Word&Way Voices

Pastor Darron LaMonte Edwards argues that Missourians should help to repair the breach and vote "no" on Amendment 4. This measure would only further erode local control over crucial resources and punish certain communities in Kansas City for seeing the solution to their problems as utilizing a path other than increased policing.

Nathan Empsall, executive director of Faithful America, makes the case that with hundreds of right-wing political candidates using Christ’s name to deny election results, demonize their opponents, and spread discrimination – all with the blessing of far too many evangelical pastors and activists – Christian Nationalism is the single biggest threat to both democracy and the church today.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy offers his take on Robert Jeffress' recent about-face when it comes to embracing the term "Christian Nationalist." Jeffress and those like him reveal a disturbing trend based in the active despising of truth. Democracy can be, in this case, a sacrificial lamb if this is what it takes to impose conservative Christianity on the nation.

Historian Thomas Lecaque argues that how the various scandals surrounding Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker are understood by many evangelicals is based on a bad reading of Biblical narrative. The sins of Walker’s past are forgiven, regardless of the hypocrisy – and, in fact, they are an important component of what makes him important. Because beyond his utility, he gets to play the David card.

Rev. Erin Dickey has penned an open letter to Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. Reed's group sent out “2022 non-partisan voter guides” to congregations around the United States that ask and answer a specific set of questions – but Dickey has come up with a different set that more accurately represents the values of inclusion, radical love, and justice that echo through the gospel.

Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy explores what "wokeness" means when applied to the Bible. There are numerous passages that concern what it means to become awake — a matter of being shaken out of apathy, the doldrums, or from being complacent. But who wants to struggle with a Holy Book that tells us we must rethink how we have been thinking?

Liz Cooledge Jenkins unpacks the hypocrisy in voicing support for Iranian women who protest oppressive patriarchy in their context while remaining strangely silent about oppressive patriarchy — and even hostile to those who speak up against it — in our own U.S. context. People in complementarian churches often hear feminist critique and feel like the good-hearted men in their lives are being personally attacked.

Rev. Dr. Lee B. Spitzer offers his thoughts on how American followers of Jesus should come to grips with the reality and implications of our country’s historical record of racist actions and structures. He determines that although offering reparations is certainly a societal collective responsibility that must be addressed, we should also embrace the more personal spiritual discipline of reparations.

Darron LaMonte Edwards writes that while there are many pathways to success through education, most of those pathways for Black and Brown students still have roadblocks and only a select few can tread that path. We are almost in 2023 and it still feels like we are enduring the struggle W.E.B. Du Bois was addressing in 1903. And this is why every school district should have an equity plan.

Rev. Dr. Michael Woolf argues that while much of the criticism of recent political stunts using immigrants has rightfully focused on the deception and cruelty, Christians ought to take it one step further: these American politicians have not only trafficked vulnerable Venezuelans, they have trafficked Christ. Jesus not only identifies with the poor, vulnerable, and imprisoned – Jesus is these people.