Church

On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released updated guidelines telling people who have received the COVID-19 vaccine that they can now attend a full-capacity worship service and sing in an indoor chorus, among other activities.

While people “will still be required to wear a mask on planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transportation” the CDC guidelines now say that if “you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did before the pandemic...without wearing a mask or physically distancing.”

Numbers like 500,000, hard as they are to grasp, are necessary for grieving.

As churches create plans for re-opening their buildings and look toward a future where people have been vaccinated against COVID-19, there is an opportunity now to re-imagine church. Likely, it will never be the same. And maybe that’s for the better. Singing, hugging, and sharing food have become risky activities. I still grieve this, and yet the possibilities and imagination spurred by these limits excite me.

Much has been written about the ways in which the pandemic is exposing the fragility of our communities and the underlying vulnerabilities that were ignored. Over the years, Father’s Heart has tried to do what it can to knit the fraying margins of the neighborhood back into the whole, by reminding people of their God-given dignity and worth. But they are working against decades-long policies that have kept so many New Yorkers from accessing affordable housing and better paying jobs.

Between 1347 and 1352, 'The Great Mortality' touched a third of Europe's population. 

Why split public and societal critique from personal care and comfort? Whose ends does this split serve?

One year ago this week, I walked into the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, completing my pilgrimage there. This week I witnessed a different pilgrimage as about 100,000 people made their way to Mount Tabieorar, in Ogere Remo, Nigeria. They clothed themselves with white robes, took off their shoes, danced, sang, and prayed through the night and into the early morning with uninhibited joy. This was the 83^rd time the Tabieorar celebration has gathered in this holy space.

White evangelical support for Donald Trump has led some black evangelicals to a crisis of faith and ecclesial identification. In this moment, Jemar Tisby has risen as a voice that’s unafraid to challenge white evangelicals’ complicity with racism, forging another path for those feeling alienated. Tisby is currently completing his PhD in history at the University of Mississippi. He is the president of The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, previously known as the Reformed African American Network, and writes widely about racism, the American church, and social justice. In 2017, a New York Times article quoted him saying: “Racism is not a ‘blind spot’ within white evangelicalism. It is part of that tradition’s DNA.” Now, Tisby has published a book tracing that DNA by way of history.