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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.
People pray Aug. 15, 2014, at the site of a convenience store destroyed after Ferguson police released the name of the officer who shot Michael Brown.
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There was no single leader in Ferguson, Missouri, writes a seminary professor, activist and author of the book “Ferguson and Faith.” Instead, there were many leaders, who inspire hope for the future.
A young mother vows to make choices -- such as shopping in a different grocery store or taking her son to a less convenient playgroup -- that might allow her to develop relationships across racial lines.
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A writer considers biases that shape her as a white person in America and how she can reach out to her African-American neighbors as a means of racial healing.
A man in Ferguson, Missouri, holds on to a fence on August 15, 2014, at the site of a convenience store destroyed during rioting after the shooting death of Michael Brown by police.
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In an age of nonstop media that exposes us as never before to the world’s pain and brokenness, lamentation is an essential and even revolutionary act, one that the church needs desperately to reclaim, says a young pastor.
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The Charleston shooting presents more than just security challenges to church leaders, writes an AME minister. This moment demands honest language and an insistence that black bodies are the image of God.
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The church is a Spirit-led movement for love and justice in the world, the co-author of "Faith-Rooted Organizing" says in an interview. We are called to go outside the church and into the community to share the love of God.
The Rev. William H. Lamar IV, (center, in the pulpit), at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C., at a June 21, 2015, service which honored the nine victims of the mass killing in Charleston, South Carolina.
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In the aftermath of the mass killings in Charleston, South Carolina, church leaders must begin having real conversations about the truth of America’s history and its mistaken belief in the myth of redemptive violence, the pastor of Metropolitan AME Church says in this interview.
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Whether adjective, noun or verb, “barbecue” has a theological dimension that is deeply enmeshed in church culture -- especially in the African-American church, writes the culinary historian, barbecue judge and executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches.
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If the recent violence in Baltimore is all you know of Sandtown, then you do not know Sandtown. There, God is present, active and alive, says the former pastor of New Song Community Church.