I preached on the Church as the body of Christ last Sunday, using 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 as my text. It’s a familiar text and familiar metaphor to many Christians and it typically leads to one of a few quick interpretations. One being how Christians play different roles in the local church, some being good at […]
(Reverend) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy
The thing I find most compelling about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the thing that is most overlooked about his mission and his legacy is that he was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In an age where pastors are pushed to the outskirts of relevancy in popular culture, we celebrate a day named […]
“The Butler” and other recent movies on helping understand racism
Jen and I just got home from watching the star-studded movie The Butler: The thing I’m struck most about the Civil Rights Movement is how recent it was, yet how my generation and the generations younger than mine have such limited consciousness of the things that went on, and how these things have shaped American […]
Being Black & Highly Educated is Not Enough to Avoid Racial Profiling
I’d like to give props to the Lansing State Journal for posting a sectional cover story in yesterday’s Sunday paper entitled, “Living While Black.” The article is written by Jeffrey Wray, an East Lansing resident and an MSU professor who specializes in film studies, who is also African-American. Professor Wray writes about his various experiences […]
Can shampoo be racist? What about Band-Aids?
A great challenge for white people is to try to put ourselves in the shoes of a minority in America. I think this act of walking a mile in one’s shoes, which is a very Christ-like, loving, and incarnational thing to do, comes very unnaturally to us. It’s an act I’ve been trying hard to […]
Rising above the Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman arguments
I’ve been blogging a lot about racial reconciliation over the past couple of weeks. Due to timing of this, I thought I would give some of my thoughts on the recent Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman case. Mostly via Facebook, I have read white friends who are defending that Zimmerman didn’t break any laws and […]