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No Time for Casual Faith: The First Unitarian Woman Elected President on our Urgent Moment

By Peter Laarman

…eport using the “Side With Love” resources we provide, but an even greater number—75%—report that they are engaging or have engaged with #BlackLivesMatter or are doing other racial justice advocacy work. Which is not to say that every congregation works on every issue. Context matters. In some locations climate justice or immigration might be of paramount importance, and no one is going to fault congregations in those places for throwing down on…

The Southern Baptists Dumped a Predator or Two, but Let’s Hold Off on the F-word

By Anne Linstatter

…hested, whose installation as senior pastor of Prescott Memorial Church in Memphis in 1987 caused that church to be expelled from the SBC; Jann Aldredge-Clanton, who describes debating Patterson’s wife Dorothy Kelley Patterson on women’s ordination in 1988; and members of Baptist Women in Ministry. And then there’s Shirley Taylor, who blogs for Baptist Women for Equality and wrote a pair of books on the topic. She contends there’s a connection bet…

Nike’s Token Equality: New Campaign Masks the Truth About Workers’ Rights

By Gerald J. Beyer

…heir children, and respect in the community.” Dr. King was killed while in Memphis in 1968 while standing in solidarity with sanitation workers on strike to protest paltry wages and abusive working conditions. Still, the Poor People’s Campaign King founded in 1968 with Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy lives on. Its members contest a global economic system that consigns three billion people to poverty and 870 million to chronic malnourishment. Contemporary…

Wearing White is Not Enough: A Conversation with Cherisse Scott of SisterReach

By Anita Little

…tended) isn’t stopping this. RD contacted Cherisse Scott, the founder of a Memphis nonprofit called SisterReach, which advocates for the reproductive autonomy of marginalized groups. We talked to her about what we can expect for reproductive justice under Trump. _____ RD: Just a few weeks ago, a Republican House voted to make the Hyde Amendment permanent. A few weeks before that, Speaker Paul Ryan said that one of his goals would be defunding Plan…

The “Southern Cage”: How the Myth of the Redemptive Depression Keeps Blacks at the Margins

By Eric C. Miller

…a concern with systemic problems. The head of the chronically underfunded Memphis Community Fund said in 1931, I am heartily in favor of bigger and better smokestacks, of more beautiful and taller skyscrapers, of ribbons of concrete threading our country. . . But the man or city which becomes intoxicated for the possession of these while hunger dwells unrequited, while the lives of little children are blighted for want of a chance, is the man or…

“Ex-Gay” Gospel Star Donnie McClurkin and the Decline of Public Theology

By Joshua L. Lazard

…d damage than any good. I remember watching the livestream of the event in Memphis that year while still in seminary recalling the time-honored adage, “hurt people, hurt people.” But McClurkin wasn’t just talking, he was doing public theology. Public theology, I would assert, is a lost art. Long gone are the days when the artful pronouncements of Jürgen Moltmann or Soren Kierkegaard or the Niebuhr brothers, Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Howard Thurman…

The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock ‘n’ Roll

By Eric C. Miller

…ntial it was for them. Elvis, for instance, grew up in the congregation of Memphis First Assembly of God, and he talked often about his admiration for the gospel quartets who came through, including the white Statesmen Quartet and the Stamps Quartet, along with African-American groups like the Golden Gate Quartet. Asked by a reporter about why he moved the way he did on stage, Elvis replied simply, “I just sing like they do back home.” And continu…

Pastor of Kentucky Church Severed From Baptists Over LGBT Inclusion: Not Activism, Just Honesty

By Mike Greer

…years. I came about the time that folks from Burma began arriving in large numbers and uniting in membership with Crescent Hill, and much of my time in those early years was spent trying to figure out how in the world we might be able to be a unified body that includes people who don’t speak English, who have a completely foreign background and cultural experience. It took a lot of hard work but we reached a place a number of years ago where, whil…

Is Joel Osteen, Success Mag Cover Boy, Really “God’s Best”?

By Candace Chellew-Hodge

…reduced to a kind of majordomo or personal assistant. He fixeth my parking tickets, he secureth me a good table in the restaurant, he leadeth me to book contracts. Even in these minor tasks, the invocation of God seems more of a courtesy than a necessity.” Gone, too, from Osteen’s theology is any mention of topics that might intrude on happy thoughts: Osteen avoids using current events in his messages so he doesn’t get sidetracked in controversy….

Answers in Genesis Seeks Tax Breaks for New Theme Park

By Lauri Lebo

…evelopers of approved projects the sales tax paid by visitors on admission tickets, food, gift sales and lodging costs. Developers have 10 years to reach the 25 percent threshold. Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says there are concerns over the project, but it’s too early to tell whether the proposed business incentives would be unconstitutional in that it would involve excessive entanglement with r…