• Trump to read the Bible

• Black denomination wins major grant

• Soldiers execute child in school

• Talk to “Jesus” for less than $3 a month; and more...

Dear Reader,

President Donald Trump has issued an official statement “Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America,” coinciding with the America Reads the Bible initiative. In his statement, Trump paints a picture of an America that has had a virtuous, centuries-long relationship with the Bible. For example, he writes:

“From Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World and the first permanent English-speaking settlement at Jamestown to our founding in 1776 and to the present day, the Bible has been indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life.”

This may be true, but the Bible wasn’t always used for virtuous means — and still isn’t, if one follows current headlines. Trump’s own reference to “the legendary John Winthrop” — a Puritan lawyer and Massachusetts Bay Colony governor who wanted the early colonies to be known as a “city upon a hill” — is telling. Winthrop’s “city” was built on the backs of the enslaved. He didn’t just read the Bible; he used it to codify the enslavement of Native Americans and Africans.

The America Reads the Bible initiative aims to have participants — including Trump — read every verse from Genesis to Revelation aloud throughout the week. There is an obvious hypocrisy in a White House celebrating the Bible while overseeing lawless, and deadly, immigration crackdowns that tear families apart. It is hard to reconcile the “virtues of the Bible” with a leader whose public rants are often peppered with profanity and has had a decades-long association with a notorious sex offender.

Even as Trump prepares to publicly read the Bible, his administration is carrying out what ecumenical leaders have labeled an “unjust” war of “gratuitous violence” in Iran. As others have asked, What does it mean to read “Blessed are the peacemakers” while dropping missiles on a schoolyard?

Students of history know that simply reading the Bible has never been a neutral act. Historically this is the same text that was redacted into “Slave Bibles” and used as a tool of oppression and control. When the State touts a lifelong love affair with Scripture to celebrate a national anniversary, we should probably ask: Are we really honoring the Word of God, or are we simply using it as a prop in a redacted story?

The Bible is God’s revelation for human liberation from spiritual, social, and political oppression. If reading it doesn’t lead to “setting the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18) or a demand for justice for the vulnerable (James 1:27), it is simply a performance — when our reciting of the words sound more like clanging cymbals.

-Nicola, Managing Editor

ICYMI 👀 — Historic Investment in the ‘Cathedral of African Methodism’

Presiding Bishop J. Drew Sheard of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) announced a $1.2 million federal grant for the restoration of the Historic Mason Temple in Memphis. Known as the site where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, the grant will fund technology modernization and facility sustainability. This investment ensures that what was once the largest Black-owned worship facility in the U.S. continues to serve as a beacon for the legacy of civil rights and global Pentecostalism. Read more here…

Around the Web

At least three babies a minute are being born in Sudan into conditions “no child should ever face”, Save the Children has warned, as a ruinous conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hits its third-year mark. (Al Jazeera)

The Trump administration has canceled an $11 million contract with Catholic Charities to shelter and care for migrant children who enter the U.S. alone — amid rising tensions between the administration and American Catholics over the president’s heated criticism of the Vatican’s first American pope, Leo XIV. (Miami Herald)

Israeli forces shot a nine-year-old Palestinian girl in the head while she was in class with about 40 other students in a designated “safe” area for displaced residents in northern Gaza. No reason has been given for why Israel forces targeted Ritaj Abdulrahman Rihan. (Middle East Eye)

Headlines

• ​Tech company launches AI Jesus based on ‘The Chosen’ actor Jonathan Roumie that you can talk to for $2 a minute​

• ​Black megachurch pays off $1 million in debt for hundreds of families in public housing​

• ​US has let in 4,499 refugees since October — all but three were White Afrikaners​

• ​Republican lawmaker refers to Trump as ‘almost a second coming’ of Jesus Christ ​

• ​First Baptist Dallas starts rebuilding after raising $95M while cause of church fire remains a mystery​

🗓️ Free Virtual Events

• National Faith + Climate Forum - April 25, 12–5:30 pm ET - Register​

• “The Other Side of the Wall” with Palestinian Christian theologian the Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac - April 29, 1pm ET - Register​

On Our Radar

Ecumenical Advocacy: Leaders like Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson (UCC) and Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie (NCC) are gearing up for the 2026 Ecumenical Advocacy Days starting Monday, April 20. The theme is “Protecting People, Peace, and Planet.” It D.C. event isn’t free, but as of publication, full scholarships were still available to students and attendees with limited income. Learn more here.

The Black Church Crawl: It’s a little late and hyperlocal, but the Historic First Baptist Church of Williamsburg and others along the NC coast are hosting a “Church Crawl,” highlighting cultural landmarks like St. Stephen AME Church and Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. Learn about the event here.

Parting Shot(s)

“Behold Thy Son” - Among the new items on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, is this oil painting by artist David Driskell done in tribute to 14-year-old Emmet Till. Till was murdered in 1955 by two White men who accused him of flirting with a White woman. Driskell was deeply affected by Till’s death and felt compelled to create a memorial to the murdered teen.

“Conceived as a visual allegory, Driskell’s modern-day pietà makes connections between Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection and Till’s murder and funeral, invoking the religious foundations that undergirded many of the struggles for African American rights.” - NMAAHC​

Costumes of Authority - This years-long project investigated how clothing expressed secular and religious authority in Christian Nubia (ninth–fourteenth centuries). Involved were experimental reconstruction of five representative costumes (two kings, two royal mothers, one bishop) based on iconographic and textile evidence highlights the physical impact and visual effect of these garments. - Antiquity

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• Honoring the legacy of Dr. John M. Perkins (1930–2026)

• Holy Land Christians impacted by escalating Iran conflict

• Abortion leads to attempted murder charge in Georgia, and more…

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Dear Reader ✍🏾…

We’ve lost a giant of the faith, Dr. John M. Perkins, whose life's work in community development and racial reconciliation defined "lived theology" for generations. Perkins died March 13, 2026, surrounded by family. He was 95. His Homegoing Celebration is today, at New Horizon Church International. You can check their YouTube page to catch the livestream, beginning at 11 a.m. ET. You can also watch a replay of the wake here.

👀 Quotable & Notable

“You can’t do ministry TO people; you have to do it WITH people.” — Dive into our conversation with Dr. Perkins on the true meaning of community development and justice in this exclusive conversation, previously unpublished on the web.

In The News

• One of Jerusalem’s Holiest Sites Shutdown: For the first time in generations, the heavy iron doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre remain bolted shut as Holy Week approaches, marking a chilling turning point for the indigenous Christian population of the Holy Land. Israeli forces say it’s due to security reasons amid the escalating Iran war, but Palestinian Christians ask whose lives are being protected and at what cost to their cultural and religious heritage? Read about it here…

• Vet Charged With Attempted Murder Under Georgia Abortion Law: A 31-year-old U.S. Army veteran has been charged with attempted murder, the first time that a mother has been charged under Georgia’s restrictive abortion law — the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act that makes abortion illegal after cardiac activity is detected in a fetus. Read about it here…

Headlines Around the Web

• Did Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu slam Jesus at a recent press conference?

• Tech CEO Peter Thiel has now taken his secret antichrist lectures to Rome

• A pastor walked from Baltimore to the White House to bring attention to the need for reparations

• Mexican teen likely the youngest to die in ICE custody under Trump 2.0

• Women leading the farmworker movement won’t let it be defined by Cesar Chavez

• Ohio firm must pay $22.5 million to mom whose baby died after she was denied work-from-home

🗓️ Free Virtual Events

• Duke Divinity Webinar: Bioethics and the Black Church featuring Dr. Wylin Wilson. Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 8:00 PM ET. Register Here

• Decolonizing Mission: Imagining Christian Witness Without Empires

  Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 3:30 p.m. ET (7:30 p.m. GMT) Register/Join Here

On Our Radar

We are revisiting Dr. Perkins’ seminal work, Let Justice Roll Down. If you haven't read it, or haven't picked it up in years, now’s a great time to visit/revisit it.

