“For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” – Matthew 7:8

When my oldest son was merely a toddler, we would play hide and seek. At first, he didn’t seem to truly understand the strategy behind the game. Rather than finding a good hiding spot, he would sit against a wall in the middle of a room, cover his eyes with his hands, and say, “Mama, come find me!” Then he would giggle like crazy as I pretended I couldn’t see him sitting there right in front of me and made a big deal of looking for him.

I’m remembering this adorable story as I contemplate how we seek and find Jesus.

Sometimes, especially when we are going through something difficult, we may feel as though Jesus is hiding from us. Or worse, as though He has left us entirely.

But is it true? Is He hiding? Has He left us?

Or could it be, that He is right there in front of us, but we are not looking in the right place?

There’s a story I heard once about Billy Graham – one of Evangelical Christianity’s greatest evangelists in his time. The story goes that Graham once traveled to a Buddhist monastery high up in the mountains of Tibet or Nepal (I forget which). He was able to meet with one of the monks who lived there. He sat down with this monk, and he told him about Jesus. After he finished his evangelistic spiel, he asked, Would you like me to introduce you to Jesus? And the monk said, No, because I already know Him. 

The monk had sought out truth, and he had found Jesus. Or, perhaps, Jesus had honored his seeking by revealing Himself to the monk. The Buddhist monk lived secluded in the mountains of a country where less than 2% of the population is Christian – but he came to know Him, because Jesus was near.

There’s another story, told in the excellent book, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus” by Nabeel Qureshi.  In the book, Qureshi chronicles his journey, which began with him setting out to debunk Christianity and prove Islam. Along the way, he found Jesus instead, and, convicted of the truth of Christianity, he converted. He sought the truth, and found Jesus, because Jesus was near.

Lee Stroebel is another example. He was an atheist in a marriage on its way to divorce when his wife met Jesus. She didn’t bang him over the head with it or try to get him to convert. But he saw the change in her. Change for good – not changing into some cold, judgmental, hateful person. She became more patient, more loving, more joyful. So, he set out much like Qureshi did to debunk Christianity and to convince her she had fallen for a ploy. Instead, he also found Jesus. He was convicted by the amount of evidence for Christianity and has become one of our generation’s great apologists. He found Jesus – because Jesus was near.

When I took a missions class some years back, I heard stories like this from real life missionaries serving all around the world. Stories of Hindus coming to Christ through mind-blowing miracles, of Muslims meeting Jesus in their dreams, of entire families and even communities being transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. Jesus not only is found by those who seek Him but shows Himself to those who do not even know what it is they seek.

Here in the U.S., our churches sometimes seem confused about where to find Jesus. We are told – implicitly or explicitly – Jesus doesn’t do miracles like in New Testament times. We are told Jesus doesn’t necessarily speak to us directly, but rather only through His Word. It is almost as though we are lowering our expectations so as not to be disappointed.

But what if He does? What if Jesus does do miracles, does want to speak to us directly, and does want to engage with us, but we no longer know how to hear Him?

Or maybe, we are not finding Him, because we are not even looking for Him.

In Matthew 13:58, Jesus is teaching at the Sea of Galilee and Matthew notes, “And He did not do many miracles there, because of their unbelief.”

What if we are missing out on Jesus because we do not believe?

Maybe we believe in Jesus, in the God-man who existed on Earth 2000 years ago and did many great things. Maybe we even believe He rose and died again and hope in Him for our salvation.

But we do not believe He wants and is able to radically move in our lives today. We do not expect to hear Him or experience Him in any kind of real way.

Or maybe, we aren’t expecting Him to do anything because we are so busy trying to do everything ourselves.

We think we’ve got this. We don’t need divine intervention. We’re doing a-OK on our own.

We’re bustling about, trying to usher in His Kingdom through passing the right laws and voting for the right political candidates and marching against our “heathen” neighbors.  

Forget about the fact that this approach is contrary to the gospel of Jesus. Jesus who loved and served and had compassion on the vulnerable around Him.  He didn’t care if they were outcasts or if they were unpopular or if they were unclean. He just loved people.

Why is it so hard for us to do the same?

Maybe that’s the real reason why we can’t find Him – because we’ve been blinded by our own pride and privilege and determination. Because our independence and individuality means more to us than the King we claim to serve.

But, if we are truly followers of Jesus, if we are “little Christs”, should we not be emulating Him rather than some white savior type image? Should we not be more concerned about following Christ than following a flag?

I think if we were, if we truly were seeking Jesus, I think we would find Him. I think He’s not as far away as we believe.  I think He wants to be found, just like my toddler did. Jesus wants to step in and do amazing things in and through our lives.

Because He is near.

