For centuries, the Scriptures were twisted and distorted to provide support for racism and race-based slavery. It is no exaggeration to state that the enslavement of African Americans would never have persisted as long as it did without the support of persons who claimed to follow Scripture. At the same time, Christian ethics were also one […]
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Culture: The Long Shadow of Racism in America
The institution of American slavery has been called America’s “national birth defect.” “Black Americans were”—in the words of one professor of political science—“a founding population [of the American colonies]. Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together, Europeans by choice and Africans in chains.” These events happened far more recently than many Americans seem […]
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Podcast: How the Inner City Became the Way It Is
To listen or to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, click here. The inner city is defined by poverty—literally. The inner city has been defined as a region in a metropolitan area in which 20 percent or more of households live in poverty and where the median household income is 50 percent or less than […]
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Sermon: The Difficult Journey Toward Deep Diversity
“It is appalling,” Martin Luther King, Jr., once pointed out, “that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” One of the primary reasons that churches remain segregated today is because white Christians failed to acknowledge the full humanity of their African-American sisters and brothers many years ago. For many African […]
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Church History: William Wilberforce and the End of the British Slave Trade
In late March, 1807, the British slave trade came to an end. One of the key figures in the battle against the British slave trade was an evangelical Christian named William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was short—about five feet, three inches in stature—and suffered from poor health, but he was eloquent and witty. He became a member […]
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Sermon: That Awkward Text About Noah that No One Wants to Preach
In every Sunday School lesson and Bible storybook about Noah that I recall from my childhood, the ark-builder’s story ended in triumph. Noah saves the animals and sees the sign of God’s covenant—and, with that, the account of Noah comes to a close with the ark behind him, a sacrifice in front of him, and […]
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Culture: The Failure of White Evangelicals in the Civil Rights Movement
A few months ago, Justin Taylor interviewed four evangelical historians about the role of Southern white evangelicals in the American Civil Rights Movement. It is a lengthy and painful read, but it provides a much-needed perspective on white evangelicals’ persistent failure to challenge systemic racism. Here are a few excerpts: Matt Hall: The unfortunate reality […]
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Family Ministry: Discipleship and Family in African-American History
A few months ago, I sat down with my colleagues Kevin Smith and Kevin Jones to discuss the dynamics of discipleship and family ministry in African-American communities. Rev. Smith is the executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland and Delaware. Dr. Jones is a scholar of the history of education and coauthor of the […]
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Church History: The Racist Heresy in Southern Baptist History
The founders of the Southern Baptist Convention and of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary were zealous defenders of biblical orthodoxy. They were also heretics.
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Culture: Remembering Emmett Till
In September 1955, the bloated and broken corpse of Emmett Till arrived in Chicago. His mother identified his body and made the decision to leave his casket open for the funeral. “Let the people see what I’ve seen,” she told the owner of the funeral home, and the people did. What they saw changed the world.
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