American Altar
By Michael Stalcup
What if, instead,
we had a monstrous steel statue,
a modern-day Molech,
its bloodstained stainless steel
altar rimmed with polished wood,
serviced by priests and acolytes
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By Michael Stalcup
What if, instead,
we had a monstrous steel statue,
a modern-day Molech,
its bloodstained stainless steel
altar rimmed with polished wood,
serviced by priests and acolytes
By Melanie Springer Mock
I’ve been thinking a lot about the spate of book bans occurring across the country recently, school boards and state legislatures and governors deciding that some books are too dangerous for young people, because they narrate stories about queer protagonists, because they center the lives of Black people, because they aren’t solely populated with white evangelical ideals.
By Nikki Toyama-Szeto
You can listen to an audio version of this piece here.
Walking the pathway, I wanted to look up at the stony landscape. But the path was so pebbly that I had to keep my eyes on the ground to keep from stumbling.
By Jemar Tisby
Even though author Tom Skinner is most famous for the message he delivered at Urbana in 1970, the deeper story of that night is about the group of Black college students who literally sat front and center while he delivered his oration.
By Kristyn Komarnicki
You can listen to an audio version of this piece here.
From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
John 1:16
I am a failure when it comes to spiritual disciplines.
By Tamice Spencer-Helms
It had been three years since Trayvon Martin was killed. I was living in Atlanta, Georgia, working full-time for a mostly white college ministry. And I was dying inside.
I spent the three years after Trayvon died in perpetual despair.
By Liz Cooledge Jenkins
Editor’s note: Originally published March 3, 2022, we believe Liz’s suggestions below, after completing a month-long celebration of Black authors, can be a meaningful way to both kick off Lent and to continue to honor and learn from our Black brothers and sisters.
By David Clough
What emotions do you bring to worship this evening? Delight at glimpses of beauty and of love? Sadness at tragic loss? Anger at injustice? Resentment and bitterness about our lot?
By Brandi Miller
Originally published June 9, 2021
After the presidential victory of Donald Trump wherein the vast majority of White evangelicals voted for the celebrity-turned-crass-politician, many Christians both inside and outside the church were forced to reckon with an issue of identity.
From “A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer” by Kenji Kuramitsu
A Prayer for an End to Violence at the Hands of the State
By Rev. Da Saint
Originally published Feb 26, 2021
Black History Month Meditative Moment (3 of 3)
Join us for a 5-minute body scan to bring our body and spirit into congruence.
By Bishop Ernest McNear and Reverend Lin Crowe
The statistics hang over the cities of America like a thick grey cloud, almost blotting out the light of hope and opportunity. One out of every nine young black males in the United States between the ages of twenty and thirty-four is behind bars.
By Thomas Merton
The Big Results Are Not in Your Hands
Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.
By M. Karim
CSA Editor’s note: The following opinion piece is written by a Palestinian Christian using a pseudonym to protect their identity. Please note that the word “Jewish” in this essay is not a blanket term for all peoples of the Jewish diaspora; but refers to the specific people within this specific geographic region where the author is from, and reflects the way the word is used in their context.
By Kenji Kuramitsu
Originally published June 3, 2020
A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer, from which this prayer is taken, is now available electronically!
By Katelyn Durst
Originally published August 15, 2019
We are here
and you’d like to forget it,
have us more hidden
then our black faces
and tired, old eyes.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Gal. 5:1), and yet when it comes to our relationships, especially those across deep theological and/or political difference, many of us battle some combination of resentment, hopelessness, fear, and outrage.
CSA is a group of Christian scholar-activists, stirring the imagination for a fuller expression of Christian faithfulness and a more just society.
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