The Witness Protection Program: When God’s People Go into Hiding
By Terence Lester, PhD, and Emiola Oriola Jr., EdD
“If you scared, go to church. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.” [1]
Ice Cube did not write those words as theology.
This Online Articles area (formerly our Library) gathers reflections, op-eds, and essays that engage the pressing questions of faith, justice, and public life. Here, you’ll find hundreds of thoughtful and engaging pieces from scholars, practitioners, and everyday Christians — leaders and writers who bring fresh insight and faithful imagination. These articles are meant to spark deeper discipleship, fuel courageous action, and equip the church to embody the gospel in a complex world. We invite you to explore, learn, and join the ongoing conversation toward a fuller expression of Christian faithfulness and a more just society.
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By Terence Lester, PhD, and Emiola Oriola Jr., EdD
“If you scared, go to church. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.” [1]
Ice Cube did not write those words as theology.
By Micky ScottBey Jones
For all my activist, organizer, social justice warrior, touched-by-the-pain-in-the-world type Beloveds out there:
The air feels heavy today. So many agonizing headlines and painful hashtags it’s hard at times not to just scroll and spiral.
By Melanie Springer Mock
The opening to Katherine James’s memoir, A Prayer for Orion, is enough to leave a reader—and in particular, a reader who is also a parent—breathless. One July morning, James finds a text on her teenaged son’s phone, suggesting his purchase of heroin is imminent.
By Megan Malkemes
Oh america!
you shakespearean tragedy,
liberty’s miscarriage,
an anthology of blasphemies.
By Jonathan Walton
In 2008, I felt like an American for the first time because I saw a leader who looked like me. All of my life I hoped my education and accomplishments would free me from the history of my skin color as inherently inferior and forever intimidating.
By Marissa Mack
Black boy
I cry for you every night
This world has
No love for you
Creator God,
We lift our voices
Joining the chorus of wind and waves
Of barks and tweets and roars and coos and clucks
To praise and glorify your name throughout all the earth.
By Mark Charles
One of the most beautiful, beneficial, and sacred spiritual disciplines I have incorporated into my life is the discipline of watching the sunrise. It is one thing to watch the sun rise a couple times a year, perhaps on Easter for a sunrise service or when you have a 6 a.m.
By Harold Dean Trulear
You tell believers to remember us in prison, but it is not clear to me that your church really does…we are useful objects of outreach and service, a duty to be checked off the list.
By Laura Coulter
Even 25 years ago, $500 wasn’t enough to hire a good ballistics expert. But that’s all the state of Alabama would cough up for Anthony Ray Hinton to prove that his gun wasn’t the one used in a 1985 double murder.
By Jenny Eaton Dyer
“We are halfway to defeating extreme poverty and disease worldwide.”
Since 1990, our generation and our nation has led the world in halving the number of people who live in extreme poverty around the world, and we did this in spite of the increase of population growth during this time period.
By Joshua Pease
There are three guarantees in life: death, taxes, and that no matter how awful the news, social media will find a way to make it worse.
By John Betten
What’s the difference between acceptance and approval?
When I think of straight friends who love and support me as a gay Christian, I think of my friend Chico. Chico is not “affirming” in the way Christians normally use that term, and he does not always approve of my actions or opinions when it comes to sexuality.
By Ronald Sider, Philip N. Olson , and Heidi Rolland Unruh
The root meaning of the word “holistic” is whole, from the Greek holos. Christians recognize that the world is broken and incomplete, falling far short of the glory God intended at the dawn of creation.
By Friends at Churches for Middle East Peace
Podcast Episode #8: Generational Separation
The Women Behind the Wall podcast highlights female voices from the Holy Land, and is hosted and produced solely by women who live and work in Jerusalem.
By Nikki Toyama-Szeto
My friend’s family has a tradition that on someone’s birthday, they celebrate their mother. That totally makes sense to me. As momentous as a birthday is, truly it was the mother who was doing most of the work that day.
By Gustavo H. R. Santos
Some questions have the power to change our lives. Five years ago, I decided to leave a management consulting career in Brazil to study theology in Canada.