The Piano Lesson is a film about what we pass on from one generation to the next: family heirlooms, deeply embedded wounds, and — as is the case for the Charles family — deeply embedded spirituality.
As a Christian, I spend a lot of time meditating on what it means to love those who have been incarcerated. These people are a specific group Jesus names in Matthew 25:36-40, saying that when we visit people in prison, we’re visiting him. Throughout the Bible, God demonstrates a concern for the marginalized. When Christians meditate on what it means to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-39), we shouldn’t only think of those who live next door to us, but also those who are imprisoned. But with literal walls and bars separating the incarcerated population from the rest of society, what does it actually mean to love your incarcerated neighbor?
Since his critically acclaimed album, To Pimp a Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar has been wrestling with the devil. But on GNX, his surprise album released last Friday, Lamar stops wrestling and writes a reconciliation between Satan and God.
Back when X was called Twitter, and back when I had social media, I met Andrew Wilkes. I had read some of Wilkes’ writings on Black radicalism and capitalism, and immediately decided he was someone worth following. Not only was he writing on topics that occupied a major preoccupation of my own, but he was also a Black Christian. While I think it is largely a myth that leftist politics is primarily a “white space” (whatever that means), I think it’s fair to say that Black Christian leftists are a rarity. So when I discovered Wilkes, I made a commitment to follow his work.
When Ryan Medina stepped off the plane in San Salvador, capital city of El Salvador, he felt the thrill of being in a new country. He was eager to meet the fellow pilgrims he’d only known online and excited about the journey ahead. But as their van left the bustling city streets and began the drive to the gravesite of four U.S. churchwomen, the atmosphere shifted.
“I realized we were quite literally retracing the same route these women took after they were picked up from the airport on the night they were ambushed and killed,” said Medina, a teacher at Loyola Blakefield High School near Baltimore, Md.
For faith activists and leaders committed to continuing their work to oppose and resist Christian nationalism, President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House is disappointing but not a sign of total defeat. Ahead of Inauguration Day, many activists are continuing their coalition-building efforts and sounding the alarm on specific policies they believe Trump may sign executive orders on, day one in office.
A musical about Tammy Faye Messner, more widely known by her former name, Tammy Faye Bakker, seems odd at first. But the Broadway stage feels like the right place for the rise and fall of televangelism to play out. Televangelism, after all, is meant to be a spectacle. And its shadow of corruption, sex, and money only add to the theatrics of it all.
I always travel home for the holidays. No matter what the challenges — overbooked trains, cross-country road trips through winter snowstorms, a carpool with strangers from college, or crowded airports with angsty TSA agents — I always find a way.
I make this journey because, growing up, these autumnal gatherings were always a source of great joy. I was fortunate to grow up in a home whose greatest holiday struggles were finding enough chairs to seat every beloved guest and sliding in the finicky table extensions to accommodate the full spread of food. We played games, watched football, took long naps, and awoke to the miracle of more food.
For myself and others, these rituals continue today, but the holidays have evolved into an increasingly tense time.
Looking back now, a quarter century later, I see how Tony Campolo’s life shaped my own. When the political operatives of the New Right partnered with Jerry Falwell and other Southern Baptists to use Christian faith to rally a reactionary political movement in the 1970s, Tony understood what was happening.
I’ve followed Robert Monson’s work for years. Monson is a writer and theologian who focuses on Black theology, contemplation, and disability. He is also one of the first people outside my direct orbit to encourage my writing (not just my reporting), and I’ve always found him to be encouraging, joyful, and thoughtful.
Lately, as I have been reading Monson’s work, I’ve found that he is becoming rather soft. Now, before you think those are fighting words, I’ve thought this because it’s the term that Monson uses to describe himself and his aspirations as a man. He sees softness as an ethic to live into, a way of honoring his personhood and the personhood of others.