Interview
I was born into a church in Chicago that was founded by fathers of the “racial reconciliation” movement in American Evangelicalism.
Led by those such as the late John Perkins, racial reconciliation aimed to encourage primarily Black and white interracial relationships meant to reconcile people to each other and to God, in a post-Civil Rights Movement (but still deeply segregated) U.S. I was taught to understand reconciliation as a ministry, as Paul advises in 2 Corinthians 5, where Jesus bestows the “ministry of reconciliation” onto the church.
As I grew up, I found the concept linguistically and historically fraught—misguided at best and destructive at worst. Reconciliation among contemporary racial groups implies a historical moment of racial harmony; the U.S. has none. Whatever Perkins and others envisioned for the movement, white evangelicals and others began to bypass the need for actual systemic change in favor of emphasizing spiritual harmony and claiming that the only way to true racial unity is through Christianity.
From its title alone, Michael Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood telegraphs its ending early on, but as with most of the director’s films, the joy in watching comes from the journey of bearing witness to the unexpected ways his characters arrive at their endings.
Where do you think Ye keeps his Dove Award?
Oh, you forgot Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has a Dove Award—the Christian music industry award—alongside other illustrious winners like Kirk Franklin, Michael W. Smith, and Amy Grant? Fear not, the rap duo of Andy Mineo and John “Wordsplayed” Itiola are here with witty one-liners to remind you.
As long-time staples in Christian hip-hop, each has left a distinctive mark on the misfit subgenre.
Mineo spends a ruthless amount of time honing his craft, and it shows. He has helped lead CHH past cheap musical imitations of “secular hip-hop,” and past cheap lyrical imitations of Reformed sermons. Over trap beats, Latin drums, or the occasional electric guitar, he’s written the fullness of his life—from doubting God and deconstructing to his relationships with his parents.
Wordsplayed has consistently infused CHH with some much-needed levity. He toes the line with witty lyricism, mocking everything from the music industry to Creflo Dollar, internet pornography, and himself—all with a wink. Through lo-fi beats, infomercials for his Patreon, and stand-up comedy sets, he’s given every too-serious fan of CHH the type of laughter that provokes introspection.
If you grew up listening to contemporary Christian music in the mid-’90s and early-2000s, brace yourself, I am about to get a song stuck in your head.
You may recall “Testify to Love,” as a bubbly, infectious CCM hit from 1997 by the pop quartet Avalon. Originally a cheery anthem to God’s love, Ty Herndon and former Avalon singer Michael Passons have re-released the song with an added layer: LGBTQ+ affirmation.
For Passons, the re-recording of his CCM hit was a moment for the song to come full circle. The Nashville-based artist left Avalon in 2003, at the time saying it was to pursue a solo career. In 2020, he revealed to Billboard that he’d been fired by the band because he is a gay man. Passons took a long hiatus from singing but kept close friendships in the music industry. One of those friendships was with Herndon, one of the first openly gay male artists in country music. Herndon was the one who invited Passons to re-record the song. At first, Passons wasn’t sure how his voice would respond when he stepped in the booth to record.
The morning after the Spurs won Game 5 of the NBA’s Western Conference semifinals, I woke up, still reveling in the victory. As a born-and-raised San Antonian and die-hard basketball fan, the playoffs are something of a holiday season. Before leaving my bed, I added an infant Victor Wembanyama jersey to my baby registry and turned to Instagram for some game highlights.
There, I stumbled across a post by the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco in San Antonio, a Catholic order devoted to educating and supporting young people. Behind the sisters was a print of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, but their eyes were turned to another work of art: The Spurs up 52-37 in the second quarter. The sisters were all standing and clapping. Each wore their white habits, but three of them also wore Spurs jerseys (Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili—a holy trinity to Spurs fans) from a golden era of Spurs basketball, an era I pray we’re returning to.
