Dylann Roof did not start a race war as he had planned, but he did start a number of conversations that were long overdue. When he walked into the Emmanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston, S.C. last Wednesday night with a heart filled with hate and a fanny-pack filled with ammunition, Roof had a plan and…
By Ronnie Martin As a phone conversation with my sister was winding down, she offered stinging final words after debriefing over some family drama: “Well, we all know you’re the spiritual one in the family.” I sighed an internal ugh, knowing that she really meant to say self-righteous one. In an attempt to defend what I…
Martin Luther, on prayer… “We pray after all because we are unworthy to pray. The very fact that we are unworthy and that we dare to pray confidently, trusting only in the faithfulness of God, makes us worthy to pray and to have our prayer answered. . . . Your worthiness does not help you;…
Thanks to the archival power of YouTube, a old clip from the NBC drama “E.R.” came to my attention the other day. This 2-minute scene conveys a powerful theological reflection on God, death, atonement, and forgiveness. A dying doctor who had worked in a prison is wracked with guilt over a particular lethal injection he…