“He left for work in the morning and never returned. We didn’t know what happened to him. I called friends and then I called his co-workers. Only later did I discover that he had been pulled over on the highway and arrested. He doesn’t have a drivers’ license — he can’t get one because he’s an undocumented worker — and once they realized he is an undocumented worker they deported him. We didn’t even get to say goodbye. We’ve been…
Over the last few years, the number of immigrants coming to the United States from Mexico has become an increasingly contentious political issue. Politicians have flirted with comprehensive immigration reform at times, but the explosive nature of the issue in the public’s mind has mostly kept politicians from doing anything substantial at a Federal level. Now states like Arizona have passed new laws to combat the problem. Other politicians, like a Republican candidate in Alabama, has used the issue to…
We went to the MLK Holiday Breakfast this past Monday. This was the 20th year of the event, and this year’s speaker was the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery. The 88-year-old Dr. Lowery has been a pillar in the civil rights movement, a friend of Dr. King, and he delivered the Benediction at President Obama’s Inauguration. I enjoyed hearing him speak. He was funny. He was direct. He was challenging. But more inspiring than his rhetoric, was his personal presence. His story…
One of the biggest mistakes white evangelicals make when thinking or talking about race is to assume that it is a personal issue. We often think that because we don’t believe people of color are inferior to white people that we aren’t racist. We believe that racism is a personal sin issue that should be addressed by helping people individually become less racist. It happens when someone makes a racist comment. But the reality is that racism is ultimately a…
I blogged about the controversy surrounding the deadlyvipers.org site a couple of days ago. There has been a lot of good commentary (here for example), and I’ve learned a bit more about the nature of racism through this process. As I watched the drama unfold, first with Soong-Chan pointing out the DV site on twitter, then his blogs that included the back and forth email exchange with the authors, and then the assessment of the situation by so many people…
There’s a whirlwind of blog commentary over the marketing strategy employed by Zondervan and on display over at deadlyvipers.org. So much as been written, I’ll just share two links, and a quote. Soong Chan Rah’s Blog Eugene Cho’s post Here’s a quote from Eugene’s blog that sums it up for me: Folks may think the reactions of some are over-reactive but not the case. But having said that, there are seasons and situations you have to shout…how else will people…
The following is an excerpt from a recent ordination paper that I wrote which sought to answer the following question: Explain the effect of power and privilege in areas of race, economic class and gender upon your life and ministry. If racism is a “system of advantage based on race,” (Tatum, Beverly Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria) then I am a person of significant privilege. I experience privilege beyond just the sociological categories of race…
My article on authority in the Evangelical church, which is reposted here from its original post on patheos, a website for interfaith dialogue. My article was a part of the Evangelical perspective answering the question “Who Speaks for Us?“ Early in my Christian experience I spent some time at a church that would have been categorized as Evangelical and fundamentalist. We were people of the Book, and we lived our lives by its teachings. I remember the earnestness with which…
Talking about being multi-ethnic is so much more fun than actually being multi-ethnic. I thoroughly enjoyed the conference today on Evangelicalism’s multi-ethnic future. There were some great talks given, and a compelling case was made for a multi-cultural Evangelicalism. From a biblical, sociological, and statistical point of view, the speakers persuasively argued that Evangelicalism must become multi-ethnic (and multi-cultural) or die. But the reality of being multi-cultural is much harder than just talking about it. It’s not nearly as much fun…
Soong-Chan Rah argues powerfully that the evangelical church in America is held captive to Western (he means white) culture. He points to the models of ministry held up as ‘successful’ at conferences and in publishers’ catalogs as evidence that American evangelicalism glorifies the white suburban church as the epitome of what church should look like. Throughout the first few chapters of the book he deconstructs the way this church works. He points out the secular and sinful foundations of much of…