During his Saturday night re-election rally in Tulsa, President Donald Trump — ever our Uniter-in-Chief in times of crisis — turned his attention to Confederate statues and monuments. In his two-hour address to an enthusiastic (but smaller than expected) crowd, President Trump decried “the unhinged left-wing mob” that “desecrated our monuments” and was “tearing down…
Continue reading ➞ The Moral Insanity of Defending Confederate Statues
As you’re probably well aware, I love to read. On average, I burn through a book a week, and I try to maintain a healthy balance between fiction and nonfiction. At the same time, I’ve been reevaluating my own reading habits, and I came to the troubling realization that an overwhelming majority of the books…
Continue reading ➞ Six Thrilling Novels Written By Black Authors
During the third night of the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debate of 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered a declarative statement to finally quell speculation that he was in favor of racial assimilation: “There is a physical difference between the white and the black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social…
Continue reading ➞ If We Desire Racial Equality, We Need To Change the Way We Teach American History
According to a 2016 Barna research study, only 56% of white evangelicals believe that people of color are put at a social disadvantage as a result of their race. However, according to the same study, 94% of white evangelicals agreed with the statement "Christian churches play an important role in racial reconciliation." While white evangelicals…
Continue reading ➞ Waking Up: Christianity, White Privilege, and the Dark Side of American History
During Super Bowl XLVII, the Coca-Cola Company set the internet on fire. The one-minute ad titled "It's Beautiful" aired during the pregame commercial break, and by the end of the night, public response to the ad quickly outpaced interest in the game itself (a 43 - 8 blowout win for the Seattle Seahawks against the…
Continue reading ➞ Scandalous Grace in an Era of Moral Outrage and White Supremacists
On Thursday, July 7th, two very different - but interconnected - events occurred and much of the United States had not only a front-row seat to the carnage, but also an opinion. Straddled by two police officers, I watched four bullets punch into Alton Sterling’s chest. In the unflinchingly graphic cellphone video, he twitched and…
Continue reading ➞ Bleed, America: The Decline of Empathatic Discourse and How to Reverse It
Instrument of Mercy 