Buy the Book

Remember

The "Twin Prophets": Before they were names in history books, Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. were young pastors strategizing in the basement of West Hunter Street Baptist. The recent push for National Historic Site status reminds us that the Civil Rights movement was a church movement before it was a political one.

Parting Shot

As the founder of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and a spiritual advisor to five U.S. presidents, he transformed the American evangelical landscape by insisting that a gospel that doesn’t seek justice for the poor is no gospel at all.

Though he was brutally tortured by police for his activism in 1970, Perkins emerged with a prophetic commitment to "One Blood" — the belief that reconciliation is not a social project, but a mandate of the cross. As those he inspired and touched mourn his passing at age 95, Perkins’ words remain a North Star for Christians still navigating the stormy waters of racial and spiritual division.

Editor’s Note: A Final Prophetic Message

Following the news of Dr. John M. Perkins’ passing on March 13, 2026, we are releasing for the first time online this exclusive conversation originally published in Faithfully Magazine’s Summer 2018 print/digital edition (downloadable for free below). At the time of this interview, Dr. Perkins was 88 years old and preparing the release of One Blood — a book he considered his “final message” to the Church. In the wake of his death, we present this Q&A as a tribute to a life that embodied the gospel.

Faithfully Magazine: Dr. Perkins, according to your autobiography, you became a Christian in Southern California somewhere around 1957. Can you briefly explain how the Lord worked in your heart to bring you to Himself?

Dr. John M. Perkins: I was beginning to seek because of my family’s formation, my lack of skills, and my desire to be successful. I began on this search for meaning in terms of my family and my own life, and I think it was out of that seeking that I was led to the place where I heard the truth of the gospel and God gave me the faith to believe.

I lived in a changing community in Southern California — Blacks were beginning to move in and Whites were beginning to move out. We were being faced with a better reality than what I had in my first seventeen years of life in Mississippi. In that environment, my family got involved [in the church] and our oldest son, who was three and a half years old, started going to a Good News Club and then to a Sunday School. I began to hear a kind of behavior that was different from Mississippi. We were not Christians [then], so we hadn’t been influenced with really knowing the terms of the Christian faith. It was more like hearsay and folklore in life.

So, when my son started going there and coming home and singing these songs – Blacks and Whites were coming together with the children — I’m hearing a message that was much clearer than I had ever heard in my life: “God loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red, brown, yellow, black, and white, they are precious in His sight.” We didn’t grow up with that! That sounded more like that could be a God bigger than us, who might have created us as we are. That sounded more relevant to me.

And I think it was in that searching for that reality and getting an explanation in creation that affirmed the dignity of all people. That truth that I considered sounded more like truth that there was a real God in heaven. If there’s a God in heaven who loved me enough to send His only begotten Son into the world, I wanted to get to know Him. I think it was in that environment, in both hearing it and being in a relationship where Blacks and Whites were seeking to share that together, that I found what I considered the reality of God.

FM: Your latest book, One Blood, is being presented as potentially your last message for the church. Why did you choose this topic to be your last message? Why is racial reconciliation so important for the church?

Perkins: For many years I was trying to put together a memoir, which was Dream With Me. As I was reflecting, and looking back through my Christian conversion to see how God was leading me, I began to realize the need for me to make a creative statement. My publisher and others began to say, “Could you make a statement, maybe like what Peter made in 2 Peter or like Paul made in 2 Timothy?” That I’m getting close and my departure is at hand. You know, I have already sort of fought a good fight.

“It’s ultimately not racial reconciliation; it’s reconciliation of humanity because we are all broken by sin — both by Adam’s sin and our own sin.”

In One Blood, I’m trying to say that what brings human dignity together is one God, one Mediator between man, and that He has created man to reflect His image and likeness, and we should affirm that. That’s a missing element in our society.

There’s all of this “two races, three races” and the Bible doesn’t affirm that, but we keep talking around that. It’s ultimately not racial reconciliation; it’s reconciliation of humanity because we are all broken by sin — both by Adam’s sin and our own sin. That’s sort of missed today. Or, better yet, it’s not quite clear enough today.

And so, we’re always striving, thinking that if we reconcile without conversion that somehow we’re going to be okay. So, we end up mixing it up the political reconciliation, government reconciliation, and good society loving our neighbor. But the real cause for reconciliation is that God so loved this humanity that He gave His only begotten Son, and we’re born into the family of God. This is not based on circumcision or White folks just getting right with Black folks. There is one God, one Mediator, and Jesus Christ came as the second Adam to reconcile man back to Himself, and then He commissions us to be the reconciler and bring a message of reconciliation, the good news, His gospel. I don’t think we hear that clearly. I think we operate too much out of the culture.

FM: If I’m not mistaken, you’ve been active in ministry through the terms of at least 5 U.S. Presidents, and it has been 50 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Has the conversation of racial reconciliation changed much since you first became part of the conversation?

Perkins: We went round in a circle, and many Evangelical churches accommodated that — not all of them though. Many churches couldn’t reflect on that truth that they had to embrace about humanity. That’s shaky right now. There’s a need for a more definite statement about humanity. We are broken.

I see it’s a big circle, when we ought to be more enlightened, and I think that’s creating the problem. We are more enlightened. We do have Facebook. We now text each other. God puts an important place for having knowledge, wisdom and progress. Instead of going back to the Stone Age, we ought to be thinking about more affirmation of the truth.

Now, if you stay with just racial reconciliation, well, I’m speaking to you here, and I couldn’t have done that back then. I would have gotten locked up in jail. They would have found some reason to lock me in jail as a Black man. I was arrested and tortured in jail. I mean, that was evil.

But now, there are Black folks saying “Black lives matter, too,” and White folks feel that that’s a revolutionary deal. They’re just saying “Black lives matter, too.” What I heard when I got converted was that “God loves the little children, all the children of the world. Brown, yellow, black, and white, they’re all precious in His sight.” That sounds like it might be the truth. But now, “Black lives matter, too” is questioned as a truth. It’s seen as if people are saying that Black lives matter more than White lives, and that’s seen as a threat.

FM: How would you encourage Christians who have given up hope for racial reconciliation? I’m talking especially about Christians of color who have become incredibly discouraged through their experiences in predominantly White churches.

Perkins: If we can affirm that people are created in the mage of God and ask God to forgive us for our past, I think He’s still faithful and just to forgive us, and now He can begin the process of healing our land. Just as He delivered Jonah from the fish, He will deliver us in terms of our returning to Him so that we can be the church, His body, joined together across these cultural barriers and being His true representatives here on earth. I say that’s the best we can do.

All of our methods going forward are as a pilgrim. That’s what makes John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress so powerful. Bunyan’s pilgrim got the sadness and weight of the world on his shoulder, so another pilgrim had to help enlighten him on the way.

The future needs to be led by the Shepherd. As we walk, Psalm 23 tells us that He’s leading us through and around, preparing a table before us, removing our anxieties when we get stuck, and at the end of our life, He takes us into the presence of the Lord. He gets us there. So, we don’t have a clear, altogether prophetic view of all the details of us getting there, so that’s why we have to always come back to trusting in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our understanding. We listen to our Shepherd and He has to guide us in.

In the New Testament, when the church spread out to Antioch and beyond, and when Peter and Paul were going to the Gentiles, the Council in Jerusalem asked the question, “What is God doing?” James answered that question when he said, it looks like what God is doing is calling out from all nations all the ethnic groups. He’s calling out from them a people to bear His name, and they will know we are His followers by the love we have one for another. Love affirms the dignity of humanity, and I think God’s redemptive idea came about because he created this humanity to be one so that we could reflect His life here on earth.

