Category: Discipleship
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How much to say in 2024? How loudly to say it?
How helpful is it to publicly oppose the MAGA-Trump movement in 2024? I’ve been wondering about this and am struggling to come up with an answer I feel much conviction about. It feels like a lot of people, for a variety of reasons, believe it is necessary to take a vocal stand against the former…
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Where Was the White Church?
A lightly edited version of a talk I gave at a conference at Progressive Baptist Church here in Chicago. On a November Sunday in 1898, the Rev. Francis J. Grimke stood before his congregation at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington D. C. Rev. Grimke had been born into slavery in South Carolina, the…
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Insurrection, Idolatry, and an Invitation to Risky Discipleship
In the days following the January 6 insurrection, a lot of us tried to make sense of the violence and chaos we watched unfold on live TV from the US Capitol. For as unpredictable as were the days following the election, the scenes of an enraged mob attacking police officers, chanting for the Vice President’s…
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Know Your Divisions
Yesterday afternoon I was talking with a couple of friends who both serve churches in small Midwestern towns. They are thoughtful and humble leaders in their communities and I learn something every time we catch up. This conversation turned to divisions- the ones within congregations and the larger cultural ones which isolate Christians from one…
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Singing in the Dark
Johnny Dark At some point each day, having listened to the same song most of the day, Johnny Dark takes out his phone, points it toward a mirror in his darkened home before hitting record, and begins to sing. When he’s finished he uploads the song to his YouTube channel where it joins a collection…
David W. Swanson 