“I didn’t come out of the church. I don’t have an intuitive understanding of what religion gives to people. I just don’t. I didn’t really grow up in a Christian household,” says the author of Between the World and Me. “I’m very distanced from that. For both good and ill, it probably marks my writing.” More →

November 20, 2015

Faith communities, observes Howard University School of Divinity applied theology professor Harold Dean Trulear, are “founded on forgiveness.” Together the Charleston church shooting and the Confederate flag debate have “uncovered the depth of racism in our country and the ways our nation still remains deeply divided. But it also uncovered some real people of good will…Now we’re working very hard to try to do some healing.” More →

July 10, 2015

“We were willing to be beaten for democracy,” says Rev. C.T. Vivian, recalling the freedom movement and voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965. It was, he says, “the beginning of the transformation of America.” More →

March 20, 2015

Black and white religious leaders in Ferguson, Missouri, are trying to help their divided community heal. “Here is an opportunity, a living laboratory by which we try intentionally to work toward that beloved community that Dr. King invited us to,” … More →

January 16, 2015

“We need to grow in understanding. We haven’t listened to the young people, churches included, and so when I say “listen” I really mean listen to the stories of the young people,” says Lisa Sharon Harper of the Christian social action group Sojourners, “because they are ones bearing the brunt of most of the crisis we’re experiencing.” More →

December 12, 2014

The recent reconciliation service in New Orleans was “about acknowledging what has taken place in history, apologizing for that, and seeking ways to see our neighbor in a different light,” says Bishop Morris Thompson of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana. More →

February 21, 2014

The first democratically elected president of South Africa died this week at the age of 95. We look back at the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela, who led the movement to end apartheid peacefully. More →

December 6, 2013

A movie based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free man who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery, portrays the complex relationships between slaves, slaveowners, abolitionists, and religion. More →

October 18, 2013

“It’s about remembering and never forgetting and understanding from the past and embracing your past in order to go forward into the future.” More →

October 18, 2013

“I call Dr. King a modern founder in the sense that he was doing just what Jefferson and Lincoln and the other American founders were doing in their most spiritual moments…which was to confront very stubborn forms of evil and subjugation and figure out a way to transform them into equal citizenship.” More →

June 21, 2013