Christians need to adopt a deeper, more complex understanding of how race shapes our lives and communities, says the author and theologian in this interview. And to resist racism, we need to ‘recover’ Jesus, taking Christ and Scripture seriously.
Reconciliation doesn’t begin with us but with God and God’s longing to reconcile all of us to himself. And Jesus is the model for how reconciliation happens, a scholar says in this interview.
The church has long neglected the third aspect of the Trinity, reducing it to a philosophical concept. But the Spirit is concrete and tangible, and recovering it is critical to the pursuit of reconciliation and social justice, the theologian says in this interview.
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A white youth pastor says it’s important to go beyond diversity when leading youth in the work of racial repair. Admitting failure, fostering careful listening, and paying attention to the local context are all important parts of the process, he writes.
Photo by Leroy Burnell / The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier
A year after the mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church, the congregation is healing from its own unique and often overlooked loss. And the hand of God is moving still, says a pastor assigned to the church after the shooting.
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Differentiating our observations from evaluations can help us recognize the fallibility of our own interpretive powers and acknowledge the racism in our own hearts and minds, writes the associate dean of diversity and cultural competency at Western Theological Seminary.
The Rev. Starsky Wilson, center, wearing stole, links arms with scholar and activist Cornel West as they participate in a direct action at the Thomas Eagleton Federal Court Building in downtown St. Louis on Aug. 10, 2015. Photo by Wiley Price/The St. Louis American
Part of the difficult witness for the privileged within the church is to renounce a bit of that privilege and work on behalf of the marginalized, says the co-chair of the Ferguson Commission.
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Jesus interrupts violence with peace, and hate with love. The director of Duke Youth Academy says she has been called into the work of interruption, leading conversations with young white people about race, police brutality and injustice.
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The best conversations about race happen among people who have something in common besides simply an interest in talking about it, says the executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches. He offers tips for black and white congregations to engage and strengthen their bonds.
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In this excerpt from her new book, Leah Gunning Francis shares the stories of the eclectic group of faith leaders -- many of them young, most of them black women -- who have been leading the response to Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri.