On Sunday, Feb. 21, local clergy gathered on the lawn of the First Christian Church of Decatur to remember Georgia victims of COVID-19. An artistic display of 15,000 small white flags represented the 15,000 Georgians who have died from the disease in the past year. Read
Carol McEntyre: It is easier to blame God than to admit we have failed one another. Read full piece
Some churches are planning vigils and services this year around All Saints’ Day, the traditional Christian day of remembrance. The various services are remembering people who have died in the past year, especially those who have died from COVID-19.
The more than 218,000 chimes are a solemn tribute to every person lost in the country in the pandemic. Read full piece
Songs are the surest way to teach theology. About 40% of the Psalms are psalms of lament. Even those that are not fully lamentations contain elements of the Old Testament’s language of protest in faith. Read full piece
Columnist Terrell Carter reflects on Psalm 31, which reminds us that it is okay for us to express our pain, frustration, and heartache about life to God and others in honest ways, and know that these expressions of pain are okay with God.
On the 401st anniversary of the start of Black enslavement in the American colonies, Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor offered a time of confession and lament at the tombstone of the first pastor of his Baptist church, a man who enslaved three persons while serving as
As we pass the horrifying milestone of 100,000 American deaths to the coronavirus, we’re using the hashtag #Lament100k to urge people to pause — to lament. Of course, the sentiment falls short. As a friend said to me, we can’t abbreviate all these lives; we have to
Rationalists (including Christian rationalists) want explanations; Romantics (including Christian romantics) want to be given a sigh of relief. But perhaps what we need more than either is to recover the biblical tradition of lament.
In the book “Hurting with God: Learning to Lament with the Psalms,” Old Testament scholar Glenn Pemberton notes the absence of laments in modern hymnals when compared to