The May 25, 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, despite his multiple cries of, “I can’t breathe,” has compelled me to turn to Black theologian James H. Cone for a personal lesson in rebellion. Having spent over a decade working in the civil rights field, and three times as many teaching theology, I…
I live in Los Angeles, California, near what seems to me to be one of the most dangerous intersections in South LA, Vermont and Gage. On any given day, the intersection looks like any other intersection in the city. But to live in this area is to know, there are underlying factors that make this…
In an interview with Krista Tippet’s theology podcast On Being, prominent civil rights activist and public theologian Ruby Sales considers the role of Black Christianity and Black folk religion in her community organizing. Despite being reared in the Black Baptist tradition, Sales explains that she “lost her religion” during her first protest. When God failed…
The image of Donald Trump wielding a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, a snapshot that occurred immediately after protestors were penetrated with tear gas and rubber bullets in order to clear space for the President, quickly became a target of controversy. Some critics, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, berated Trump for using the…
This essay was originally delivered as a speech at the annual dinner of Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries of Greater Boston on June 6, 2020. I am grateful for the invitation of Rodney Petersen and the Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries of Greater Boston to speak at this year’s annual dinner, this year a virtual event in a time of crisis. The crisis…
Civil unrest in Philadelphia, PA. June 2, 2020. / Rob Buhlman / Flickr / CC-BY-2.0 The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 triggered an unprecedented wave of protests in the United States and all around the world from Australia to the UK, France, Tunisia, and Iraq. This worldwide wave of protests…
The racialization of security currently playing out is nothing new. Security has often been racialized and racism has always been securitized. Historically, the incestuous relationship between these two issues has been anchored in a logic of instrumentalization. Definitionally, racism is essentially a threefold dehumanizing construct representing a vision of irreconcilable difference, a belief in human…
“Slave Ship: Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On” by J.M.W. Turner 1840 / Wikimedia This is the the third installment of a three-part series that explores legal, religious, and racial dimensions of American slavery. Part I explored some of the reasons why white Europeans selected Africans, out of all racial and…
“Slave Ship: Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On” by J.M.W. Turner 1840 / Wikimedia This is the the second installment of a three-part series that explores legal, religious, and racial dimensions of American slavery. Part I explored some of the reasons why white Europeans selected Africans, out of all racial and…
“Slave Ship: Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On” by J.M.W. Turner 1840 / Wikimedia This is the first installment of a three-part series that explores legal, religious, and racial dimensions of American slavery. Part I will explain some of the reasons why white Europeans selected Africans, out of all racial and…