We’d lived the Good Samaritan story in Iraq, and as a recent Christian college graduate, I thought it was important to preach that parable’s good news to Christian colleges. Chaplains invited me into their pulpits, and we often shared conversation over lunch with students and faculty about what it means to live the gospel of Jesus in a violent world.

The culture on white Christian college campuses skews conservative, and there were always people who were uncomfortable with my messages—even those who publicly protested them. But as the occupation of Iraq drug on and the truth came out about the lies that had been told to justify the initial invasion, the common sense about that war changed. I had the chance to preach Jesus’ Way of nonviolent love, beloved community, racial equity and economic justice on Christian college campuses. I taught students to sing the freedom songs of the civil rights movement and introduced them to the vibrant faith of Fannie Lou Hamer and Dorothy Day, Clarence Jordan and Rosa Parks. Over the course of two decades, I’ve had dozens of conversations with chaplains and administrators about the challenge of young people who grew up in the Christian faith rejecting it as young adults because they do not see the church living out Jesus’ commitment to love, justice, and mercy. I’ve loved preaching in Christian college chapels because it’s given me the chance to watch faith get reborn in some of those young people.

Because of this experience, I was troubled when I heard from my friend Jemar Tisby that the Board of Trustees at Grove City College had commissioned an investigation that singled out a sermon he gave in their chapel two years ago. The language the report uses is common in right wing political circles right now. It demonizes “critical race theory” as a threat to faith, then finds signs of this imagined enemy in any efforts to address racial justice. Without naming any theological or hermeneutical error in his message to the students, the report names Dr. Tisby as a representative of its boogeyman, then recommends restricting access to the pulpit to prevent others from committing the same perceived error. If you’re interested in the details of all of this, Dr. Tisby has written a gracious response that includes links to the report.

What concerns me about this official action to single out Dr. Tisby and purge a Christian college campus of conversations about racial justice is the answer it implies to the question of what mission Christian colleges serve. Like I said, there have always been people on these campuses who would disagree with me or Dr. Tisby. This is what a college campus is for: critical reflection and honest debate about how we make sense of the world. At a Christian college, that debate is shaped by the shared conviction that the Bible and Christian tradition shape conversations about how we understand the world.

At least, that’s what I’ve always assumed. But in their zeal to appease extremists who’ve made “CRT” their boogeyman, the Board of Trustees at Grove City College seems to have made a public confession that the shared commitment which shapes conversation on their campus is not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the conversative political ideology that racial equity challenges. Given the reach of the religious right into white Christian institutions, I suspect this board is not the only one that will have to decide which side of this ultimatum it is on.

My guess is that most of the members of the Board at Grove City aren’t happy they were forced to make this choice. The board chair, who also serves as CEO of DuPont, has made public statements on behalf of his company in support of racial justice, and he claims to be implementing a company-wide initiative to achieve racial equity in their workforce. It’s awkward to be put in a position where you publicly contradict yourself, but some powers and principalities persuaded the Board to accept and approve this report.

But having spent time on Christian college campuses, my heart aches for the young people who thought they were learning to follow Jesus and the faculty and staff who show up every day assuming that their mission is to pursue God’s kingdom, not the success of the Republican Party. The Board of Trustees hasn’t only singled out Dr. Tisby in an unfair and un-Christian way. They have also let down a community whose primary obstacle to faith in recent years is the hypocrisy of its leaders.

Since our friend Tony Campolo first called us together 15 years ago, Red Letter Christians have been preaching Jesus and justice on college campuses and in churches and communities around this country. In this moment, we have a chance to say #IStandWithJemar, and to challenge other Christian colleges and institutions to make clear whether their primary commitment is to the gospel of Jesus or to a political ideology. I hope we can do it not only for Dr. Tisby’s sake, but also for the millions of young people in this country and around the world who are genuinely asking whether an authentic Christian faith is possible.

We’ve been doing Native American work, serving our own Indigenous peoples, for over thirty years. I consider those years the most valuable times among all my learning experiences. I’m going to share a story with you from those years because I know Canada has a wonderful practice of recognizing the host peoples of the land. Wherever we went to speak, we always sought the blessing of the host people whose land we were on because that’s what we were taught by our elders. So we were going to the Ojibwa reservation near Hayward, Wisconsin. When I got there, I asked the group that had invited me, the YWAM Native leadership base, “Who welcomed you on the land?”

They had invited us to come up for a week and teach an Indigenous Leadership course, so I wanted to be sure all was being done in a good way. Unfortunately, no one had really invited them on the land, so I said, “Well then, we can’t speak.” This type of problem has actually happened a couple of different times, but we’ve always been able to work through it. Creator has always made a way for us to receive the local blessing and speak. But in Hayward, we had just learned of the problem, so we had to tell our host that we won’t speak unless the host people welcome us somehow.

