Wendell Griffen on White Christian Nationalism and Costly Grace in Era of Trump: Followers of a Palestinian Jew Whose Family Were Refugees

Wendell Griffen, in his just-published Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2017): 

White Christian nationalists who elected President Trump profess to follow Jesus. Yet Jesus affirmed and included women among his closest followers (Matthew 27:55-56), and they were the first to proclaim his resurrection (see Matthew 28:1-10). During the 2016 campaign, Trump bragged that his maleness, wealth, fame, and commercial success enabled and entitled him to sexually assault and disparage women.

Trump's Clear Signal That Some Count and Others Don't: Another Wave of Bomb Threats at Jewish Centers Today, Another Cemetery Vandalized Yesterday

NBC News confirms there has been another wave of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and schools across the country pic.twitter.com/TqBNbOGOnl

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 27, 2017

This morning: 

Jewish community centers in at least 11 states received bomb threats on Monday, echoing similar waves of threats on Jan. 9 and Jan. 18.

Notes on "Moonlight": The Price Men Pay for Showing Vulnerability — And the Higher Price Some Men Pay

As it happens, Steve and I watched "Moonlight" Saturday evening, and yesterday, I put together a set of notes about the film — not dreaming it would (as it richly deserved to do) win the Best Picture award at the Oscars. Here are my notes, with an appended "footnote" from Max S. Gordon's essay on James Baldwin yesterday at NCRM's site, entitled "Faggot As Footnote: On James Baldwin, 'I Am Not Your Negro,' 'Can I Get a Witness?' and 'Moonlight'":

"Sharing Our Lives as Theology, Part 4": A Theological Video Conversation Produced by Rachel Fitzgerald and Mark Shumway

It's my privilege to share with you again today a video conversation between Brazilian theologian Ivone Gebara, educator and spiritual director Marlene DeNardo, Rachel Fitzgerald and Mark Shumway, the husband-and-wife team who organized this conversation and produced the video. and me. Rachel is a psychotherapist with a background of teaching spirituality, including at the Latin American School of Spirituality and Ethics, and Mark is a psychologist and mental health counselor who teaches in a variety of culturally diverse contexts. Mark's son Christopher Shumway was the masterful technological guru behind the scenes of this video — a very important part of the production process.

Things Church Folks Say: Communicating the Opposite of Committing Church to Build Safe Space in a Hostile World

Things I have actually heard church folks say — which communicate the opposite of committing themselves and their churches to creating a safe, welcoming, and healing space in a world in which many folks experience hostility against themselves:

The America White Christians Are Building with Trump, and Exodus of Churchgoers: When Jesus and Gospel Are Betrayed, Obligation to Walk Away

Let me start with the statement that no one has asked me to explain why I find church — connecting myself to a church, going to a church — a non-option at present. And that’s significant, I think. It’s significant that no one from a church community has asked me why I am disenchanted with and alienated from church, and what they, as church, can do about my disenchantment and alienation.

The Catholic Herald on Trump as a "Proper Christian" vs. Rev. Joel Tooley, Who Attended Trump's Florida Campaign Rally

Tuesday, I read in the British Catholic paper The Catholic Herald Father Alexander Lucie-Smith's proposal that, in reciting the Lord's Prayer/Our Father at a Trump campaign rally in Florida, Melania Trump was perhaps "trying to tell us something" — namely, that Donald Trump is "a proper Christian," and this explains why (white) Catholics and (white) evangelicals elected him.