white supremacy

Samuel Son 8-24-2017

White supremacy has been a staple in much of the American and European Church. This marriage of racism to the gospel is proudly displayed on a mantle when people say America was founded on Christian principles. The so-called return to Christian values means a return to a time when white supremacy was uncontested philosophy and policy.

Image via Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com

Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a letter posted on his Twitter account that Trump had failed to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis, part of "a broader pattern of behavior that enables sexism and racism, and disregards the welfare of all Americans, the global community and the planet."

Melvin Bray 8-22-2017

In the wake of the Charlottesville, Va., white nationalist race riot, several writers have reached for the metaphor of addiction to help characterize the gravity of what America is facing and the grip it has on us. It's easy enough to understand why one would choose this particular comparison, especially when you take time to explore how compulsive behaviors affect the individuals engaged in them, their families and friends, and even their brains. The outcomes over time are devastating.

Joe Kay 8-22-2017

Has your pastor addressed the events of Charlottesville directly? Did they say that the racism and white supremacy are evil and contrary to everything that Jesus taught and lived?

White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon (L) and then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., February 23, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
 

President Donald Trump fired chief strategist Steve Bannon on Friday, the White House announced, ending the turbulent tenure of a rabble-rousing conservative media entrepreneur and political activist who was a darling of Trump's base.

the Web Editors 8-17-2017

A Charlottesville vigil reading of "Still I Rise," by Maya Angelou. Image via Rick Stillings/Flickr.

 Chanting "love wins" and singing hymns and songs, the vigil attendees in Charlottesville held small candles in a striking visual rebuke to the torches that swept through just days earlier.

Heather Heyer's mother Susan Bro speaks at her memorial service inside the Paramount Theater in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 16. 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
 

With tears and defiant tributes, hundreds of purple-clad people packed an historic Charlottesville theater to remember the 32-year-old woman killed when a suspected white nationalist crashed his car into anti-racist demonstrators.

"They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her," Heyer's mother Susan Bro said to long and loud applause from those gathered at the city's 1930s-era Paramount Theater.

Kaitlin Curtice 8-16-2017

Image via REUTERS/Justin Ide.

Somewhere completely outside of all of this,

you are ushering in a kingdom not of this world,

one that rights all wrongs and rules in love.

But for now, here we are.

the Web Editors 8-16-2017

Photo by Heather Wilson (@aNomadPhotog) / Dust & Light Photo 

"White supremacy and racism deny the dignity of each human being revealed through the Incarnation. The evil of white supremacy and racism must be brought face-to-face before the figure of Jesus Christ, who cannot be confined to any one culture or nationality. Through faith we proclaim that God the Creator is the origin of all human persons. In the words of Frederick Douglass, “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference." 

 

Courtney Ariel 8-16-2017

I have been asked by two dear friends, “how can I be a stronger ally?” Being the slow emotional processor that I am, I wanted to spend some time with this before I answered them. I surely appreciate and love these two individuals, and I appreciate their vulnerability in asking me this question. I am not going to do much coddling here; I don’t know that I believe that love requires coddling. Here are six things you can do to be stronger allies.

the Web Editors 8-16-2017

Image via Baltimore Heritage/Flickr

This morning's statue removals follow a weekend of violence in Charlottesville, Va., centered on the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. On Monday, the Baltimore city council voted to remove and destroy the statues. That process took nearly immediate effect, in the middle of the night Tuesday and early Wednesday. 

A Sheriff's deputy stands near the toppled statue of a Confederate soldier in front of the old Durham County Courthouse in Durham, N.C. Aug. 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kate Medley
 

Undeterred by violence over the planned removal of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Va., municipal leaders in cities across the United States said this week they would step up efforts to pull such monuments from public spaces.

David F. Potter 8-15-2017

Clergy protest the white supremacist rally Aug. 12. in Charlottesville, Va.. Photo by Heather Wilson (@aNomadPhotog) / Dust & Light Photo.
 

On Friday, I traveled to Charlottesville, Va., to bear witness. What I saw there deeply unsettled me. White supremacists, gathered for a rally at a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, boldly manifested the evil legacy of America’s original sin. Unfolding in streets throughout the city the heritage of whiteness was revealed in full display. Perhaps most disturbing was the unashamed nature of this hate-filled display: In 2017, white supremacists wear no hoods.

Kaitlin Curtice 8-14-2017

And our best chance at fighting supremacy on a daily basis is to know who we are, to know the truth of what we are called to be in the name of Jesus — based on his peace, his shalom, his justice, and based on the fact that all people are equally valuable in their own skin and own cultures. This forces us to take a look at our missionary ideologies, at the way we view light and darkness and what we teach from our pulpits and in our bible studies. It forces us to recognize that people who are outside the institutional church are doing the good work of Jesus, too, and we learn from them.

David F. Potter 8-08-2017

Lukas Maverick Greyson / Shutterstock.com

“It is our duty as white folks to dismantle white supremacy,” Caine-Conley said. “… People of color, both black and brown bodies, have been absorbing violence since our country was created as our country. Showing up in body to absorb some of that violence and tension ourselves, to put our bodies in places that black and brown people have been for centuries, is really important as we begin to dismantle white supremacy.”

Kaitlin Curtice 7-12-2017

It is a scary thing to let the ones who have been at the bottom rise to the top.
It’s scary when privilege begins to lose.
It’s scary when those that have been “other” for so long get a place at the table.
It’s scary when things get uncomfortable and messy.

But then, that’s Kingdom.

Sam Codington 7-11-2017

If we have learned anything from the past several decades, healing from a 500-year heritage of slavery will take more than a generation or two. I am humbled when I think of this because I realize that the relentless, demonic agony inflicted for 500 years will not be undone or healed by a single generation. My body will have flitted through the breeze as dust many times over once this 500-year heritage has been unwound and restitched. Healing takes more than just time.

Jim Wallis 6-15-2017

Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com

The theology, sociology, and politics of race continue to play themselves out in America in matters of both church and state. That racism is a sin and a gospel issue — and not just a political matter for us as Christians — was asserted once more yesterday. The continuing struggle to put our theology over our sociology among white Christians was again on display.

Image via RNS/Philip Bethancourt

After a fierce backlash on social media, Southern Baptists reversed course and adopted a statement denouncing “alt-right white supremacy,” calling it “antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The unusual move on June 14 was a shift from the previous day, when the Southern Baptist Convention’s Resolutions Committee declined to bring to a vote a Texas pastor’s proposed resolution condemning the “alt-right” movement, whose members include white supremacists.

Kaitlin Curtice 6-07-2017

Since becoming more vocal about my Native American faith in the last year, I’ve had experiences that have confirmed that American Christianity is not only naïve to indigenous beliefs, but actually fully submersed in ideologies and attitudes that naturally lead to discrimination toward indigenous and other people of color — a continuation of the savior complex.