Monday, July 30, 2018

The 45th and Christian Values

It's well known that 80 percent of white evangelicals voted for the current president. Their support was a major help in getting him elected.

According to this same evangelical group, the reason they voted for him was because of his "religious" views that jived with theirs. To whit, get more conservative judges on the Supreme Court while hacking away at any laws enacted that evangelicals view as anti-family.

Ironically, in the year and a half that the current president has been in office, this same religious group remains staunchly behind their choice. Stating, in effect, that they don't care what he is like, as a person, as long as he continues to support their agenda.

But there's a huge problem with that line of logic.

Back in January, Steve Inskeep, host of NPR's Morning Edition, interviewed Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, and Norman Eisen, the top ethics lawyer for President Obama. They both agreed that the current president is the most unethical in modern history.

"The most serious, most dangerous problem is that he [Trump] ignores the Constitution," said Painter. Noting that the President has refused to divest the businesses he owns that are borrowing money from foreign governments and foreign government-owned banks doing business with foreign governments. 

The current President also has pending lawsuits against him in Maryland and the District of Columbia. One having to do with the Trump Hotel that is located a few blocks from the White House.

Equally serious is the way the current president has challenged the First Amendment, referring to main stream journalists as "enemies of the state." 

"Contempt for ethics is what has led to him [Trump] making loyalty demands, trying to get [former FBI Chief James] Comey to drop the [Russian] investigation and its led to a plethora of unethical conduct across the administration," said Eisen.

Just last week the current president invited A.G. Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, to the White House for a meeting. Sulzberger made it clear that he thought the president's "inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence."

The current president seemed to be proud of coining the phrase "fake news," and remarked he wasn't surprised to hear of the threats, viewing journalists and the main-line news media as "enemies of the people."

The Times coverage of the meeting included a mention of an incident in Kansas City where the current president was speaking to a crowd of veterans. "Stick with us," he told them. "Don't believe the crap you see from these [main line news] people, the fake news."

This is just one example of the current president's purposeful distortion of the truth. The Washington Post has recorded over 3,000 instances of lies/distortions told by the president since he's been in office. PBS recently aired a segment on this same subject. The main point of both reports is that a democracy is founded on a common understanding of the truth and that such regular lying dangerously undercuts that democracy.

Nevertheless, it seems the current president has done a good job of manipulating evangelicals into his corner.

Despite the fact that the current president:
. has had multiple affairs
. is involved in two legal actions concerning two of the more recent affairs
. is the first president in decades who has refused to release his tax returns
. endorses known racists who are running for political office
. said that there are "some very fine people" who are neo-Nazis
. lies on a continual basis (i.e. his knowledge of authorizing a pay-out to one of the women he had an alleged affair with; lying about his motivation for firing James Comey)
. referred to certain African countries as being "sh**hole" countries.
. is considering another, $100 billion, tax cut that would mainly benefit richer, higher-income individuals. 

Remember when the current president was bragging on "his people" saying that he could "stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters."

As far as evangelicals are concerned, he was telling the truth.


So, if the current president isn't acting particularly Christian, then what are Christian values?

According to the Bible, for starters, they include:
. loving our neighbors (including refugees and immigrants)
. realizing that love is stronger than fear
. standing up for the poor, the widow and orphan
. treating our neighbors as ourselves
. putting others ahead of ourselves (which is the direct opposite of Make America Great Again).
. valuing honesty and integrity (which includes telling the truth).

There's an interesting passage in the Bible, starting in Galatians 5:19, in which Paul describes a few of the "acts of the flesh," which include sexual immorality, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition and dissention. All of these have been used in describing the current president. 

Then Paul goes on to present the "fruits of the Spirit," which include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Do any of these fruits seem evident in the current occupant of the White House?

It's also enlightening to recall Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (better known as The Beatitudes). During that mountainside chat, Jesus expressed concern for: 
. the poor 
. those who mourn
. the meek
. those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
. the merciful
. the pure in heart
. the peacemakers
. those suffering persecution for the sake of right living. (Matt. 5:3-10 NKJ)

Can you imagine the current president having the faintest inkling of empathy for any of these groups?

To sum it all up: Jesus once said: "A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit... Just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions." (Matt. 7:18-20 NLT).

To end on a positive note: Perhaps we could look to the actions of the current president and then humbly do a values check on our own life, Christian or not.
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Artwork credits: top St. Michael and All Angels Primary School; middle Agaiazian national front; bottom Hurst Green Church of England Primary School.

Monday, July 23, 2018

How Big Is God's Table?

If you're familiar with the teachings of Jesus, then you know that one of the central elements of Christianity is the remembrance of the Last Supper.

At the Last Supper (which was during Passover), Jesus invited twelve of his closest followers to the table.

But during the three years leading up to that particular supper, Jesus was known for inviting lots of people, mostly those on the fringes, to share a meal.

They included tax collectors, prostitutes, known sinners and common folk. Which really irked the Pharisees and Saducees (the religious establishment of his day).

They were upset because they felt that only those who believed what they believed and followed the law according to their strict interpretation of it were worthy of an invite.

All others were not welcome. They were considered unclean, unapproachable and of no significance.

Then Jesus came and for three years really upset the apple cart.

Jesus mixed and mingled freely with everyone. He wasn't a traditional rabbi. He openly spoke to anyone who would listen to him. Pretty much running an open air synagogue.

The hospitality of Jesus was radially inclusive.

If you look at the New Testament, focusing on the times Jesus had a meal with others, quite often it was with those that the religious leaders considered unworthy or unclean.

Jesus was the opposite of a social climber.

From the moment that he was born it's almost as if he went out of his way to remain an outsider while inviting those on the fringes into his father's kingdom.