FM: The Lord has used you in so many different capacities to serve His people, and I pray that the Lord will grant you many, many more years of service in His kingdom. How would you like Dr. John M. Perkins to be remembered? What would you want your legacy to be?

Dr. John M. Perkins: Well, I sure would want to be remembered for having gratitude for God’s redemptive love. I really would like to be remembered as one who affirmed the dignity of others, and I believed in the redemption of others.

I couldn’t do this if I didn’t forgive those jailers who tortured us. I couldn’t do that if those Whites whom I forgave hadn’t come and loved me and joined with me. I would want to be known that I was able to forgive, and that I still found the strength to love back. That we joined together in a movement where we’re going to love each other. I think that’s what reconciliation is.

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Read more

Wright, a retired Anglican bishop and a leading Pauline scholar, first unsettled popular Christian eschatology with Surprised by Hope nearly two decades ago. That book questioned common ideas about the rapture, the afterlife, and various aspects of eschatology. In God’s Homecoming, Wright presses those arguments further, tracing God’s promise of new creation from Genesis to Revelation and insisting that the coming together of heaven and earth — rather than human escape from the world — stands at the heart of the gospel.

In the edited conversation that follows, Wright speaks with Managing Editor Nicola A. Menzie about what he believes Western Christians have gotten wrong about salvation, how an “escapist” faith has weakened evangelism, why Jesus’ vision of power subverts modern political Christianity, and how the church’s diversity functions as a visible sign of God’s victory over the powers.

Read more

The Rev. Traci Blackmon refused the easy framing. What the country was experiencing, she argued, was not a God-appointed kairos moment, but the cumulative consequence of political, moral, and theological failure. Her assessment was not rooted in cynicism, but clarity. And with the distance of more than five years, her words read less like commentary and more like diagnosis.

At the time of that interview, Blackmon served as the associate general minister of Justice and Local Church Ministries for the United Church of Christ (UCC) and senior pastor of Christ The King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Missouri. She is currently Pastor-in-Residence and Lecturer at Eden Theological Seminary and also founder of HopeBuilds LLC, a consultancy focused on building just and equitable systems.

Blackmon warned that the upheaval of 2020 could not be understood apart from a longer erosion already underway — one that had normalized cruelty, rewarded dehumanization, and sanctioned racialized violence through both policy and rhetoric. She named not only physical harm, but what she described as emotional, verbal, and spiritual violence: a culture shaped by leadership that abandoned restraint and invited others to do the same.

That framework matters now.

The fatigue many White Americans voiced not long after Floyd’s death — the desire to “move on” — and the eventual retreat from racial justice commitments — was already anticipated in Blackmon’s analysis. She understood that solidarity untethered from structural change would evaporate. And that the church, in particular, would be tempted to exchange truth for civility and reconciliation for comfort.

What many experienced in 2020 as revelation, Blackmon insisted, was simply exposure. The violence was not new; only the visibility was.

That exposure did not stop with policing. It has expanded.

In 2026, the same moral logic Blackmon identified is visible in the nation’s immigration crackdown. The language of “law and order,” the expansion of detention and deportation, and the tolerance for tearing families apart reflect the same hierarchy of human worth she warned about more than five years ago.

The church’s response has revealed its own fault lines.

Over the past five years, many congregations that once declared themselves “sanctuary churches” have quietly retreated from the practice, recalibrating commitment when legal risk, donor discomfort, or political backlash emerged. Trump’s chaotic and corrupt immigration crackdown has been reframed as a policy disagreement rather than a theological crisis. The biblical call for empathy has been reframed as “sin,” while appeals to Romans 13 have been deployed as moral cover for silence and inaction.

Blackmon’s critique in 2020 anticipated this narrowing of imagination. Her challenge was never limited to policing. It extended to the deeper stories America tells about itself — through statues, institutional memory, selective repentance, and theological silence. The question, from her perspective, was not if Christians felt compassion, but whether they were willing to relinquish power.

Hope, in Blackmon’s telling, was never sentimental. It was disciplined. Demanding. Rooted not in political turnover or symbolic gestures, but in the stubborn insistence on human dignity — even when public leadership, public theology, and public discourse abandoned it.

Reading her words now, the uncomfortable truth is this: the question was never whether 2020 would change everything. The question was whether we would listen to those who understood what was being revealed — and act accordingly.

What Has Not Changed

In 2026, police still kill Black people at disproportionate rates — a trend that has remained tragically consistent since 2020, with Black Americans still being killed at more than twice the rate of White Americans. Public support for racial justice remains cyclical and conditional. And the immigration system has hardened into a mechanism of fear, marked by violent enforcement and policies that preference whiteness and wealth.

Churches remain fractured along political lines while calling that division “theology.” Many have chosen proximity to power over proximity to the vulnerable, accepting an enforcement regime that racially profiles as regrettable but necessary.

What has not changed is the through-line Blackmon named in 2020: a society increasingly willing to trade human dignity for the illusion of order. What has also not changed is Black clarity.

Blackmon’s insistence that the church must decide whether it will restore dignity or reinforce exclusion remains unanswered. The reckoning she described did not end. It metastasized, finding new targets and familiar justifications.

👉 Read the full, previously unpublished Q&A with the Rev. Traci Blackmon

👉 Read the original feature with other Black Christian leaders: “Redeeming the Time: Black Christian Leaders on the Nation’s Reckoning and Racial ‘Awakening’”

Editor’s note: This article was drafted with the assistance of AI and edited by a human for accuracy, clarity, and context.

At the time of this interview, Blackmon served as the associate general minister of Justice and Local Church Ministries for the United Church of Christ (UCC) and senior pastor of Christ The King United Church of Christ in Florissant, Missouri.

Something happened to the national conscience on May 26, 2020, as cellphone video emerged of now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin — hands tucked casually inside of his uniformed pant pockets — kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for 7 minutes and 46 seconds, snuffing the life out of him as three other cops looked on.

Almost immediately, people in Minneapolis took to the streets, defying social distancing orders to demand justice and denounce the police. As the COVID summer wore on, every state in America and dozens of countries around the world saw similar protests (and even now, protests continue). Antiracism books flew off shelves, launching history and race authors onto bestsellers lists. Christians who had never taken to the streets before, including often silent Asian-American communities, spearheaded solidarity marches for Black lives.

So it would seem that through his final breaths, Floyd persuaded Americans who had previously been oblivious, antagonistic, or shy about confronting racism to propel their bodies onto the streets and, in some cases, face off with militarized police forces. Many of these newly-persuaded protesters were noticeably White people — seen among crowds pulling down statues of Confederates and colonialists, chanting “no justice, no peace,” and holding placards aloft that declared White Silence Is Violence.

Floyd’s murder may have indeed been the catalyst for the surge of corporate diversity statements, a football team finally changing its racist name, and acknowledgement by the NFL that Colin Kaepernick was, in fact, right. But revelations about the earlier unjust killings of Elijah McClain in Colorado, Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky at the hands of law enforcement or White vigilantes certainly added fuel to fire.

Outrage over their deaths have been expressed in calls to “defund the police” — that is, abolish the police or reallocate funds from police departments into community services — and resulted in noteworthy changes. Among measures targeting police accountability and bias crimes, Georgia passed a hate crime law; Aurora, Colorado, banned chokeholds; and Louisville, Kentucky, banned no-knock warrants in a law named after Breonna Taylor (whose killers remain free). Despite these changes and intense scrutiny, police keep killing Black people, and at a disproportionate rate (20 percent of people killed by police in the wake of Floyd’s death were Black, while Black people are just 13 percent of the U.S. population).

