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In the Age of Megachurches, Sometimes Less Is More

By Richard Flory

…urches in this mix as well. I could list several in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or any other large metropolitan area, that are attracting large numbers of young, college educated congregants. Yet in many cases, these churches represent the problem faced by any mass event: it is easy to attend, and equally easy to avoid deeper commitment to the life of the church. The point is that what is often missed by these large scale surveys—and the media…

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

By Kasai Rex

…that it has garnered the attention of black churches in other cities like Chicago and Dallas. There has been a feeling that the church needs to be a genuine driver of change—not another server of empty rhetoric, and definitely not another actor complicit in a white supremacist system. (Our politicians have already done a fine job of that.) In this void, Black Lives Matter has evolved as a movement free of monoliths—as RD’s interview with #BlackLi…

Will Millennials Forge a Future for the Progressive Black Church?

By Joshua L. Lazard

…uick to call out names not just of national politicians, but also of local Chicago leaders who stood opposed to those whom he saw as “the least of these.” The same holds for Sharpton in New York. In the fallout behind the Tawana Bradley incident in 1987, Sharpton equated the then-New York state attorney general to Hitler. However, as blacks have ascended the political ladder in post-civil rights years, or when black clergy have been granted a seat…

“The Slut Assumption”: Myths About Jewelry Reveal Diamonds Aren’t Always A Girl’s Best Friend

By Wendy Doniger

…er people in bed (The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade, University of Chicago Press, 2000). My editor noticed that, in many of these stories, jewelry seemed to provide the final clue to the identity of a sexual trickster. And I began to wonder why jewelry was so central to so many stories, why it carried meaning far over and above its beauty or its financial value, particularly sexual meaning. It seemed to me that since so many people are fas…

I’m Too Sexy for My Church: Will a Thriving Singles Scene Renew American Catholicism?

By Megan Sweas

…ohn Cusick, who established the first archdiocesan young adult ministry in Chicago in 1977, also had a hand in the development of Theology on Tap in the early 80s. Held in a bar, this lecture series was designed to attract young people who weren’t necessarily showing up to church on Sunday morning. Dioceses around the country now have similar programs. Delis Alejandro, pastoral associate at St. Monica, credits Cusick for many ideas that helped her…

Why Did a Muslim Civil Rights Group Oppose Democrats’ Plans to Confront White Nationalism?

By Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Brannon Ingram

…communities against themselves. Nicole Nguyen and the #StopCVE movement in Chicago have made compelling arguments that these projects contribute to the marginalization and alienation of the very communities they’re meant to engage. And yet, even as counter-extremism initiatives have come under scrutiny, they continue to receive significant funding from, and partner with, major cities, universities, and other institutions. The Trump administration,…

We’ve Finally Begun to Confront White Christian Nationalism; But What About Its Source Text?

By Dianne M. Stewart

…lonialism, and genocide against Israel’s enemies. Warrior was also among a number of scholars who emphasized that African Americans were not the only Americans to identify with the Israelites. White European settlers had also adopted the Israelite Exodus narrative as they understood themselves as God’s chosen people who had a right to claim their promised land of America at the costly expense of the original inhabitants. Based on the Christian wit…

What Passover Taught Me About Being Black

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…and a flirtation with a local Chabad house to a trek to the North Side of Chicago to worship with Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. Finally, I rounded out my trip with a brief fling with Reconstructionist Judaism, but the soul of my darker self became dimmer and dimmer with each stop—became almost unrecognizable to me. Eventually I abandoned the key tenet of Hebrew Israelite belief: that Black people in America were the lost tribes of Israel destined t…

Because We Dared to Exist: After Generations of Trauma Black Gun Ownership is on the Rise

By Josiah Daniels

…ly trauma is the curse that we are always seen as armed and dangerous. Cellphones, toys, wallets, all of these objects become guns to the racialized eye. And if we are damned to always be seen holding a gun, why not actually hold a gun in hopes that our curse may become our enemies’ undoing? Owning a gun is a risk, but it’s a calculated one. The “well-intentioned” classify this calculated risk as “naïve” or “misguided.” Beyond appropriating Black…

Reconsidering Reagan’s Racism: Trump is the Culmination of The Gipper’s GOP

By Neil J. Young

…t dog-whistled to white nationalism so much as he’s supplied it with a megaphone, Reagan, like other recent Republican presidents, especially George W. Bush, has benefitted from a historical nostalgia that imagines a kinder, gentler GOP in the modern era, particularly on matters of race. In this telling, Trump is an aberration of the American presidency and an apostate of traditional conservatism. Mythmaking of Reagan by #NeverTrump Republicans, a…