The Highway of Advent

The Highway of Advent

The massive road-building project that is the interstate highway system divided communities across the nation. In The 1619 Project, Kevin M. Kruse notes that the highways “steered along routes that ran right through the neighborhoods of racial minorities.” He tells us...
People of Good Faith: Jim Hopkins

People of Good Faith: Jim Hopkins

Jim Hopkins is senior pastor of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, California, where he has served since 1989. 1. What story, verse or passage from your faith tradition’s sacred texts has significantly influenced / shaped your life? I have tried to let...
One Nation … Under God?

One Nation … Under God?

Francis Bellamy, the author of the original pledge that became, with modifications, the official U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, was a Baptist minister’s son from upstate New York. Educated in public schools, he distinguished himself in oratory at the University of...
Extending to Women the Right to Privacy

Extending to Women the Right to Privacy

My colleague Lauren Lisa Ng is a poet, a preacher and a mother. Her poem, The New, is a reflection on an ordinary day in her life. The poem concludes, “I’ll build the border of a puzzle, stand from my desk before the sun starts is setting, remove backpacks from tired...