And now, as the season changes, White people say they are tired. But it’s not the same kind of soul-crushing fatigue experienced by Black activists and others who regularly engage in justice work.

Support for the Black Lives Matter movement has waned among Whites and Hispanics, according to the Pew Research Center, and White Christians have become less motivated to address racial injustice, with fewer even acknowledging America’s race problem compared to last year, Barna Group reports.

The one group that consistently presses on because they cannot afford to take time for granted — or rely on “good White people” — are Black folk.

The Rev. Traci Blackmon, acknowledged by the White House, the NAACP, and the Vatican for her work on the frontlines in Ferguson, Missouri, amid the 2014 uprisings, is appalled to see how civility has essentially been thrown out the window.

“It’s not like we had the Civil Rights Movement and now everyone loves each other. But there were expectations on behavior,” Blackmon told FM. “Now you have political leadership that not only violates that himself, but also condones and compliments those that violate it with him. So there’s this permission to be othering.”

Blackmon resigned from her role as associate general minister of Justice and Local Church Ministries for the UCC in 2023. She is currently Pastor-in-Residence and Lecturer at Eden Theological Seminary and also founder of HopeBuilds LLC, a consultancy focused on building just and equitable systems.

Below is our exclusive conversation with Blackmon that was excerpted in Faithfully Magazine’s Fall 2020 issue. It is published here in its entirety for the first time. The transcript has been edited for clarity.

The Present Moment and Racial Awakening

FM: What do you make of the present time we’re in and what do you see as the church’s most important role right now?

Rev. Traci Blackmon: That’s a complicated question. What I think we are seeing culturally and socially in this moment is a different kind of awakening. And I wish that I could say that the process [of] that awakening was brought on solely by the state-sanctioned violence against Black people. In particular, the moment of George Floyd’s death as a focal point of this.

I believe that while George Floyd’s death might have been the last straw, that what we are experiencing in an awakening is also connected to the political climate of the last four years. Through a national leadership in our highest office and below that has increasingly become a more racially intolerant, more xenophobic, more blatant in white supremacist actions and thought, and more vocal about that in ways that we have not seen in my lifetime.

I’m 57, and I was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Even at that time, there were voices in the highest levels of office in government that always served as a check and balance of racist rhetoric, because we have a president and a Senate who are acting in sync in that way. We have judges that have been appointed — over 100 judges — and federal positions and Supreme Court nominees and attorney generals that are all speaking this racialized rhetoric. I believe that we are in a heightened state of violence. And all of that violence isn’t physical. It’s emotional violence, it’s verbal violence, it’s spiritual violence.

We see even in the realm of church, this division of church to be the religious right —so they call themselves — or the conservative arm, and the progressive liberal arm or the left. Yet, we all claim to follow the same Jesus in the Christian realm. We’re seeing those divisions in other faith expressions, as well. So what I believe George Floyd’s death did in the height of an epidemic, where people have been sheltering in place, where people’s lives have been interrupted, and then to see this man literally asphyxiated on the asphalt in Minneapolis with such casualness by someone who was in a uniform, was just the tipping point that caused people of all skin tones and people globally to recognize that we could not be silent anymore. And that literally all of our breaths were at risk.

Permission to Be ‘Othering’

FM: So you feel like the political climate is unprecedented, as well? And people are more freely expressing their racist and prejudiced views publicly?

Blackmon: I don’t think it’s new thought, it’s new behavior. You know, it’s not like we had the Civil Rights Movement and now everyone loves each other. But there were expectations on behavior. There were expectations on public expression. There were expectations on how one had to treat another person, and now you have political leadership that not only violates that himself, but also condones and complements those that violate it with him. So there’s this permission to be othering.

I don’t want to just say it’s just race, because it’s not just race. I mean when you think about the fact that we elected in this country, not by popular vote, but significant voting, we elected in this country a person who is documented and recorded for his misogynistic sexist statements towards women, some of which were violent. And yet we still [elected him].

We elected to [lead] this country a man who spent the last eight years being vocal in a birther campaign that he knew was a lie and eventually admitted it was a lie. Yet we still did it. This is a man who took out a page in The New York Times, a full-page ad, to ruin the lives of five Black boys who are now men, and have been exonerated from that crime that they never committed, and would not apologize for it. We elected a man who, unlike any other man we’ve ever elected into this office, refused to disclose his financial tax returns. Not only that, his private businesses of his own [have been positioned] in ways that they have been able to profit from his Office and no one’s called him on it.

Not only get away with it, but be supported in it. Not only get away with it, but be supported politically and be supported religiously, and be supported socially in it. We have a president who watched what happened in Charlottesville — and I was in Charlottesville — and could not bring himself to condemn white supremacy. And still hasn’t. Never had.

This is new. It’s just fascinating to me.

A ‘Kairos’ Moment

FM: Some people have been calling our current time unprecedented. Would you also call it a kairos moment?

Blackmon: No, because for me kairos time is God-appointed. I don’t consider this God-appointed time. I consider this the consequences of our sin, if I was going to put it in theological terms. It’s that moment when we have to come face to face with who we are and who we’ve become and decide who we’re going to be.

I spent most of my morning this morning in conference calls with my staff about preparing for this election, of course, and preparing from a church standpoint. So we want people to vote. We don’t tell people how to vote. I don’t have an interest in telling people how to vote. I want people to vote their principles, or at least what you profess your principles to be. I think if people do that, we’ll be OK. I always think that, Red or Blue.

However, that wasn’t the conversation we needed to have. We needed to have, as the church, [a conversation about] what is going to be our role in trying to play a part in restoring human dignity and decency into a society that’s been ripped apart. No matter who wins on November 3, and we won’t know on November 3, but whoever wins the election, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, we still have a nation that has been torn apart. And who’s going to do the work of repairing and rebuilding relationships in a capacity to see one another as human beings, whether we agree with one another or not? Who’s modeling that?

There was a time when even in politics people modeled that. I mean, that’s a part of the rule with John McCain, right. I’m not a John McCain fan, but I respect his service to this country in the military and certainly I respect his service to this country in [the] legislature. So who are the John McCains? Who are the John Lewises here, to a certain extent, who will cross over the aisle and have civil discourse with one another even if you disagree? Who are those people?

That didn’t start with Donald Trump. I can’t put that all at the feet of Donald Trump. I don’t think Donald Trump is responsible for everything. I think Donald Trump exists because of the climate that we were creating. So who’s going to do the work of repair? And at one time, it would be the church. But the church is complicit in the chasms that are formed in this country now.

Moving Forward

FM: Where do we go from here? What things do you think need to happen to move the country and the church forward on racial justice? What are some things you would like to see realized?

Blackmon: That’s the conversation. Those of us who are called to be of a higher mind and a higher office theologically, whether we are on the right side or the left side, we have got to begin modeling again, the ability to hear one another and to see one another and to respect one another and to care for one another’s humanity, even when we don’t agree. I mean, that’s a part of the priestly role, right? We have no civilization if we can’t be civilized with one another.

We have watched, politically, people have [unintelligible] fights about benefits that are life and death for people. Life and death. And we’re arguing over things that don’t matter. We’re seen under leadership that tweets all night. These times are unprecedented. And the media is just as complicit. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this. I’m trying to wrap my mind around when tweets became news. I get it, that’s all you got. And it’s the president. I get that. But what happened to unbiased reporting? Whether we’ve lost it or whether we haven’t lost it, I really don’t know. But it feels like we’ve lost it.

What We’re Missing

FM: Do you think there is anything missing from the ongoing protests or conversations about racial justice?