Now, it just so happened that day that this young Ojibwa kid from Seattle, not yet in his twenties, was hitchhiking on the reservation. The young man and his brother were adopted out when he was about two years old and were raised in Seattle by a White family. He had recently experienced an LSD trip where he saw Jesus, and Jesus told him, “I want you to go back to your reservation.” The young man knew he was from a reservation somewhere, way out in Wisconsin. Well, it just so happened that the director of the YWAM base saw him hitchhiking on the road and picked him up. The director asked him if he knew who his people were, but he did not. He told Dave, the director of the YWAM base, that while on LSD, Jesus told him to come out here. Then Dave asked if he had any place to stay. He did not. Dave told him he could stay with them, so they fed him and gave him shelter. We got there later that same day.

Naturally, I took the opportunity to include this Ojibwe young man and had him stick with me all that day so he could learn something from it. I knew enough to know that he wasn’t there by accident. “I want to teach you some things,” I told him, and he said, “Okay.” I told him whenever we go to some- one else’s land, even now, my elders told me, even when driving down the road, to stop and put tobacco down, because that is someone else’s land and we need to respect it. But to be completely honest, I need to tell you that when driving I haven’t always done that, just because we travel through so many places, we’d be stopping constantly. But we have asked for permission wherever we teach or exercise any sort of spiritual influence. And so it was important that we do this right that day, especially now that we had a young person trying to find himself and his Indigenous identity. After some thought was given to this, we figured out who the elder was we should speak with. He was one of the two leaders of the Midewiwin Lodge, their tribal religion, and he was also a tribal elder and elder representative to the tribal council.

We went to the local store, and we made a traditional elder basket that consisted of flour and tobacco, a flashlight and coat hangers, sugar and coffee, fresh fruit, and all the kinds of things that elders like. After tracking down his address, we went to his house and knocked on the door, and his wife answered. I guess people visit him often for advice so she very naturally said, “Oh, come in and set the basket down, he’s on the phone right now.” Finally, he came back and asked respectfully, “Who are you guys and what do you want?” So I explained to him who we were and that we were going to be teaching on spiritual matters to Indigenous leaders there. He said, “Well, what are you going to be teaching?” I explained how we do things according to our traditional teachings, but we follow Jesus. We were calling it “contextual Native ministry” at the time, but I don’t really think of it like that anymore. We just live the life we are supposed to be living. Now we’re just Indians being Indians.

Then he started telling us some pretty interesting stories. He said, “You know what you all believe and what we believe is not that different?” Then he told us of a couple of subtle differences concerning hell and the devil. He said, “You know, when I was a younger person, I wanted to find out what you Christians believe, so I enrolled for a semester in this college. It’s called Moody Bible College, you ever heard of that?” We were surprised and talked about that for some time. But every now and then he would keep interrupting his own story, which meant he was trying to get a point across, and he said, “You know, my uncle told me to never disrespect Jesus, because Jesus is a great spirit and I talk to him.” And he would go on and he’d tell us more and more, and then he would say this thing about his uncle again. He told us about how he had just come back from a big meeting of Gichi Dowan, big medicine people from around the United States and Canada. These Ojibwa spiritual leaders were all trying to decide how they could get along better with the Christians. And he told us some stories about all this.

We sat there for maybe two hours, and at least six or seven times he said this thing about his uncle and respecting Jesus. Then at one point he said, “My uncle trained most of the spiritual leaders around this area. He lived to be over a hundred years old, and my uncle would tell me all these stories about Jesus. So I asked my uncle one time, I said, ‘Uncle, how do you know all this about Jesus? Did you go to residential school?’ He said, ‘Oh no! No! I never did that.’ Then I asked him, ‘Did the priest teach you?’ And he says, ‘No, I have never been to church.’ Then I said, ‘But you tell me all the stuff about Jesus. Have you been reading the Bible?’ My uncle said, ‘No, just remember what I told you in the past: don’t disrespect Jesus ’cause he’s a great spirit, and I talk to him.’ I said to my uncle, ‘Well yeah, you talk to him, but how do you know all these things he’s done?’ You know my uncle looked at me so quizzically, and then he said, ‘Well, when I talk to him, of course he talks back.’ And then the elder said, ‘I’m going to pray for you now,’ and then our time was over.”

The message was simple to understand: It’s just like when I used to pastor and I would tell the children’s sermon before the regular sermon. I would tell them, “If you understood the implications of what I just said in the children’s story, you don’t have to stay for the adult preaching—you can go on home.” If you understood the story I just told about the visit with this elder, you understand my message, because it holds the core of it.

Content taken from Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview by Randy S. Woodley, ©2022. Used by permission of Baker Academic.

NEW YORK – LIVE FREE USA joins The Quincy Institute and Red Letter Christians to host: “55 Years Later: Can the Church Study War No More?”