Before allegedly attempting to assassinate the president, Cole Tomas Allen reportedly wrote his motivations and answered objections in a brief, 1,000-word manifesto. The first objection was that Christians ought to turn the other cheek.
On March 31, the Supreme Court sided with a Christian therapist in Colorado and tossed out the state’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. The therapist, Kaley Chiles, challenged the state’s ban on the grounds that it violated her First Amendment rights. The Court agreed with Chiles by an 8-to-1 vote.
“Stranger danger!” This was a popular thing kids were taught to say in the ’90s. I think that my parents’ motivations for teaching me this phrase were primarily for my protection, but looking back, I think the phrase also portended some of the paranoia that we, as a Western society, have uncritically embraced.
Rev. Serene Jones is looking forward to waking up naturally, without an alarm clock. After 18 years as president of Union Theological Seminary, Jones announced last summer that she would be stepping down after the current school year.
As founder and president of the AND Campaign, Justin Giboney has championed an approach to politics that seeks to overcome, in his words, Left-Right culture wars.
He has galvanized Christians, especially evangelicals, around a platform that aims to maintain a commitment to traditionally conservative Christian morality while championing traditionally progressive views on race and economics. His organization’s name and its ampersand logo represent an unwillingness to cede either value in service of a political party.
An attorney and political strategist, Giboney explains in his new book, Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us Out of the Culture War, the ways his upbringing and study of the Civil Rights Movement informs his work. In particular, Giboney criticizes Christians on the Right for allowing conservative politics to shape their views on race, immigration, and economics; he criticizes the Left for allowing progressive politics to shape their views of sex and abortion. At one point, the AND Campaign’s tagline was “Social Justice (&) Biblical Values.” In recent years, it has shifted to “Social Justice (&) Moral Order.”
t’s more than likely that you have asked yourself in the early parts of this new year, “What am I supposed to do?” As we watch the country slip further into the abyss of “papers please,” and witness Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents operating as though they are a death squad, it’s fair to feel overwhelmed; it’s fair to wonder if anything can be done at all.
Sometimes, the best thing to do during times of authoritarian rule is to pause and reflect. When we do this, we realize two things: First, there are many ways, both materially and emotionally, to support those who are being targeted by a regime. Second, although we, like the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, may wonder if we are “one untimely born,” our existence is perfectly timed for this moment.
A resource to help those of us looking to pause and reflect so that we can take action is Hanna Reichel’s new book, For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional.
One of the stranger moviegoing experiences of my life was walking out from The Last Jedi and feeling sure I’d experienced a masterpiece. I’m not the most devoted Star Wars fan, but I thought I’d seen something special. I still do. So, you can imagine my surprise when the rest of the world was, shall we say, a little divided on The Last Jedi.
I’m not here to relitigate that whole exhausting conversation now. But while watching that movie, I felt a connection to the filmmaker, Rian Johnson. Something in the way he navigated the power of belief, the handing down of received wisdom, and the challenges of carving new paths in old traditions spoke to me. I was not surprised to later learn that Johnson had been raised in the church, and I was delighted when he decided to take that as both the theme and setting of the third Knives Out film, his wildly popular murder mystery franchise starring Daniel Craig’s Foghorn Leghorn-throated detective Benoit Blanc.
The most powerful moment in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery isn’t a murder or a big reveal. It’s a phone call.
Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) is trying to help solve the murder of the controversial head priest of his small-town parish, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin). Standing in the rectory with private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), Jud calls a records office to request information related to the case. The clerk, Louise (Bridget Everett), is overly chatty, much to Father Jud’s annoyance. It seems like she’ll never shut up. But it turns out she, too, has a request. After a few minutes, Louise stops talking to ask, “Father, would you pray for me?”
As the longest government shutdown in U.S. history draws to a close, much of the news cycle has centered on the struggles of 42 million Americans missing benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
While benefits remain delayed, many of those 42 million may have spent more than a week unsure of how to pay for groceries. It’s difficult to grasp such a large number. For those without direct connections to food insecurity, the issue can remain hypothetical and far off.
