Questioning Faith: My First Conversion
By J. Jioni Palmer, Columnist 
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” Ralph Ellison
When I was a child, my family attended Bethlehem Lutheran Church in West Oakland, California. West Oakland was and, despite rampant gentrification, still is a predominantly working-class African American community. In the 1960s, the people of West Oakland, many of them migrants from East Texas and Louisiana fleeing the choking oppression of Jim Crow, were harassed and brutalized by the Oakland Police Department. They migrated in search of better opportunities, but their material conditions hardly improved for many—rural poverty was swapped to urban poverty. As a result of these conditions, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded and headquartered blocks from Bethlehem. Twenty-three years later, Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton was murdered by a drug dealer near the sanctuary’s doors. Throughout it, all of Bethlehem has stood at the intersection of the sacred and the profane.
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No Excuses
Robbie Colson-Ramsey, Contributing Writer
On the first Sunday of the new year, my husband preached a soul-stirring message, No Excuses, from John 5: 1-15. The sermon begged us to move from stagnant ways and pleaded that we no longer allow fear to paralyze us because it is time to move from our old ways. It mandated that we get up, stop being distracted, and stop being held hostage by excuses. The sermon reminded me of when I was pledging (intake) for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. We would say, "Excuses are tools of the incompetent that build monuments of nothingness. Those who choose to use them seldom amount to anything." Think about it; our excuses are empty thoughts and words used to bring nothing to fruition.
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Must Illness Knock On Our Door Before We Know COVID-19 Is Real?
By James B. Ewers Jr., Ed.D., Columnist
 I can remember my dad saying to me that discretion is the greater part of valor. Sir John Falstaff speaks the line in Shakespeare’s play, Henry IV Part 1, Act V Scene 4. Simply put, it is better to avoid a dangerous situation than to confront it. All of us have been in situations that could have gone wrong had we made the wrong decision. Are we making the right or wrong decision about COVID-19? As far back as grade school, I can recall peer pressure before the term was coined. A few of my friends wanted to do the wrong thing, and I decided not to follow them. I thought it wise not to experiment with danger. Are we experimenting with COVID-19? Read More Here |
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Jackson Theological Seminary Awarded Full Accreditation Status
By Bishop Michael L. Mitchell, Presiding Prelate of the 12th Episcopal District
 Jackson Theological Seminary, located in North Little Rock, Arkansas, in the 12th Episcopal District, has been awarded full accreditation from the Transnational Association of Christian Schools (TRACS) as a Category III Institution. Founded in 1903, Jackson Theological Seminary has endeavored and successfully produced competent and capable ministers of the Gospel. Unfortunately, because of a significant hiatus for many years, the school could not support students' needs. Seeing the community's growing needs and accreditation requirements increasing, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, the Right Reverend Michael L. Mitchell, the presiding prelate of the 12th Episcopal District, assembled a visionary team. Read More Here |
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Decolonizing the Black Church
George Pratt, Contributing Writer
On a December day during the heat of finals week, I received a notification from a mentor that prompted me to pause from the blaze of essay writing. He posed a provocative question that spurred one of our usual philosophical engagements via text. Through a triplet of inquiries, he asked how one promotes the decolonization of Christianity in the Church. Warm with the embers of wordsmithing, I responded in this way:
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A Dean's Lament
By Rev. W. Antoni Sinkfield, Ph.D., 13th Episcopal District
In 1965, from the steps of the capital building in Montgomery, Alabama, following their historic and death-defying march from Selma to Montgomery, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before the weary yet jubilant marchers for justice. He resoundingly repeated this inquisitive refrain (concerning the eradication of America’s prevailing and pervasive racist reality), saying: “I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’
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February Edition of The Christian Recorder |
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“Connecting a Global Church”
Woman’s History Month Crossword Puzzle  |
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Living into Lament: A White Response to the Killing of Tyre Nichols by Police
By Robert P. Jones
 I’m learning. I’m learning that it is hard to feel the impact of violence. It is difficult to make it real and bring it close enough to sense its cold shadow. It passes by the window, like the neighbor who briefly triggers the dog to bark, and is soon gone. But it doesn’t come to the door, and it doesn’t force its way in. There is a numbness that comes from the macabre familiarity of the events that led to the death of Tyre Nichols. Read More Here |
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