Sublime

Living in a climate of deep insecurity, Jesus, faced with so narrow a margin of civil guarantees, had to find some other basis upon which to establish a sense of well-being. He knew that the goals of religion as he understood them could never be worked out within the then-established

I return to the early days of the COVID-19 health crisis and the concurrent racial uprisings sparked by the murder of George Floyd. At that time, the world community of human beings were “all in this together.” Compassion was at an all-time high as we suffered alongside communities as diverse as Italy, Brazil, and grieving black moms in, say, Minne

communities,

it was a statement of resistance.

A recent resource that seeks to help Christians working at this level is Advocating for Justice: An Evangelical Vision for Transforming Systems and Structures, edited by Stephen Offutt.

Maybe before a small group is sent from a church to address injustice in another country—like building a church or working in a school—the whole congregation should go through a public confession about the way our own country has, for example, exploited Native Americans and African Americans, and how that pain and exploitation still creates ripples

And I include myself in the criticism. We as the American church need to take more ownership for our collective sin, our obsession with things that will not make an ounce of difference in heaven, and our failure (past and present) to stand up and speak up for the poor, for the stranger, for the ones who don’t look like us.

theology that must emerge out of the dialectic of black history and culture. Instinctively, I went to the Scriptures as the primary source for this new approach and asked, “What has the biblical message to do with the black power revolution?” My answer is found in my first book, Black Theology and Black Power (Seabury, 1969). My second book, A Blac

Second,