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“We All We Got”: The Black Church As an Oasis in Baltimore’s Food Deserts

…time to change churches. In Baltimore, symbolic gestures on the pulpit are best complemented by concrete actions in our streets. Their hands forced, some of Baltimore’s black churches have stepped up to meet this demand. Prayer walks have been held by congregations at the same Penn-North intersection where CNN and others incessantly broadcasted images of a torched CVS as if it were a dying human being. In warmer months, New Bethlehem Baptist Churc…

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This Is How You Lose Them: Why “Generation Z” Won’t Be Flocking To Churches Anytime Soon

…h the demographic shift in multiracial marriages, we can expect increasing numbers of them to identify with more than one race. These trends are at odds with the racially heterogeneous nature of much of white evangelicalism (the mainline as well). A recent study found that white evangelical churches will sometimes employ “race tests,” a type of hazing meant to push out church members of color who can’t adhere to white cultural norms. How will evan…

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Come Let Us Reason Together: A Response to Critics of Evangelical/Progressive Initiative

…God has put all parts of our body together in the way that God decided is best. —I Corinthians 12: 4—6, 17—18 (CEV) Third Way’s* recently released “Come Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda” has sparked lively discussions about the policies it puts forward, but it has also cast in bold relief some tensions and factions in the growing chorus of voices that are politically progressive and religious. The two-year initiative set out to find common…

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Inspired by the Anti-Abortion Movement and QAnon, Anti-Trans Rhetoric is a Blatant Call for Violence

…derism.” The latter claim is especially heinous, because in Texas, the opposite is the case: The governor had in fact asked Child Protective Services to investigate any families that provide their trans kids and teenagers access to the necessary gender-affirming medical care. Right-wing commentator Rod Dreher has increasingly focused on trans people over the past few months, spreading lies and hatred about trans people themselves and the medical p…

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UPDATED: Turning Catholic School’s Anti-Mask Theology Into a Faith Argument is Just Fine With Religious Right (Even if it is Based on Garbage Theology)

…s a strategy making for great P.R. and fundraising, but it won’t do much to shift the political landscape, or the case before the Michigan courts. Sadly, not much will, given the intransigence of some people. Sometimes, as the Hebrew prophets knew, the best call is simply to get out of the way and announce the consequences to come. In this case, that probably means a whole bunch of people are going to die unnecessarily. As much as anyone might wis…

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The Top 10 (Non-Religious) Religious Films of 2017

…because of its first five minutes, but Wonder Woman continues some of the best of audio-visual storytelling, telling us why Hollywood is the most powerful mythmaker on planet earth today.   8) The Disaster Artist There’s little religion in this film, but James Franco’s quirky project points out the ways films are followed religiously, how they create their own worlds that people find meaning and purpose within. Tommy Wiseau is shown to be a fanat…

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The Audacity of Melancholy: Race, Tragedy, and the Anguish of Progress

…ve encouraged me throughout the writing process and my life. So I tried my best to be clear, accessible, and free of jargon while dealing with difficult authors and concepts. I don’t know if I was successful. Are you hoping to just inform readers? Entertain them? Piss them off? I suppose I am trying to be provocative, to please and disturb, to inform and unsettle. While I appreciate different styles of writing, I find most appealing writing format…

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Can Government Solve The Evil Of Mass Shootings? A Response to Mollie Hemingway

…he dynamic that humans discern the form of government they think will work best, and God works with it. As it happens, our form of government is not distinct from the people it serves: the government is the people is the people of God, formed in God’s image, which makes the formation of government a godly, even sacramental, endeavor. God invites humans into the business of creation and re-creation. We suck at this work! Humans are selfish, stupid,…

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Watch This! The Ethics and Aesthetics of Black Televangelism

…casting is new. Again, many regard it as a post-civil rights phenomenon at best, or the co-opting of the black church by the white religious right at worst. But the confluence of mass media and Afro-Protestantism dates back to religious race records of the 1920s and is as “authentically black” as James Brown. From prominent Pentecostal preachers like Leora Ross, F.W. McGee, and Mother Rosa Artimus Horn during the interwar period to C.L. Franklin a…

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Blame Muscular Christianity for Driscoll Fiasco

…failure. Hence, in order to steer things back in the right direction, the best course of action is one of rebuke and, ultimately, removal, which is the course taken by Acts 29 and now Mars Hill Church—just as his critics have wanted. There’s of course something to that line of thought, but it seems too easy. Specifically, it puts all the focus on Driscoll and ignores the culture that produced him in the first place. Partly through the shrewd use…

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