memory

  • Remembering as Repentance 

    In his 2022 article, “Contested Memorials and the Discipleship of Christian Memory,” James Crockford writes that “memory is a vital theological theme. Whether in the Deuteronomist’s repeated exhortation to ‘remember’ the liberation of God’s people from captivity in Egypt, or in Christ’s command… Continue reading

    Remembering as Repentance 

  • A Truly Catholic Politics? A Response to Michael Baxter and William Cavanaugh

    Baxter and Cavanaugh also implicitly contrast the unity secured by wholehearted and unsullied membership in the church with the inherently divisive and atomizing politics of the nation-state. In so doing, they celebrate a church that never existed. Continue reading

  • (Un)just War and Veteran’s Day

    Today, November 11, marks Veteran’s Day in the United States and Remembrance Day in Canada.  Originally called Armistice Day and begun to mark the end of the “War to End all Wars,” Veteran’s Day now celebrates the service and sacrifice… Continue reading

  • “Look Away, Look Away:” Brad Paisley and the Lie of “Accidental Racism”

    A few days ago, country music star Brad Paisley teamed up with rapper LL Cool J to release a twangy inter-disciplinary apologia for the wearing of the Stars and Bars. In the oddly entitled “Accidental Racist,” Paisley whines a litany… Continue reading

  • Remembering Empire in the Aftermath of an Earthquake: Why North Americans Need Haiti

    Saturday, January 12, marks the three year anniversary of the earthquake that left Haiti in ruins.  Immediately after this earthquake, scenes of Haitian suffering appeared with unprecedented frequency on TV screens throughout the United States.  In response, many North Americans… Continue reading

  • On the Killing of Children

    “Blessed the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock.” — Psalm 137:9 “Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’”… Continue reading

  • White Supremacy, U.S. Citizenship, and the Body of Christ

    This week marked the 2nd anniversary of the Haiti earthquake and the 51st anniversary of the CIA-backed assassination of Patrice Lumumba–the Congo’s first democratically-elected leader following its independence from Belgium.  Also this week, the school district of Tuscon, Arizona decided… Continue reading

  • Does God Bless the USA?

    United Statesians have always claimed to live in a nation blessed by God–white Americans interpreted the near complete destruction of certain Native American communities by smallpox as a sign of God’s blessing, believing that God had cleared the land of… Continue reading

  • The Cross and the Lynching Tree

    In this 2007 interview with PBS’ Bill Moyers, James Cone argues that the lynching of African-Americans throughout the 19th and 20th centuries was an almost literal crucifixion because “the cross was a first century lynching.”  Lynching, like the crucifixion, was a… Continue reading