Over the years, I have thought about the reasons why individuals continue to cling tightly to their beliefs, beliefs based in fear that spawn hatred. I’ve struggled to come to grips with this aspect of humanity and to untangle its roots. What I have come to realize is that change and growth cannot occur until one decides to come face to face with themselves. … Read More Confronting Ourselves and The Fear of Action
Cover photo Mike Theiler Lillian Smith tells the story of her and one of her brothers playing in their house in Jasper, Florida. They ran around and in the attic they came across an old chest. Opening it, they stood aghast, staring at all of the money they had found. “We felt rich; richer than the Rockefeller children or any children,” Smith said in … Read More The New Lost Cause Rhetoric
+ christianity, comics, graphic novels, incognegro, lillian e smith, mat johnson, warren pleece, white supremacy
Mat Johnson and Warren Pleece’s Incognegro focuses on constructions of race and the ways that whites use these constructions in order to maintain power or to even hopefully achieve power. The graphic novel does not detail the intersections between white supremacy and the church, but there are at least two brief moments that cause readers to think about these intersections. Today, I want to … Read More Christian Nationalism and “Incognegro”
+ christianity, conservative baptist network, james baldwin, lillian e smith, ross barnett, southern baptist convention, white supremacy
Note: This is the second part of “Christianity, Ross Barnett, and White Supremacy.” Let’s look back at Romans 13, you know, the chapter that enslavers and the current administration have used to justify slavery and separating families at the border. What gets left out, of course, are verses 8-10 where Paul tells the Roman Christians “to love one another, for whoever loves others has … Read More Christianity, Ross Barnett, and White Supremacy: Part II
+ christianity, conservative baptist network, george floyd, james baldwin, lillian e smith, ross barnett, southern baptist convention, white supremacy
About halfway through Take this Hammer, James Baldwin stands outside of a burned-out St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco in 1963. Baldwin’s guide tells him about the fire that burned the building, and he tells Baldwin that as a result of the fire “the Catholic Church was able to raise fifteen million dollars to build another cathedral” in only nine months. Baldwin laughs and … Read More Christianity, Ross Barnett, and White Supremacy: Part I
