Category: Discipleship
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Preaching While White on MLK Sunday
I first wrote this for my weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to here. It was obviously written for MLK Sunday, but I think the content remains relevant. A few years ago a friend invited me to preach at his mostly white suburban church the Sunday before MLK Day. I happened to have a couple…
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Scapegoating the Racists
I first wrote this for my weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to here. My family moved to southern California the summer before my freshmen year of high school. That was the summer the Lakers lost to the Bulls in the NBA Finals. I think that loss was totally incidental to my decision to become…
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Remembering a [Christian] Woman We Should Have Never Forgotten
I first wrote this for my weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to here. I recently reviewed a new book about Ida B. Wells for The Englewood Review of Books. The book, Passionate for Justice: Remembering a Woman We Should Have Never Forgotten, was co-written by a retired white pastor and an African American professor.…
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Will there be racists in heaven?
I wrote this for my weekly newsletter which you can subscribe to here. A few weeks ago a friend retweeted a well-known bishop who is vocal in his opposition to racism who had declared something along the lines of: I’d rather not go to heaven if I’ve got to be there with white evangelicals. To…
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Juneteenth
Within this white supremacist culture, Black people’s decision to publicly commemorate Juneteenth with parades, speeches, and special church services was a conscious act of resistance, a choice to develop a “powerfully subversive collective memory.”
David W. Swanson 