The event comes amid a harrowing war in Ukraine, violent crime spikes in US cities and continued economic distress in communities of color across the country.  This FREE forum will invite people of faith and good will to reflect and commemorate the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beyond Vietnam speech where he calls on all people to defeat the “triplets of evil: militarism, racism and poverty.” National leaders will gather to re-read the historic speech, followed by a panel conversation featuring Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King. Special musical guests Brian Courtney Wilson, Aaron Niequist, and Common Hymnal will perform.

“Violence abroad and violence at home require the active engagement of the church if we are to be agents of peace and justice in these times. We cannot allow our tax dollars to be a slush fund for military contractors abroad or militarization in US cities.” says Pastor Mike McBride.

Adds Shane Claiborne “the prophets call people of God to study war no more! We intend to amplify this call among faith leaders and congregations with an aim to resurrect a faith driven anti-war movement which encompasses the foreign and domestic expressions of state violence: international military actions in Ukraine, Yemen, Somalia and Israel/Palestine; police and state violence including the death penalty; and community gun violence in black and brown communities”.

Executive Director of Quincy Institute Lora Lumps says, “The importance of the faith community, in partnership with bi-partisan policymakers, advocating for peaceful resolutions to violent conflicts at home and abroad has never been more critical. As the Biden administration and this Congress adds close to $100B to already bloated military budgets and private contracts, poor people in the United States and underdeveloped countries around the world are met with death and needless suffering. We cannot not be so committed to funding violence and strength through might.”

This event is April 2 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Riverside Church, the location where Dr. King gave this historic speech. The event is free and open to the press.

Proof of vaccination or negative PCR test (within 72 hours of event) and masks are required for entry to Riverside Church. 

WHO: Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, and RLC Leaders, Shane Claiborne, Rev. Michael McBride, Rev. Traci Blackmon, Rev. Todd Yeary (RLC Board Chair), Lisa Sharon Harper (RLC Board Member), Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Jemar Tisby, Sharon Risher,  Michael W. Waters, Erich Kussman, Carlos Rodriguez, Diana Oestreich, Common Hymnal, and Aaron Niequist.

WHAT: MLK Beyond Vietnam 55 Years Later: Can the Church Study War No More

WHEN: Doors open at 3:30 ET on Saturday, April 2; the event will run from (approx.) 4-6 ET.

WHERE: The Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Dr, New York, NY. Live stream can also be viewed on RLC’s Facebook, YouTube, or website.

RSVP: bit.ly/mlkvietnamspeech2022

CONTACT: Katie Kirkpatrick, sc@redletterchristians.org, (856) 477-3277

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I took my indignation to the Dean. I presented my opinions, trying to mask my moral outrage. My memory of that conversation, some forty-five years ago, is that he mumbled or spoke in double talk. In retrospect, I don’t think he said much of anything except to toe the party line. He was certainly uncomfortable with me – and I couldn’t tell if he was uncomfortable with the decision the school had made. In my adrenaline-fed arrogance and indignation, I found his response unsatisfactory.

In some desperation, I took my concerns to Henri Nouwen, who lived in a basement apartment in the same dorm where my classmate resided. Henri was becoming a nationally, if not internationally known spiritual giant, but somehow he always made himself available to students. He agreed to meet with me.

READ: Radical Forgiveness and Ableism in the Church

I told him the story about my classmate’s removal. He said he didn’t know much, if anything, about the particulars of the case. When I finished my litany of complaint, I fully expected him to tell me that I had figured the place out, that Christian community was fiction if not a sham, – and that I should get out and go to law school , and be done with the whole business. Instead, he looked at me straight in the eye, and said, “what do you expect?” 

More than this, I said. Actually, I am not sure I said anything, because I was too stunned by his response. He went on: people do the best they can, and often it isn’t very good. People hurt one another, even when – and often when -, they don’t intend to. What he didn’t say, but certainly implied, was ‘– get over it.’ Not the presumed injustice of the situation, but the fact that people don’t behave very well with one another. Get over it, because when you are able to see people in their vulnerability and with their flaws, it becomes paradoxically easier to see people as being imbued with at least a modicum of God’s grace. And It also cuts down on the ego-driven moral indignation, so that you can deal with the situation with better perspective.

I have told the story about my meeting with Henri dozens of times over the years partly because, no, mainly because, I am trying to get over the fact that people do dark things to one another. And realizing that reality has, over the ensuing years, lowered my ego temperature so I can see injustice more clearly and challenge it more effectively. 

JOIN: Monthly Morning Prayer with Rev. William Barber II on April 1st at 9am

Most people, particularly those in 12- step groups, are familiar with the Serenity Prayer: “God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” What I didn’t know until recently, is that Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous prayer continues: “Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with You forever in the next.”

