was, “What does racial repentance entail economically for individuals who have oppressed people of diverse ethnicities?” Answer: the same thing they should do toward those they have oppressed of their own ethnicity. For example, Zacchaeus made amends for the wrongs he had committed toward individuals of his own people group—and with interest (See Luke 19:1-10). In Luke 3, John the Baptist tells... Read more

When does a boy become a man? What is the measure of his manhood? What about a girl? Muddy Waters sang of being a “manish boy.” On the opposite side, Mark Driscoll has spoken of a host of males who want to remain adolescents: they are really only boys who can shave. Who is a real woman? Marilyn Monroe, Condoleezza Rice, or June Cleaver of Leave It to Beaver fame? Are our conceptions of manhood, womanhood and childhood bound up... Read more

This piece was originally published at the Evangelical Immigration Table. A student from Arizona once remarked in a class discussion on justice and immigration that it was against Arizona law to give a cup of water to an undocumented person. As a result of his understanding (or misunderstanding) of the Arizona law, he said he would not provide relief to someone he knew was undocumented. He was surprised when I asked, “What would Jesus do?” if our Lord faced the... Read more

Reconciliation apart from justice is not reconciliation. So, too, biblical justice entails reconciliation. To adapt Immanuel Kant’s famous claim from his critical epistemology and apply it to a critical and constructive model of race reconciliation, it would read: reconciliation without justice is empty; justice without reconciliation is blind. What does each side of this claim look like? We’ll take up each one of these items in successive posts. First, reconciliation without justice is empty. We find an instance of this... Read more

The image of the stained glass window of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama hangs behind the worship platform in my church in Portland, Oregon. The picture displays Jesus with outstretched arms and hands—the right hand halting oppression and the left hand opened and offering forgiveness. The stained glass window was given to the church in Birmingham by the people of Wales after the bombing of the church orchestrated by the KKK on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963. The horrific bombing killed four young African... Read more

The other day my world religions class visited a mosque. The Muslim lecturer and friend of mine asked: “Is one [who is a Christian] losing Jesus when one converts to Islam?” He responded by saying that one does not lose Jesus, but gains Muhammad. It was interesting that this Muslim leader claimed that Muhammad is not greater than Jesus on his Muslim view, even though he is the final prophet. According to the lecturer, the reason why Muhammad is seen... Read more

The multi-ethnic church movement is not some passing fad. It is more than a two-day conference. It is here to stay. I am looking forward to participating in the Mosaix 2013 Multi-ethnic Church Conference November 5 – 6.  A thousand people will be coming together in Long Beach, California to interact with one another on the subject of the multi-ethnic church from various perspectives in service to Christ. My plenary talk will be “We Shall Overcome” and I will be presenting a... Read more