Blackmon: What I think is missing is what’s always been missing, which is an accurate historical narrative of this country — of the history of policing, of the racialization of our judicial system. None of that is in the narrative, so it is like taking a scripture out of a story and just talking about some scripture and not looking at it in context, or pulling up a scene in a movie not knowing what came before or after it and critiquing the movie on that thing.

So tearing down statues was never about statues. It was about the lies that this country represents and idolizes through those statues. That is not the truth of this country.

These Confederate people were not heroes. They were treasonous. And yet we have statues that concretize them as some kind of hero, which is a false narrative.

For me, hearing the phrase “defund police” is not so much about not wanting police — though there are people who think we would be better off without law enforcement — but it’s about paying attention to the social services that are underfunded, and the way that police units are funded at military-type rates that support a structure that would say certain people should be controlled instead of investing in a better life for all of our citizens. There’s a deeper conversation than what happened just in a chant or in an action or in the street. There are things, yes, that I think are deeper than what we’ve seen, but they’re not hard to see if we want to look.

Remaining Hopeful

FM: Are you hopeful? What would you need to see to feel like we won’t be at the same place three or four years or six or seven years down the road?

Blackmon: I am hopeful. I mean, seeing people rise up, even if it was at the expense of a man’s life — his life was worth more than that — but seeing people rise up and begin to show up differently, that gives me hope, because something has been awakened to remind us that this is not who we have to be. This is not who we are. And that always gives me hope.

My hope is not in political leadership. My hope is in God and in the human spirit. And I believe that when we get back to a place of seeing one another without all of this rhetoric that people emphasize with pain — that moment of watching George Floyd die, I believe, made people realize just how out of breath we all are.

That gives me hope that we can still realize that. That we can go from a place where the man who took a knee on a football field — not because he was against the flag, but because he wanted to call the flag to its highest and remind us of what we’re supposed to be living up to — had his entire career ruined, and then in the aftermath of George Floyd, football owners and football teams were given permission to do that. Law enforcement officers taking a knee in the streets because they realize that this is too much — that gives me hope.

I don’t have hope that changing to a different president is going to fix all of that. But I do have hope in the human spirit, and I have hope in the God that is with us, even when we mess up. I have great hope in that.

The United States of America has a long and well-documented history of treating non‑White people as less than fully human. This reality is evident in colonizers’ genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement and brutalization of Africans and their descendants, and the persistent marginalization of communities of color. None of this is abstract. It is recorded, lived, and ongoing.

Without dismissing or minimizing the suffering of Indigenous peoples or other communities of color, I want to focus primarily on the treatment of African Americans. Historically, Blackness became the central category through which non‑whiteness was defined. If you were not White, you were treated as Black — socially, legally, and often with great violence. Even today, if we open a dictionary and examine how “white” and “black” have been defined symbolically, we see moral meaning embedded into the language itself. Some will say these are merely figures of speech. But the architects and guardians of whiteness have always taken those metaphors quite literally.

I begin here because it provides context for what we are witnessing in the United States today — this same historical “wickedness” directed with terrifying precision at immigrants of color, many of whom identify as followers of Jesus Christ.

People of conscience have been rightly appalled by the treatment of immigrants of color. Documented and undocumented. Citizens and non‑citizens alike. Over the past year, dozens of people have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Rights have been ignored, trampled, or outright denied. Video footage, eyewitness testimonies, and survivor accounts paint a disturbing picture of systemic cruelty. Victimized immigrants, targeted primarily because of their Brown skin or Latino appearance, are being treated worse than animals. I say that deliberately. In this country, we care for our pets. We feed them, shelter them, bathe them, and provide them medical care. Yet these hunted and detained human beings are denied dignity, care, and basic respect.

The Killing of Renee Good

That same pattern of cruelty brings us to the recent killing of a Minneapolis woman, Renee Nicole Good, by immigration agent Jonathan Ross. For some Americans, this incident has been shocking, a sudden revelation that ICE, in its current state, operates primarily through intimidation, violence, and chaos. Yet for Black Americans, this moment feels grimly familiar. This is not new. This is what state-sanctioned violence has looked like for generations.

Available video footage of Ross shooting at Good three times as she was driving away from agents is deeply troubling. Based on the ICE agent’s own recording, Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, appeared to pose no imminent threat. Various video angles show Ross circling Good’s SUV, shifting the phone he was recording with from his right hand to his left, and eventually positioning himself in front of Good’s vehicle. As Good reverses, turns her steering wheel to the right, and begins to drive away from the ICE agent, Ross pulls his gun and takes a shooting stance, first firing through the windshield. Ross then quickly moves to the driver’s left as the vehicle passes him and fires twice more through the window. Based on the visual evidence, Ross did not appear to be in immediate physical danger when he shot Good, particularly by the second and third rounds, nor did he indicate at the scene that he was injured. Finally, after shooting Good in the head, Ross is allegedly heard on his own recording calling her a “f-cking b-tch” — an expression of contempt for the victim rather than remorse at having ended a life. That slur reveals a spirit of animosity and vindictiveness, not fear.

Despite the footage, President Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem have publicly characterized Ross’s actions as justified, a reasonable defense against “an act of domestic terrorism.” While Vance blasted Good as a “deranged leftist,” Trump claimed she “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE officer.” Yet, after the shooting, Ross is seen walking unencumbered to Good’s vehicle, which crashed into another car on the side of the road. The nation’s leaders don’t acknowledge that videos show Ross placing himself in the vehicle’s path and firing after it was already moving away — actions that critics argue contradict ICE training.

What message does it send when top leadership in the White House and DHS deny what is clearly visible and blame a victim for her own death? When Americans are asked to discount their own eyes? To accept that two plus two equals five?

We must also confront an uncomfortable truth: the muted outrage surrounding Good’s killing may be influenced by the fact that she was the “wrong kind” of White woman. Described as a “devout Christian” by her ex-husband, Good was openly lesbian and married to another woman. So “this lesbian agitator” does not fit the idealized image some Christians and conservatives prefer for a “perfect victim.” For some, that makes indifference — and acceptance of the lies — easier.

A Tipping Point & Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

Police violence against Black Americans has become so normalized that it is practically a rite of passage. Young Black boys are still given “the talk” — the warning that their skin color may cause law enforcement to presume guilt before a word is even spoken. What feels different now is that this kind of violence is being openly justified, even celebrated, from the highest levels of government.

If this does not alarm you, it should. The line of what the American public is being asked to tolerate is moving — rapidly. A woman was lynched — shot and killed because she angered someone armed with federal authority. And the president and vice president excuse it. This is not hyperbole. This is documented reality.

We must also reckon with the broader pattern: ongoing race‑based cruelty toward people perceived as Hispanic, Black, or otherwise ethnically marginalized; funding cuts to programs that serve vulnerable populations; punitive decisions aimed at states governed by Trump’s political opponents; and a long history of violence and cruelty against Black Americans, Native Americans, and other non-White people. This is America’s original sin — greed, cruelty, and an obsession with so-called white racial superiority.

Instead of breaking free of these chains as the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, our current leaders and their supporters are clinging to these original sins — and claiming they will lead us toward a golden age.

Compounding this crisis is the role of Christian leaders who sanctify the cruelty. Some pastors and public Christian figures are peddling white racial grievance and calling it “law and order.” They cloak brutality in the language of justice and faith, spoon-feeding people who are searching for community, clarity, and hope what the Bible calls “doctrines of demons” — in this case, teachings that normalize cruelty and dehumanization. These are not confused shepherds. Many know exactly what they are doing and fall among those who the Apostle Paul describes as “hypocritical liars” (1 Timothy 4). They know which religious buzzwords appeal to Christians and which dog whistles appeal to white supremacists — and they use both, following in the footsteps of this administration.

