“I start precisely where Taylor never arrives…”—Cornel West

I return to blogging recognizing the need to say something about the connection between people’s perspectives and whether or not they see the forms of oppression before them.

If Freire and Aquinas are right, teaching against oppression-sustaining myths that render people socially blind is an act of mercy.

When Europe’s colonizing arms wrapped around my Indigenous ancestors, they executed an act of racist encounter, not discovery.

Human mercy requires feeling the sufferings of others.

The Supreme Courts of the United States and Canada explicitly link Christianity to racist practices of Indigenous dispossession.

Let us plead with the Father, Son, and Spirit to multiple our resources and give us mercy-saturated discernment to use them to advance King Jesus and his merciful Kingdom.

“[C]hrist is either neglected or honored in the person of those who need our assistance. So then, whenever we are reluctant to assist the poor, let us place before our eyes the Son of God, to whom it would be base sacrilege to refuse anything.”—John Calvin

Like the Exodus prophets, Jesus’s ministry reveals that mercy threatens unjust systems and people, and that people respond to this threat with violence.

“The shards of heartbreak cannot simply be thrown away. They have to be reworked.” -Imani Perry

It is not enough, then, to champion race-conscious justice. Christians must also champion the mandate for race-conscious mercy.

The three-fifths clause was not a compromise. It was a bipartisan effort to codify white supremacy with colorblind rhetoric.

“You do not belong in this class, Nathan. Do you understand? You are only here for racial diversity numbers.”

Student questions fill my Inbox, each one bearing a brother’s or sister’s concern. Why are we here?

As the apostle Paul teaches, singing is part of a Christian’s sanctification.

Marx sees that modern forms of capitalism required heinous racial injustices.

Informed by racist theologies, Anglo and Spanish “evangelized” and warred against Indigenous people they saw as Canaanites deserving destruction.

“You niggers get back on that bus and go back to the prison you came from!”

If only president Trump could see with Chicana/o eyes!

Given how rarely Jesus curses (not cusses) people, we should study when and why he does.