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. That takes a lot of work – and the work is letting go in order to see what is. Letting go of the expectation that the world be free of darkness. Letting go of our indignation that the darkness exists. The darkness is there; we have to live in it, deal with it, and see the light in the midst of darkness.

Content taken from Seeing the Unseen: Beyond Prejudices, Paradigms, and Party Lines by Mark Beckwith, ©2022. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.

One of the most common questions I get — once people have moved past denial — is, “What do we do now?”

Often this question is understandably accompanied by a great amount of anguish, stress and a sense of being overwhelmed — feelings I myself encountered while researching and writing the book.

The recognition of the longevity and enormity of the problem in white Christianity can often lead to a kind of paralysis that inhibits meaningful action.

In “White Too Long,” I shared a powerful exchange that occurred in a meeting between the two First Baptist Churches in Macon, Georgia — one predominately white and one predominately Black — who had begun a journey together to talk openly about racism for the first time in their shared histories:

If we get past denial, if we get past the magical thinking that time will settle our moral obligations for us, the next challenge for white Christians today is to deal with the paralyzing notion that the weight of this history is so enormous that meaningful action is impossible.

At one early meeting between the white and black members of the two First Baptist Churches in Macon, a white member confessed that she was simply overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. After a painful pause, an African American woman responded calmly, “Of course you are.” This reply was a palpable moment of compassion and accountability. While giving the white woman permission to feel overwhelmed, the African American woman’s response also gently affirmed that this discomfort was not an excuse for inaction.

I recently wrote that the first step toward recovery from the distortions of white supremacy is “to separate being white from being Christian.” This is the heart of the matter. But given how long the assumption that white lives matter more than others has been with us, and how deeply it is embedded in our architecture, histories, liturgy, hymnody and theology, this is no simple task.

Faced with this formidable past, I’m convinced that the most important thing white Christians can do is to simply start somewhere. And to start somewhere local. The following suggestions are intended to be prompts to generate thinking. There is no boilerplate 10-step program or magic formula, just the courageous work to begin where we are, to see what we have been unable to see and to change what we have been unwilling to change.

WATCH the Faith Forum on White Discomfort

Here are seven places to start.

1. Take a walk around the church building and grounds. In what ways does the physical embodiment of your church communicate whiteness? If you have stained-glass windows, do they depict a white Jesus or other biblical characters who are presented as white? During Advent and Christmas celebrations that include a nativity scene, are Mary, Joseph and Jesus white? What about the paintings and bulletin boards that adorn the walls — are the images of people all white? And who uses the church facilities during the week? If only predominately white groups meet there, why is that?
2. Examine the church website and social media sites. These days, potential new members are as likely to see the digital footprint of the church long before they encounter the sign out in the front lawn. On shoestring budgets, it’s easy to grab unreflectively stock images featuring white people for landing pages and events. Do these images reflect the body of Christ? And is there anything communicating a commitment to be in solidarity with Black and Brown congregations and people in your community?
3. Review the children’s educational materials. One reader recently wrote to me that she was appalled to find how many 1950s-era materials that depicted only white people were still on the preschool library and classroom shelves. And what about those pictorial children’s Bibles, with all the characters depicted as white?
   One way not to pass along white supremacist assumptions (and to communicate a more accurate history of what characters from the Middle East and Africa would look like!) is to correct the materials we use to teach the next generation about our faith.
4. Tell a truer history of ourselves. Most churches that have been around for more than a generation have commissioned an official history that tells the story of the founding and early growth of the church. But these glossy accounts sitting in the church library or on tables in the foyer are typically incomplete at best. They, by design, are like a resume, usually written with a commitment to telling the most flattering, impressive story of the congregation.
   Here’s one practical proposal. Pull together a group to write a more honest church history that begins with this simple question: Why is our church physically located where it is? Why is it in this part of our community and not another one? In nearly all cases this question will quickly lead to issues of racially segregated neighborhoods, white flight from cities to suburbs and land grabs from Native Americans, to name just a few. And other questions will flow from this beginning: Has the church ever had a policy or practice of prohibiting non-white members? Where was the voice of the church during past and present movements for civil rights? How different would a history of your church be if it were written by non-white members of your community?
5. Evaluate the hymns and other songs being sung in worship. The imagery — associated whiteness with purity and goodness and blackness with sin and evil — performs powerful moral and theology work, often below the level of consciousness. Are we still unreflectively singing 19th-century hymns with lyrics like, “Whiter than snow, yes, whiter than snow/Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”? Or the militant, Crusade-invoking “Onward, Christian Soldiers, Marching as to War”?
6. Assess what’s being addressed from the pulpit and other church-wide educational events. To give just one example from the Roman Catholic context: After 25 years of regular proclamations from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the importance of addressing racial justice, a 2004 survey found that 64% of Catholics had not heard a single sermon on racism or racial justice during the entire three-year cycle of the lectionary. Even in the midst of the effervescence last fall, following months of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, a recent Pew study found that only 40% of congregations heard sermons that even mentioned race or racism. Was this widespread silence from the pulpit the witness of your church? Historically, white pastors have heard a loud cacophony of voices warning them from speaking out against white supremacy. Does your pastor know there are congregants longing for leadership on issues of racial justice?
7. Read your church budget as a document expressing its moral and spiritual priorities. This one is straightforward but vital if white congregations are going to move authentically from confession and truth-telling to the work of repentance and repair. We have it on good authority that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Given the history and complicity of white Christian churches with white supremacy, every white Christian church should make a commitment to support a predominately non-white church or nonprofit that primarily serves non-white people in their community, with three stipulations: a) The support should be significant, an expression of confession and repair; b) The support should not just consist of a one-time offering but be incorporated as a multi-year commitment reflected in a regular line in the church budget; and c) The support should be in the form of “no strings attached” general operating funds rather than to a specific project. Relinquishing control is an important spiritual practice for white Christians.