The Fruits of Lawlessness and Resentment

I believe the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was a spiritual test. It revealed how much corruption and racial resentment still reside in the American heart, particularly among those who profess to be Christians. Trump did not conceal his views on race, women, or power. His record — racist rhetoric, misogyny, financial dishonesty, and moral inconsistency — was public. Even his own statement clarifying that he’s not a Christian, made in 2024, has not shaken the loyalty of many Evangelical supporters who insist that he is.

What we see now is the fruit of our collective choices and dark desires: an administration marked by lawlessness, cruelty, greed, and an obsession with whiteness. “Make America Great Again” has too often functioned as “Make America White Again,” by any means necessary. This is not law and order. It is selective enforcement and sanctioned violence.

Scripture warns us about worldly leaders who exalt themselves and who manipulate and oppress others — and about self-proclaimed Christian leaders who legitimize that power and lead people away from God.

Still, we are here, so repentance remains possible.

Will You Follow the Dragon or the Lamb?

Judgment does not always arrive as fire from heaven. As Jesus warns in Matthew 24:12, when wickedness increases, love grows cold. So it can look like moral numbness — the tolerance of cruelty, the normalization of lies, attacks on empathy, the quiet comfort many feel with racial hierarchy. Today’s movement for Christian nationalism, stripped of euphemism, is white supremacy wrapped in religious language. It is not of God, as it contradicts a fundamental truth of creation — every single one of us carries the Image of God and therefore has equal worth and dignity. As one pastor put it, to love Jesus is to hate white supremacy.

God is not obsessed with race as humans define it. God is not invested in skin color and doesn’t judge righteousness on a melanin scale. Humanity is one race, made in the Image of God, animated by the Breath of God. Any so‑called Christian movement or community that centers race rather than repentance, domination rather than salvation, is a deception.

The question before Jesus’ followers today is simple but urgent: when you hear the rhetoric of this administration — the self-aggrandizing words of the president or the vitriol of Stephen Miller, Trump’s “brain” — do you hear the echoes of Jesus Christ? Do you see the heart of the Lamb, who cares for the vulnerable and encourages His followers to love their neighbor, to love truth, and practice humility? Or do you hear the spirit of the Dragon, the Enemy of God’s people, seeking to exalt itself through deception and the persecution of others made in God’s Image?

If you cannot see that we have entered another dark chapter rather than a golden age in America, then prayer and discernment are desperately needed. Turn away from voices that justify cruelty. Seek God directly. The promise of Scripture is clear: those who seek the Lord sincerely will find Him.

There is still hope. As Christians, we believe in resurrection — that after the darkest day, a new morning will shine forth. But hope does not excuse silence, and faith does not require denial. Things are likely to get worse before they get better. Do not give up hope. Do not grow weary in doing good. Do not abandon prayer. Do not give in to lies. And do not surrender your conscience to the god of this world.

Transparency Note: The author drafted this op-ed based on her personal convictions and observations. She utilized AI as a research and editing partner to refine the structure and verify facts, while ensuring the final message and perspective remain entirely her own.

But if we look closer at the history, and the theology, the picture often looks quite different than the Eurocentric, porcelain figures many may be accustomed to seeing.

For this holiday edition of Rewind, we are reaching back to a conversation with author Dorena Williamson about pivotal children’s book, Brown Baby Jesus. While the book is for children, the message is a sophisticated and necessary challenge for adults, especially today.

In a time when cultural divisions may feel sharper than ever, and the question of “who belongs” dominates news headlines, Williamson invites us to look at the Incarnation as it actually happened: A Middle-Eastern child, born into a messy, multiethnic family tree, who would soon become a refugee in Africa.

This isn’t just about historical accuracy (though a brown-skinned Jesus is certainly more historically accurate than a blue-eyed one). It is about the theology of belonging. As Williamson notes, when we whitewash the Nativity, we inadvertently tell a vast majority of the world that they are spectators to the story of God, rather than participants in it.

The story of Christmas is that God entered the world through a specific lineage, one that includes outsiders and those ostracized (like Rahab and Tamar) to save everyone.

We are re-sharing this Q&A today because, amid the wrapping paper and the Christmas hymns, we need to be reminded of the radical inclusivity of the manger.

Take some time and read (or listen to) the original interview with Williamson, which explores why representation in the Nativity matters not just for our children’s self-esteem, but for the integrity of our faith.

Read the full, original interview: ‘Brown Baby Jesus’ Celebrates Jesus’ Messy, Multiethnic Family Tree

Editor’s note: This article was drafted with the assistance of AI and edited by a human for accuracy, clarity, and context.

In that interview, Collier acknowledged “coping mechanisms” that were “not God-honoring” and sidestepped a direct question about infidelity.

At the time, he framed the dissolution of Story Church and its relaunch as CCC Atlanta as part of a strategic reset and a continuation of his restoration journey. Before launching Story Church in 2022, the Colliers briefly served as the first Black pastors within the Hillsong network when Hillsong Atlanta opened in 2021. Their departure from Hillsong came soon after an avalanche of financial and sexual misconduct allegations against the global brand, which preceded their decision to establish Story Church.

But new public claims from Toni Collier, and a police report reflecting some of her claims, suggest a more complicated timeline. The 2023 police report shows Collier told police he was being harassed by a transgender man who he said was attempting to extort him. Toni Collier asserts the situation was tied to what she describes as a transactional sexual encounter. These claims remain unverified by FM.

These specific revelations about Collier’s alleged infidelity raise fresh questions about CCC’s vetting and oversight during Collier’s restoration process, which culminated in his re-ordination in September 2025.

It remains unclear what CCC leadership — specifically Senior Pastor Jamaal Bernard and founding pastor Dr. A.R. Bernard — knew, when they knew it, and how they assessed these matters before installing him as lead pastor of CCC Atlanta.

FM has reached out to the public relations representative for both Collier and the Bernards and will update this report if a response is provided.

Timeline: Sam Collier, Hillsong Atlanta, Story Church, and CCC

2021  
- Sam and Toni Collier become the first Black pastors in the Hillsong Church network when Hillsong Atlanta launches.  
- Global investigations into Hillsong intensify, including allegations of financial misconduct and sexual impropriety.

Early 2022 
- Amid widening Hillsong scandals, the Colliers announce their departure from Hillsong Atlanta.  
- They immediately found Story Church in Atlanta.

2022–2023  
- Story Church begins to grow but experiences increasing internal instability.  
- In 2023, Collier files a police report alleging harassment and an attempted extortion.  
- The Colliers’ marriage continues to deteriorate.

2024  
- Sam and Toni Collier finalize their divorce.  
- Questions emerge about the future of Story Church.

August 2025  
- Collier tells Faithfully Magazine he made “big mistakes” and used "coping mechanisms" that were “not God-honoring” during his marriage.

September 2025 
- Collier is re-ordained by Dr. A.R. Bernard and Pastor Jamaal Bernard and installed as Lead Pastor of **CCC Atlanta**.

December 2025  
- New public allegations from Toni Collier emerge, prompting renewed scrutiny of Collier’s restoration and reinstatement.

Watch our managing editor’s brief remarks on this new development.

Now, after a deadly shooting, immigration from “third world countries” are being “permanently paused.” Trump’s announcement, also initiating what he calls “reverse migration,” has likely intensified fear and uncertainty among immigrants and their loved ones.

For some U.S.-born Christians, these policies may seem like a win for national security and the rule of law. But for many others, including those with a heart for the missions and evangelization, these headlines should trigger a deep, uncomfortable dissonance.

That dissonance is exactly what Beth Watkins captured in her prophetic essay, “The Great Commission, Immigration and Christian Hypocrisy.”

