Words matter. These are the best Anthea Butler Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The survivors of Hurricane Harvey do not need empty tweets and platitudes from people like Donald Trump and Joel Osteen. They have shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that, as we say in Texas, they are all hat and no cattle.
Trump’s defense of white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism is gathering those who support him into a strong solidified base. Since the election of Francis, Republicans have been very wary of the Pope, attacking his liberal statements on homosexuality, global warming, and capitalism.
In the racialized space of capitalist gentrification, police are not only arbiters of the peace, they are the muscle of retail racism: You can only be in this space if you transcend your blackness by showing us some green dollars. Even then, there is no guarantee that green will transcend your black skin.
The text, ‘Is God a White Racist’, By Rev. Dr. William Jones, is still studied by theologians and academics and taught in institutes of higher learning. The book called into question the chief construction of black liberation theology: that God is on the side of the oppressed.
Coldplay’s ‘Hymn for the Weekend’ video featuring Beyonce is already caught in a heated conversation about cultural appreciation of Indian religion and culture versus cultural appropriation of that culture for the western gaze.
For black Catholics, the papal visit is a time of anticipation but also a time of reflection on their difficult – but important – place within the Catholic Church in America.
Our founding documents didn’t just protect the right to bear arms: they were designed to protect all the principles upon which America was founded – and the first among those were freedom of worship, peaceful assembly, and the right to free speech.
Gentrification is stripping people not only of their homes but also of their dignity and their lives, and it is effectively whitening public spaces.
One of the first books that outlined spiritual mapping was ‘Breaking Strongholds in Your City: How to Use Spiritual Mapping to Make your Prayers More Strategic, Effective and Targeted,’ published in 1993.
Spatial racism, the erasure of black faces in a predominantly white city, is in full effect in both Crown Heights and Center City Philadelphia. This racism demands that bodies that don’t conform to a mandated ‘white’ status quo can be redlined out of a space.
The pope’s instruction for priests to forgive may mean, in some cases, the difference between a woman staying in the Catholic Church or leaving for a more understanding and empowering church nearby.
Forgiveness became a big part of the civil rights movement, juxtaposed against the violence of protesters and law enforcement. King described forgiveness in one of his early sermons as a pardon, a process of life, and the Christian weapon of social redemption.
If there is anything that has broken the church’s relationship with families, it is the global sexual abuse scandal.
Pope Francis is calling for a better way to hold together complicated family lives in the midst of official church teaching without alienating people who have marital issues and family problems.
Issues like immigration, police brutality, and other onerous laws put in place by local and state governments are prime avenues for active clergy to work with their parishioners on the issues that affect their daily lives.
The usual Republican suspects lined up to side with Trump, chastizing Pope Francis for insinuating that the candidate isn’t Christian.
If you’re a black woman at an Ivy League school, there is no free speech for me because they’re already pissed that I’m there.
Despite a rich history of black Americans involved in the Catholic Church, invisibility is a big problem for black Catholics in America.
Pope Francis has mentioned several times in public prior to ‘Amoris Laetitia”s release that lack of work was keeping young people from marriage. He has also riffed on married life and ‘mothers-in-law,’ but this document shows that, even more than a theologian, he is a pastor.
Forgiveness is enshrined in the Lord’s prayer – forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. These scriptures point to the power of forgiveness not only as a way to absolve transgressions but to ensure that the person extending forgiveness will be forgiven of theirs.
Trump, despite his divorces and ‘worldly lifestyle’, appeals to evangelicals because he is wealthy, powerful, and pays them lip service. They support him because they are tired of losing the culture wars and are addicted to the perks of power.
The Chicago Declaration on Women in the Catholic Church, drafted in July of 2015 by Catholics for Choice, stated that it imagined a church where ‘women are respected for their choices about their health, welfare, and lives.’
Trump, despite his shallow depth of biblical knowledge, plays into both the apocalyptic end-time fears of evangelicals and their nostalgia for a ‘small town’ America.
God ain’t good all of the time. In fact, sometimes, God is not for us.
Evangelical women are also large consumers of evangelical media and ministries, and their support of these organizations is crucial. Should they shun both Trump and the predominately male evangelical leadership, it may have a ripple effect in these organizations’ fundraising abilities and their ministerial efforts.
As a black woman in a nation that has taken too many pains to remind me that I am not a white man and am not capable of taking care of my reproductive rights or my voting rights, I know that this American god ain’t my god.
Black women fought for the right to vote during the suffrage movement and fought again during the civil rights movement. The rote narrative in the press of the civil rights movement is truncated with the briefest of histories of men like Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson, or John Lewis.
Whether Trump knew it or not, his strong language tapped into evangelical beliefs about the ‘last days’ and America’s role in biblical prophecy.
I went to Catholic school and experienced racism firsthand from nuns and priests.
While the 1963 Birmingham church bombing is the most historic, there also was a series of church burnings in the 1990s. Recognition of the terror those and similar acts impose on communities seems to have been forgotten post-Sept. 11, 2001.
Graham’s legacy is not as a maverick or a trailblazer. It is the legacy of a man who used Jesus as a tool to placate the masses so that the status quo of conservative white America could remain firmly in place.
When the good Christians of America are some of its biggest racists, one has to consider our moral responsibility to call out those who clearly are not for human flourishing, no matter what ethnicity a person is. Where are you on that scale? I know where I am.
In the past, candidates’ performances of ‘Christianity’ have been strong points for voters, but Trump’s ascendancy with evangelicals has eviscerated that expectation. Evangelicals, like other voters, can be very pragmatic about the issues they want addressed by the leadership they support.
The decision to allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages at the discretion of the congregation poses challenges for seminaries training new pastors who come from denominations fundamentally opposed on biblical grounds to same-sex marriage.
Many Catholic parishes were segregated prior to the Civil Rights movement, and the first large contingent of African-American Catholic priests would enter into the seminary in the 1920s.
Forgiveness is a spiritual practice and biblical mandate from the New Testament that many American Christians engage in as a part of their faith.
The moment of true capitulation came when the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association quietly took Mormonism off the list of apostate religious groups.
Rightwing organizations like Turning Point USA or Leadership Institute spend considerable amounts of money and time to train students with conservative values how to ‘fight back.’
Judge Aquilina did what Michigan State University officials, USA Gymnastics, and the Karoyli ranch officials did not: Immediately believed the women who had been abused, validated their lives, and ended their perpetrator’s access to them and other victims.
My memories of Vatican II center on white parishioners turning away from me when I went to shake their hands at Mass during the sign of peace.