READ: The Sacred Work of White Discomfort

Starting somewhere and starting local will mean you may perhaps be the first person to voice these issues in your congregation, but you are likely not the only person on this spiritual and moral journey of transformation. And there are other churches engaged in this work who have found it enlivening and life-giving.

One sure sign of the continued presence of white supremacy is the outright resistance you will inevitably encounter from some and the protests of discomfort from others. But this is also evidence of the importance of the work.

This piece first appeared at Religion News Services.

For more from Robert P. Jones, watch RLC’s Faith Forum on White Discomfort on YouTube. 

I am beyond excited to share this with you.

Several years ago, some of the men on Tennessee’s death row embarked on an ambitious collaborative project. They decided to create original paintings of the “Stations of the Cross.”

The Stations of the Cross are a series of images portraying the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the events leading up to his execution. For hundreds of years, Christians have reflected on images like these, especially during Lent and Easter. These particular images are compelling because they were painted by men who have also been condemned to die.

As we release these publicly, we hope that you will use them and share them. You are free to post and print them, but the artists have asked that they not be sold or reproduced commercially.

May these paintings open our hearts up to the profound depth of God’s love, and may they stir in us a passion for extending that love and grace to others. It is our hope that contemplating the execution of Jesus does something to us, in us. We pray that as we reflect on the love of God, it transforms us into people who are merciful and who are committed to ending the death penalty.

Here is a quote from one of the men who helped create these images:

This piece of art is a commentary on the continuing battle for our collective moral worldview. It is a collaborative effort with several of my fellow artists, all of whom reside on Tennessee’s death row. Not all are Christians or even religious. Several chose to be anonymous. I asked my fellow community members to help create this project to begin a conversation about what Justice looks like. 

When Jesus was executed, Justice looked different than it does today. However, Justice today has some of the same components as it did back then. The guilty, as are the innocent, are subjected to this state-sanctioned process. As we understand it, state-sanctioned means that “We the People” — collectively speaking — uphold this system of Justice. So, based upon our support, this system of Justice reflects our community’s sense of morals and values. 

One of the biggest issues my sense of the “Christian” world has is dealing with the fact Jesus was not caucasian. This is also true here on death row, a microcosm of the larger “free-world” community. So we decided not to limit one another’s understanding of Jesus’ death or appearance. 

During the two-plus months it took to complete this project, we accepted criticism and positive critique from other non-participating community members. Some were fellow prisoners. Some were religious and secular volunteers. Some were correctional officers. It turned into a true community project. 

I do not know how many opinions we changed inside during this project, but the dialogue was open and honest, beyond what even I imagined. Safe, open dialogue is a prerequisite for the community model created on this death row. We invite dialogue from anyone on how to change the paradigms of our collective lives with those that promote healing and reconciliation within our diverse communities. 

In the Spirit of Love, Mercy, and Forgiveness,

Derrick Quintero 

If you are interested in hosting an exhibit of the Stations of the Cross, please complete this form. We will follow up with more details!

On Sunday, April 17th from 1pm-5pm, we will meet in Nashville to protest the death penalty and scheduled execution of Oscar Smith. Join us for the March4Mercy and special Easter service at the state capitol.

Melissa has been on death row for fifteen years for the alleged murder of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah, who fell down a flight of stairs and died of brain injuries two days later. In January 2021, Melissa received her execution date. Melissa’s lawyers believe in her innocence and are working against the odds to get a fresh look at the evidence. The only evidence against Melissa is her confession, which was given under duress after seven hours of police interrogation in the middle of the night. Melissa was pregnant with twins, and instead of being able to grieve her daughter’s death, she was accused of a crime.