Although written years ago, Watkins’ words feel like they were penned just yesterday. In our latest Rewind, we are bringing this piece 👇 back to the forefront because it exposes a spiritual blind spot that has become dangerous in 2025.

The ‘Good’ Illegal vs The ‘Bad’ Illegal

Watkins, a former missionary in North Africa, pulls back the curtain on a dirty secret of U.S. missionaries abroad: they are often the illegal immigrants.

She describes how American missionaries frequently enter “closed countries” on tourist, business, or student visas. They often lie to customs agents about their true intent. They overstay. They “flout the rules.”

And the U.S. church applauds them. We call it “creative access.” We say they are obeying God rather than man. We justify their deception because the mission — spreading the gospel — is too important to be stopped by a border agent.

But when the roles are reversed?

Watkins writes:

“When it comes to Christian missions and service, we grant ourselves benefits we would deny others, and flout rules abroad that we fervently demand adherence to at home. We are immigration hypocrites.”

Why It Matters in 2025

Today, as the White House revokes thousands of visas and targets international students under the banner of “America First,” this hypocrisy is apparent.

If American Christians support policies that categorically view international students and migrants from the “Third World” as threats to be purged, how can we simultaneously expect those same nations to welcome American students and American workers?

If we cheer when the U.S. tightens its visa regime to “protect our culture,” do we lose the right to complain when a North African or Asian government denies a visa to a missionary to protect theirs?

Watkins recounts a stinging encounter with a missions professor who aggressively advocated for Muslim bans and border walls in the U.S., only to turn around and ask for prayer regarding his own difficult visa renewal in a foreign country. He wanted open borders for his ministry, but closed borders for his neighbor.

As ICE agents rappel out of helicopters over Chicago apartments, stake out schools, and raid churches, we have to confront the uncomfortable question: Is our commitment to the gospel real, or is our theology of migration dictated by the comfort of citizenship rather than the commands of Christ?

Read Watkins’ full, original essay: “The Great Commission, Immigration and Christian Hypocrisy” here.

Editor’s note: This article was drafted with the assistance of AI and edited by a human for accuracy, clarity, and context.

In a conversation from the Faithfully Magazine Archives (👇🏾), author Alicia Akins shares a powerful memory from a time she was unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. “I didn’t have enough money to eat,” she recalls. “I was just looking for coins and things around my house to go to the dollar store.”

Yet, during a Thanksgiving dinner that same year, a friend asked a question that changed her perspective: “What makes you rich?”

“I thought, with no money to my name, what made me feel rich?” Akins says. “I started to think about how God had sustained me and fulfilled me and sort of been there for me during that time.”

That moment launched her journey toward writing ​Invitations to Abundance​, a look at how the feasts of the Bible — and our own tables today — are designed to transform us. Her conclusion? True gratitude always spills over.

“A deep enjoyment of God’s mercy and abundance leads to us being merciful and generous with others,” Akins says. “If you want a sneak peek [of heaven], widen your tables now.”

Read the full archive interview with Alicia Akins here 🔒.

Editor’s note: This article was drafted with the assistance of AI and edited by a human for accuracy, clarity, and context.

But if we revisit our 2020 FM interview (👇🏾) with Chicago pastor Daniel Hill, we’ll understand that this administration’s open implementation of a hierarchy of human value isn’t just political, but also deeply spiritual.

Hill argued that white supremacy is not just a social structure, but a spiritual formation system. It functions essentially as a “rival gospel,” one that is constantly discipling us. This reality is evident in the ongoing, unashamed public emergence of White male pastors and influencers who espouse racism and cruelty as theology.

The current Republican administration is engaging in aggressive discipleship, constantly signaling from the top down who matters to God and who doesn’t.

The ‘Lie’ in Policy Form

Hill, author of White Lies and White Awake, defines the central “lie” of white supremacy as the belief that White lives are the standard of human value, and all others are deviations or threats.

When the administration attacks DEI initiatives, it is legally protecting that standard. When refugee policy explicitly preferences White South Africans — on false pretenses — it is reinforcing the narrative that whiteness is “endangered” and deserving of special protection, while Black and Brown lives are disposable.

This isn’t just politics; it is a theological claim. It is an assertion that the Imago Dei (Image of God) is hierarchical.

As Hill told FM then:

“I can’t be a faithful follower of Christ without absolutely hating white supremacy and doing everything I know how to resist, confront, and uproot the ideology.”

Moving from ‘Woke’ to ‘Resistant’

In 2020, many of us fell into the trap of thinking “being woke” (aware) was the finish line. Hill warned against this. He argued, in a sense, that awareness without resistance is just voyeurism.

The events of 2025 are exposing the difference between those who know racism is wrong and those who are spiritually formed to resist it. There are some Christians who see the dehumanizing tactics of ICE agents and simply feel terrible. Then there are others who know that what they see is an assault on the Body of Christ.

If Hill is right in his claim that “to love Jesus is to hate white supremacy,” then the response to these policies cannot be passive. Christians cannot claim to love the Creator while remaining neutral toward policies that hunt down His creation based on their skin color, accent, or perceived ethnicity.

A Liturgy of Resistance

The “white lies” interview should reminds us that we are in a battle over truth.

The administration tells a story of scarcity, difference, and fear: They’re taking your jobs, eating your pets, and jumping ahead of you at the E.R.

Christians are called to tell a better story. A Jesus story. A true story. A story where the refugee is Jesus in disguise (Matthew 2), where the wall of hostility is broken down (Ephesians 2), and where our security comes from God, not from a white ethnostate.

If Hill is right — if loving Jesus requires hating white supremacy — then this moment demands practices of resistance: prayer that forms courage, worship that unmasks idols, solidarity that costs something, and public witness that refuses to be silent.

We are being discipled daily. The only question is: by whom?

With the threat of a third Trump term looming — whether through strong-arm tactics or subterfuge — being better voters is not the goal; we need better worshippers. We need Christians whose worship of Jesus is so authentic that they cannot stomach the idol of white supremacy, no matter how legally it is packaged.

Read the full archive interview with Daniel Hill here 🔒.

Editor’s note: This article was drafted with the assistance of AI and edited by a human for accuracy, clarity, and context.

I recently watched the 1954 movie adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 novel starring Edmond O’Brien, Michael Redgrave, and Jan Sterling. As expected, I couldn’t help but consider parallels to our current dangerously divisive political climate, especially in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. I found myself the following day meditating on the theme of manipulating a populace and making them compliant via hate, deception, and fear of pain. It also wasn’t lost on me, as intended by the story, that love was the only true, radical act of defiance that could break Big Brother’s manipulative grip.

There were lots of warnings before Trump was sworn into his second term that the United States was on the precipice of authoritarianism. The administration’s swift, chaotic, and sometimes illegal and undemocratic actions have made those warnings warranted. It is debatable whether we are living with a full-blown authoritarian or totalitarian White House, but its embrace of White Christian Nationalism — a form of fascism — is undeniable.

In the movie, we see a child trained to spy even on her parents and report them for falling out of step with the controlling apparatus — even in their sleep.

It isn’t the incessant surveillance or even the physical and psychological torture inflicted to maintain control that alarms me the most. It’s the strange dance of systemically falsifying information — reality, the truth itself — and feeding twisted narratives to the masses to foment hate. This calculated use of falsehoods about alleged “enemies” to incite fear pushes the populace into the arm’s of Big Brother, portrayed as their only reliable savior.

I have watched “1984” many times, including the likely most well-known version staring John Hurt. However, watching it again under such an intentionally divisive and duplicitous presidency — one that has given allegedly amoral tech bros a literal seat at the table — makes the cinematic adaptation of Orwell’s dystopian vision hit much different.

