“Spirituals are, of course, the songs that the enslaved crafted to tell the story of their experience. But more than that, to tell the story of their faith and the understanding of who they were in relationship to God, and who God was in relationship to them, and it became a story of freedom,” says Rev. Kelly Brown Douglass, Canon Theologian at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. More →

November 4, 2016

“There is no way you can talk about, discuss or even acknowledge the contribution of African-American history without acknowledging the very real presence and power of faith as a part of that history,” says Rex Ellis, associate director of curatorial affairs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. More →

September 23, 2016

“We need to deal with the unconscious beliefs that we have about each other,” says Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can be Made Right. “We can’t restructure our society and actually begin to heal what race broke until we understand how our society structures have created biases in our own minds.” More →

July 15, 2016

Pastor Frank Amedia, the Trump campaign’s liaison for Christian policy, says he expects evangelicals “will hear [Trump’s] heart They will be able to make decisions based themselves upon seeing the heart of the man, not through the media, not through campaign stumping, but face to face.” More →

May 27, 2016

“Sometimes the pain that’s resident in the community—it can be overwhelming,” says Rev. David Watkins III, pastor of Greater Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago’s Washington Park neighborhood. “However, part of the hope of the gospel is that even in the midst of despair, you always have a way out…This community should be better off because as a church we are in it.” More →

March 30, 2016

A lawsuit alleges that some private yeshivas run by Hasidic Jewish sects are not complying with New York state law by not teaching English, math, and science; an activist, pastor, and preacher says white and black churches must cross the bridge to a new America now; and a church in Baltimore runs a boxing gym as part of its ministry and neighborhood outreach. More →

January 29, 2016

“America’s original sin—it isn’t just slavery,” says author, activist, and Sojourners editor Jim Wallis. “It’s the kind of racism we created to justify the use of black people as chattel and property to build this nation, to say from the beginning that black lives matter less than white lives, and that sin is still with us.” More →

January 29, 2016

“American exceptionalism, which I’ve been critical of for years, could be made true if we become a majority of minorities who learn to live together justly, and fairly, and respectfully,” says author and activist Jim Wallis.
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January 29, 2016

Racial diversity is only “one factor among many” in admissions decisions, according to the University of Texas vice president for diversity. But if the Supreme Court decides to abandon racial preferences, what will become of the pursuit of racial justice in education? More →

December 4, 2015

“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