Terence Lester, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Love Beyond Walls, is used to serving those our political system forgets. Love Beyond Walls is a nonprofit focused on poverty and homelessness, based the Atlanta suburb of College Park, Ga. The organization has partnered with local school districts to convert unused classroom space into resource centers designed to make sure students in poverty can get their basic needs met at school. It also provides hygiene stations for people experiencing homelessness throughout the city.
The sidewalk outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview, Ill., seems like an unusual place for an altar call, but that is where Rev. David Black of The First Presbyterian Church of Chicago felt moved to pray and invite ICE agents to repentance.
Since President Donald Trump launched a campaign of mass arrests and deportations in the Chicago area in September, many clergy, faith leaders, and concerned neighbors have been showing up to sing, pray, chant, lead communion, and bear witness in solidarity with people in their community who are being separated from their families, detained, deported, traumatized and forced into hiding. On Sept. 19, Black was on the sidewalk praying for ICE agents and detainees in Broadview when he and other protestors were met with violence. A Chicago Sun Times photo by Ashlee Rezin captured the moment masked ICE agents sprayed Black in the face with chemical irritants. As the image spread on social media, many people commented that the image seemed destined for history books—while others worried about whether the future will have history books.
As I write, the federal government remains shut down, and with it, the Smithsonian and its numerous museums.
I suspect, however, that many in the executive branch aren’t losing sleep over a lack of access to publicly funded, rich, beautiful histories ranging from natural sciences to African American history. In the past year, the Trump administration has demanded those museums shape their presentation to his preferences, cut funding to these institutions, and lambasted the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in particular.
Amid these attacks on a truthful telling of history, I spoke to Harry Singleton III, the faith-based director of the International African American Museum, to understand how a liberation theologian approaches the task of museum work. Singleton is the son of a Baptist minister; a native of South Carolina, where the museum is located; and a scholar who spent most of his time in academia before transitioning to the museum in June.
For as long as Lecrae has been a public figure, he has been a lightning rod for white evangelical racism.
A spearhead for the movement that turned Christian hip-hop from a misfit genre to a powerhouse industry, Lecrae has consistently endured racism thinly veiled as theological critique. While he was earning deep respect from hip-hop luminaries—Sway In the Morning and Kendrick Lamar, for example—he was fighting a Christian industry that only begrudgingly came to accept that CHH was here to stay.
Early on, critics claimed “Christian” and “hip-hop” were contradictory terms, and Christian rappers like Lecrae were putting godly messages second to godless culture. Then, as the U.S. began another reckoning with racist police violence, Lecrae was accused of division, partisanship, and putting “political issues” like racism before “biblical issues” like abortion. When he attempted dialogue, white pastors told him to his face that chattel slavery was a “white blessing.”
This interview is part of The Reconstruct, a weekly newsletter from Sojourners. In a world where so much needs to change, Mitchell Atencio and Josiah R. Daniels interview people who have faith in a new future and are working toward repair. Subscribe here.
I’m not on TikTok, so I’d never heard of 22-year-old content creator, Taylor Cassidy. Cassidy rose to prominence after she started creating engaging and easily digestible videos about Black history. During my interview with Cassidy, she told me her goal is to make sure her audience feels uplifted and excited about learning.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has estimated that since Israel’s war with Gaza began in October 2023, Israel has killed 235 journalists and imprisoned another 86. According to CPJ, this has been the deadliest period for journalists since they first began collecting data in 1992.
When Robert Redford was 18 years old, his mother died—suddenly and young—following complications from delivering twin girls who did not live long. This harrowing loss left young Redford disillusioned with God. “I’d had religion pushed on me since I was a kid,” he would tell Michael Feeney Callan, his biographer. “But after Mom died, I felt betrayed by God.”