If you have never watched “1984,” or haven’t in a long while, I encourage you to find a couple hours to set aside to watch the film. The more recent version is quite good, but I find the 1954 version starring Edmond O’Brien better. Of course, you can always just pick up a copy of Orwell’s most influential book.

The initial premise of our October interview was to address the bizarre rapture trend that had emerged the month prior. Dr. Evans had also just dropped a new Revelation study, so the timing couldn’t have felt more appropriate. What’s more, Donald Trump had just put forth his controversial Mideast peace plan — an act that reignited murmurs about the antichrist figure associated with end-times prophecy.

I genuinely enjoy reading the book of Revelation (and other futuristic prophetic texts) and theorizing about the significance of its multilayered symbolism. In high school and during my early years of college, I was a devout reader of the Left Behind series, until racist portrayals of a group of minority survivors in one book killed my enthusiasm. Before that, I was one of those kids always at the local library — sometimes perusing the Young Adult section, but frequently found in the Religion section, sifting through titles like The Late Great Planet Earth. To this day, my interests and fascination with the period leading up to the promised return of Jesus Christ remain strong — though my perspective on certain elements (e.g., the rapture) has evolved.

Evans, president of The Urban Alternative and founder of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, has frequently preached on Revelation and the end times throughout his 50 years in ministry.

And speculation has abounded for years about whether Trump is the dreaded antichrist, a figure described in Scripture as the ultimate adversary of Christianity and empowered by Satan (if one takes all that apocalyptic writing literally).

Since we were discussing Evan’s new Bible study on Revelation, the conversation naturally turned to current events and the end-times speculation that often accompanies chaotic news cycles like this one. So I put broached the subject, albeit in a roundabout way, about Donald Trump being that dreaded figure.

Evans, who has written around 200 books and accomplished many “firsts” within U.S. Evangelical Christianity as a Black man, had much to say about interpreting headlines with discernment.

Watch a clip of our exchange. And to hear Evans’ full thoughts on the book of Revelation, spiritual discernment, and his own year-long restoration process, head over to faithfullymag.com for exclusive access.

For the record, I believe Trump has certainly presented himself as an antichrist. History has many examples of figures who think they are representing God while actually contradicting His principles in their actions and character. Lawlessly abducting people based on racial profiling, spewing hateful and dehumanizing rhetoric, and fighting to keep food aid from the nation’s most vulnerable are just a few actions that run counter to God’s grace.

That’s because the popular “Beleaf in Fatherhood” YouTuber began his public journey from a place of deep personal pain.

Raised by his mother in Baltimore, Maryland, Henry also spent summers with his dad in California. “So I went from this like single-parent home to this semi-stable two-parent home with my father and his wife and my little sister,” he told Faithfully Magazine in an October interview.

In Baltimore, things were less than ideal.

“I saw the pressures of life with my mother, who was a very young mother,” Henry said. “She tended to take a lot of her anger out on me. I don’t think she knew better, but it definitely wore down on my spirits as a young man.”

The experience left him with an aversion to ever wanting to be a parent himself.

But that all changed when he was 20. A youth pastor let him hang out at his house, and for the first time, Henry saw a “harmony to a family.” He saw proof of good fatherhood. “Ever since then,” he said, “I believed I could be a father, and then I wanted to be proof for other people.”

Now, Henry’s sharing his journey and taking his mission beyond YouTube with his debut book, Father Yourself First: Everything You Need to Become the Father Your Family Deserves. More than a parenting guide, Father Yourself First is a personal reflection on the internal work Henry believes men must do to effectively lead their families.

He and his wife, Yvette, have four children: Theo, Uriah, Anaya and Uziah. For the past decade, they’ve documented their family’s journey on YouTube, where their hundreds of videos have drawn more than 336 million views.

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In an October 14 conversation with Managing Editor Nicola A. Menzie, the 76-year-old preacher spoke candidly about the insecurities he faced during the restoration process and his advice for ministers facing a similar situation. Evans also explained how his personal journey dovetails with the ultimate restoration promised in the book of Revelation — the focus of his new Bible study.

The Urban Alternative president also reflected on entering what he calls “the last season” of his life, a perspective sharpened by the recent deaths of peers like Voddie Baucham, John MacArthur, Tim Keller, and Charles Stanley.

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Evans had stepped down from his role as senior pastor in June 2024, following his public disclosure of a past moral failing. In a statement at the time, he announced that he would be temporarily stepping away from all ministry responsibilities in order to “submit to a healing and restoration process.”

Although Evans has now been restored to good standing, the church’s elder board announced that he will not return to his former position as senior pastor, nor will he assume any official ministry leadership roles. Instead, his son, Jonathan Evans — who had been serving as an associate pastor — has been appointed an elder and is expected to eventually succeed his father as senior pastor of the predominantly Black congregation. During Evans’ absence, Jonathan took on increased responsibilities within the church.

The Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship congregation responded with visible joy during the restoration service, as captured in the livestream video of the event. The moment marked both a spiritual milestone for Evans and a significant transition in leadership for the church community he founded more than 40 years ago.

Rather than let a good lighting setup go to waste, I wanted to give you a quick update. So this is another “Housekeeping” po…

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In this video, I discuss this trend, starting with an analysis of the disturbing, “othering” language used by Steph…

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Local resident Rodrick Johnson, who lives in the building raided by Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) agents, told the Chicago Sun-Times that federal officials broke down his door, put him in zip ties, and kept him detained outside the building for three hours before letting him go.

“I asked [agents] why they were holding me if I was an American citizen, and they said I had to wait until they looked me up,” he explained to the paper. “I asked if they had a warrant, and I asked for a lawyer. They never brought one.”

Pertissue Fisher, who also lives in the building, backed up Johnson’s account and said that agents forcibly removed all residents from their homes regardless of their legal status.

“They just treated us like we were nothing,” she told local news station ABC 7 Chicago. “They, like, piling us all up in the back on the other side, and it wasn’t no room to move nowhere.”

Ebony Sweets Watson, who lives across the street from the raided building, told the Chicago Sun-Times that she saw children, some of whom weren’t even wearing clothes, dragged out of the building by ICE agents and then placed into U-Haul vans.

“It was heartbreaking to watch,” she said. “Even if you’re not a mother, seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.”

Watson also said that it appeared the federal agents had ransacked the building during the raid.

“Stuff was everywhere,” she said. “You could see people’s birth certificates, and papers thrown all over. Water was leaking into the hallway. It was wicked crazy.”

Dan Jones, a resident at the building, told the Chicago Sun-Times that he returned from work on Wednesday to find that several of his belongings, including electronics and furniture, were missing from his apartment, and that all of his clothes had been strewn across the floor. He said that he asked the Chicago Police Department for any information about what happened to his belongings in the wake of the ICE raid, but has so far received no response.

“I’m pissed off,” Jones told the paper. “I feel defeated because the authorities aren’t doing anything.”

Darrell Ballard, who witnessed the raid, told ABC 7 Chicago that it felt more like a military operation than law enforcement.

“We’re under siege,” he said. “We’re being invaded by our own military.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that 37 people were arrested during the raid, and it claimed some of them “are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes, and immigration violators.”

American Immigration Council fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said in a Thursday social media post that the raid represented “a surreal moment for America” that was a clear violation of residents’ civil liberties.

“Needless to say, if the normal police ever pulled something like this—pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run warrant checks—they would be sued into oblivion,” he observed. “Yet ICE is going to get away with it entirely.”

Reichlin-Melnick also said that, even if the agents had a valid warrant to enter the apartment complex, it was highly unlikely that warrant would extend to removing every single resident there.

“I am... DEEPLY skeptical that the warrant permitted them to smash down every door and arrest every person in the building,” he wrote. “My gut says they went far beyond the warrant.”

Editor’s note: This article was republished from Common Dreams under a Creative Commons license.