The hope is to advocate for a new trial. Last year, a panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned her conviction and death sentence, which should have resulted in a new trial. Instead, the State of Texas appealed to all 17 judges on that court, which voted 10-7 to reverse the order, reinstating the conviction and death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear the case.  

LISTEN: RLC’s Faith Forum on the Death Penalty

As the lawyers try everything they can, the only option left is the court of public opinion, which is how Melissa’s son, sisters, mother, cousins, and others came to be sitting in our church. We provided a space to screen a film about the case, The State of Texas vs. Melissa, and Sabrina Van Tassel, the film’s director, led a conversation about the current situation. 

The death penalty is complicated. I get that, and many Christians either have really hardened views on the topic or avoid it completely. But we as Christians need to address the topic of the death penalty and have deeply nuanced approaches to it because Scripture takes it seriously. On the one hand, the Bible does speak on capital punishment (Gen 9:6). On the other hand, it says a great deal about the certainty of guilt (Deut 17:6; Num. 35:30), intent (Numbers 35:22-24), and due process (Numbers 35; Deut 17). We cannot just wholesale argue that Scripture permits or prohibits the death penalty. Instead of having a heavy hand bent toward capital punishment, we must weigh the factors of each incident and respond accordingly. 

Capital punishment is a decision that should not be taken lightly. When someone on death row pleads their innocence, we should pay attention and not simply give the system the benefit of the doubt. We should investigate, research, and get involved, especially if it’s a case in our state. Yes, many folks on death row say they’re innocent, but some of them really are. Over 1500 people have been killed on death row since 1976, and at least 186 people who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have now been exonerated and freed. That’s approximately 12%!

READ: Buddy Stouffer’s Execution Was the Last of 2021. Will It Be the Last to Be Proved an Error?

Church, we cannot be silent if an innocent person’s life is at risk. We must raise our voice to demand due process and indisputable evidence of guilt and intent. There are times when we must fight for retrials and new trials. We must be sure. These are image-bearers we’re talking about.

You can sign Death Penalty Action’s petition asking the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to watch the film, The State of Texas vs. Melissa (available on Hulu and Amazon Prime). You can also call the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles at 512-404-5852 and Governor Greg Abbott at 512-463-2000 with the message: “Please watch ‘The State of Texas vs. Melissa” and grant her clemency.” 

We are still learning about Melissa’s case. But I encourage you to go to FreeMelissaLucio.org and learn too. Then pray. Pray for God’s justice to be done and for TRUTH to be made clear. God has created the church to be an institution for social good, so we must also put our faith into action while we pray. To advance God’s kingdom on earth and pursue his vision of holistic shalom means we cannot avoid what’s happening on death row. 

Visit FreeMelissaLucio.org to rent the film, host a screening, sign the petition, print fliers to share, and contact the Texas authorities who can halt this injustice. An in-person screening sponsored by Hope Community Church & Death Penalty Action, will be held at 7pm CST on Tuesday, March 8th, at Memorial UMC, 6100 Berkman Dr. in Austin, TX. In honor of International Women’s Day, the film may also be seen for free at FreeMelissaLucio.org on March 7th & 8th.

The collective grief and trauma is compounded for many of us. It doesn’t feel right to normalize it, but here we are. Another Uber Eats gift card. Another prayer request. Another casserole. Another bouquet of condolence flowers. None of it feels like enough.

Today as I write this, I’m doing something else I’ve normalized. Today, my 9-year-old is getting her 11th MRI. She was born with a rare form of spina bifida and has lived with a cone-shaped tumor called a syrinx tangled in her spinal cord nerves for her whole life. She is disabled. So here I am, tuning out the ridiculously loud hum of this ominous-looking machine encapsulating my child. I’m pretending it’s totally normal that she’s lying there with weights on her legs, watching Ice Age through a mirror.

But every once in a while, a thought will cross my mind, and my eyes will notice something- and tears come out of nowhere. I swear they weren’t there just a minute ago. I swear I was fine. But am I? Ever so often, she will break eye contact with the movie and look at me, so I try to make sure I’m smiling. I mouth encouragement with my lips to stay still while the doctors get the pictures they need. I give a thumbs up and a silent clap. I pretend I’m brushing hair out of my eyes instead of wiping away tears.

This is what it’s like to live with caregiver trauma every day. This is what it’s like to have to normalize living in a way that’s not sustainable long term—fighting through a million of those invisible moments, over and over. As my tears fell, I wondered what my daughter’s future would look like, and I felt the bitterness creep back in. It’s a constant battle to reject anger and trade it for mercy. For humility. For love. Sometimes I’m more successful than others.

