Category: church
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Manifest Destiny and Black Faith
I first shared the following post in my newsletter which you can subscribe to here. Not long ago I noticed how often over the past few years I’ve been returning to the biblical themes of wilderness and exile. There’s a lot to say about these themes and I hope to explore some of them in…
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Diplomacy Doesn’t Work
This was first published in my newsletter earlier this year. During our ministry staff devotions this week we ended up talking about what our Christian responsibility is to those in positions of power whose attitudes and beliefs about racial justice (among other areas) are damaging to people. These powerful individuals could be a parent, a…
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Hoping in Herod: An Election Day Lament
This was first published in my newsletter earlier this year. On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel…
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Local Countercultures of Reconciliation and Justice
This was first published in my newsletter earlier this year. I’ve recently been listening to “Motive”, a podcast produced by our local NPR station about the rise of of neo-Nazi skinheads in Chicago and beyond in the 1980’s. It’s pretty troubling stuff, as you can imagine, and it’s hard not to make connections to the…
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The Truth of the Protest
This was first published in my newsletter earlier this year. Why is it that you can know how terribly something will turn out and still be devastated when it does? This is what I was wondering on Wednesday afternoon after the grand jury declined to indict anyone for Breonna Taylor’s killing. When I read about…
David W. Swanson 