As I sat in that MRI room, I remembered a day a few weeks earlier. On the way home from school, my 8-year-old with asthma asked out of the blue, “I know we wear masks to protect other people because we love people, but when someone doesn’t wear a mask around me, does it mean they don’t love me?” Again, she’s 8. And those words broke my heart.

Caroline has been hospitalized in the PICU multiple times over the last two years for asthma-related complications. Part of me wants to say yes because I have wondered the same thing. But as a parent, I know I can’t say that. And as my child sat waiting for my response, I had to figure out why really fast. So we talked about how Christ on the cross suffered after doing nothing wrong. We talked about how he prayed to forgive the people that put him there because “they knew not what they did.” We wondered about the crucifixion out loud together. Those people knew they were mocking and murdering Jesus as well as the robbers flanking him, but he forgave them still.

READ: Finding Jesus in Rural America

It occurred to me that maybe Jesus wasn’t suggesting that He was the exception, as in “forgive them, Father, for murdering me.” “Forgive them for they know not what they do” is actually very different. To this day, theologians and scholars still debate what actually happened on the cross. Maybe this is because the mystery of Christ on the cross is still much more radical and powerful than any of us could ever fully wrap our brains around. What if Jesus was asking his Heavenly Father to forgive how humanity’s obsession with murder, power, and violence had led him to that moment? What if Christ’s forgiveness is much larger than we could ever possibly imagine? What if his grace is? What if ours could be too?

So as my daughter and I pulled into the driveway, I reminded my child how fully loved she is. I reminded her how spreading love, forgiveness, and grace when it is hard is exactly how Jesus chose to reveal his authority and mercy on the cross. So even when we feel unloved, we choose to forgive and extend mercy anyway, like Jesus.

Caring for medically fragile children in a pandemic is at times an invisible load. Often we’ve had to minimize it greatly for the comfort of many of our healthier and more able-bodied friends. Just like so often, the experiences of BIPOC people are systematically erased in favor of a white narrative; the experience of medically fragile families and image-bearers with disabilities has largely been forced to the margins too.

When I think about the church leaders that have regularly boasted about how they disdain mask-wearing, distrust doctors, oppose health care reform, and refuse vaccines that will keep their most vulnerable congregants safe, I think about how unwelcoming places like that have been to families like mine. If these sanctuaries refuse to prioritize belonging for the least among us, then where do the least of these among us find sanctuary? Does a consistent pro-life ethic include the vulnerable in our midst? How much does the sanctity of their lives matter?

Our family has been blessed to be a part of churches that partner with us so well. They go out of their way to show our kids love in many thoughtful and intentional ways. They listen. They join us in solidarity. They truly care. But largely, when I talk to other parents of disabled children and adults with disabilities, their experience isn’t like mine. Those families are regularly excluded, overlooked, and ignored in many evangelical circles.

WATCH: RLC Book Club Kids and Youth Edition

Church institutions will cite their insurance policies as the reason they can’t accommodate a child with a particular disability in their upscale environment. Volunteers will feel inconvenienced and scared of liability. So then who will invite that child into belonging? Who will invite that parent? Or do we find ourselves standing as gatekeepers between medically fragile families and the table of Jesus?

Thankfully this is never the case as Jesus is always on the other side with the vulnerable – but that’s a sobering reminder as well. Exactly what kind of table are the gatekeepers protecting? And who will show up to make that child feel safe and that family feel seen?

The church has had a unique opportunity in the pandemic to participate in the grand reversal as it relates to children with disabilities. One of the simplest ways to participate is to simply join disabled families in friendship, advocacy, and the everyday work of bearing one another’s burdens.

I’m not talking about inspiration porn. I’m talking about friendship, belonging, and interdependent community. As a church, throughout this pandemic, how did we measure up? If we asked our disabled, chronically ill, and caregiving neighbors, would they feel safe enough to even tell us the truth? Would they feel safe enough to admit that, at times, the obsession with freedom and individual rights fueled by Christian Nationalism has led them to feel invisible and unloved by the church? Because there are times I don’t feel safe enough to admit that many church leaders’ public positions on healthcare reform, masks, and vaccines, have directly made my family feel unloved by the church institutions they represent.

While the disability experience is not a monolith, by & large caregivers and disabled people are familiar with the feeling of being excluded from environments that seemingly welcome their presence but not their belonging. And I have to wonder if our churches are not fully FOR the least among them first, then who are they really for?

As we continue towards whatever else 2022 holds, may we allow ourselves to be angered at the way medically fragile children have silently endured a different kind of pandemic trauma than their healthy peers. May we repent for all the times our actions and inaction made someone with a disability feel invisible and alone. And may we be willing to change how we pursue the cruciform love of Jesus towards the medically vulnerable so that those image bearers truly know how loved they are.