Unflinching to the social norms of his day, he was determined to open his arms wide towards the stranger, the broken, the ill, the poor, the downcast.

In response to others wanting to put him in box, Jesus kept on building a bigger table with an eye for those who didn't seem to fit in anywhere else.

One of the best known instances of this is recorded in Mark 2:16-17: "While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's (Matthew's) house, many tax collectors and 'sinners' were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the 'sinners' and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?' On hearing this Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" (NIV)

From Jesus' own actions and words, it appears that he came to earth to gather up as many physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually broken individuals as possible into his family. He formed a kingdom made up of misfits.

The Church is at its best when it remembers where it came from. Born among the refugees, a friend to immigrants.

Jesus said he only did what God told him to do, and it seems like God wasn't interested in building a "great" kingdom - at least not in the sense that we know it. The apostles weren't CEOs, most of them were fisherman. Jesus spent the majority of his time on earth in small towns within Galilee, not Jerusalem, and he never got as far as Rome (which was the major world power).

At God's table there is no status, no social hierarchy, no VIP access, no gold seats, no borders, no walls. There's no lack, so there's always room for more. There's no fear, only love.

Photo credits: top Liturgy NZ, bottom Elizabeth Hagan.

Monday, July 16, 2018

A Conversation with Jane Knuth, author of THE PRAYER LIST


Jane Knuth
Jane Knuth writes a monthly column for The Good News, the newspaper of the (Catholic) Diocese of Kalamazoo. She and her husband, Dean, volunteer in local food distribution efforts. They live in Portage, Michigan. 

In 2011, Jane's first book, Thrift Store Saints: Meeting Jesus 25 Cents at a Time, was awarded first place from the Catholic Press Association for Popular Presentation of the Catholic Faith. Thrift Store Graces, her second book was published in 2012. She and her daughter Ellen, released Love Will Steer Me True: A Mother and Daughter's Conversations on Love, Life, and God from Loyola Press in November 2014. 
Her most recent book is THE PRAYER LIST, published this year by Loyola Press.
Can you tell us a bit about how THE PRAYER LIST came to be written? Whose idea was it? What was your original reaction to the theme?
In a blog post, I told the story of how my family had a prayer list that was passed on for five generations from my great-grandmother. My editor at Loyola Press thought this would make an interesting book, but I only had three paragraphs. He encouraged me to find out how other families pray together--and that’s where The Prayer List: and Other True Stories of How Families Pray came to be.

In the Prologue of THE PRAYER LIST, you describe your cousin Mary’s passing along the family prayer list to you. Your initial response was “Uh-oh.” Can you elaborate on your feelings at the time?
It looked like a lot of work to me! As it turned out, it was a lot of blessing instead.

You suggest beginning a personal prayer list with a note of thanksgiving to God. Why is this an important starting point?
Gratitude lifts our hearts out of our egos. That is the perfect place to begin any conversation with anybody, but especially with God.

From your own experience, what would you say is the biggest stumbling block to a consistent prayer life? And how do you overcome it?
Family prayer is different than individual prayer. I have met plenty of people who pray deeply by themselves but have no idea how to get their family to join them. In the book, Fr. MIke, a priest, tells the story of one of two times that he prayed with his older brother. Family prayer is not easy to do. How do we overcome the difficulties? Through more prayer, I guess.
You describe an interaction at the family dinner table, where your daughter’s inquisitiveness over a simple prayer “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest…” resulted in quite a conversation. And setting up an additional table setting for Jesus. Why is it that kids seem to be so open to spiritual concepts – much more so than many adults?
The kids in the family prayer stories often turned out to be the prayer leaders. I was surprised by how often the adults admitted this to me. The Muslim family showed me the prayer room they added to their house at their young daughter’s insistence. One young boy nagged his mother about saying grace before meals until she gave in and let him start a new tradition in their family. There were many other stories like these. Why are kids open to spirituality? Maybe because kids are open to love?

Speaking of children, you write about an incident when your (then) young daughters were walking down the street to play with their friends. They passed a dead crow. Their response after talking it over was to kneel down and pray. You would think, that as adults, we would grow in awareness of the power of prayer. Why isn’t this the case for most of us?
Many years ago, when I decided to pray more to see if it made a difference, at first, it didn’t seem to change anything at all. But gradually, I lost my fear of loss. I had become afraid of losing so many things! I was afraid of losing my loved ones, my health, my financial security, my freedom, my friends---lots of things. I had all these blessings and I was living in fear that they would be taken away. Prayer helped me be grateful and to release the need to keep things and people in safety deposit boxes.

I love the suggestions/tips you provide at the end of each chapter. One of them is to include prayers of forgiveness. If you’re not in a place to actually ask for forgiveness, then pray to be ready to forgive. I’ve heard several sermons/teachings on forgiveness, but they didn’t include this practical help. Can you elaborate on the connection between mercy and forgiveness?
Mercy is something we ask for the instant that we have done something wrong. We want to be forgiven by God, now, today. But when we try to forgive other people, even for minor offenses, it takes a whole lot of effort and lots of time. We cannot forgive by ourselves. God helps us to forgive. That’s why forgiving others goes much easier and faster if we admit we are still angry and ask God to help us.

You include a beautiful story of a family that had a tradition of writing down what they were thankful for on a linen tablecloth each Thanksgiving. For thirty-five years! That linen cloth now serves as a powerful reminder of past gratitude. Why is it important to include such remembrances in our prayer list?
Family traditions remind us that we are part of a history of relationships--sometimes messy relationships! If we write things down, or save keepsakes, or repeat stories and songs, we can release some of the mess of the past and take the best parts of our relationships into the future.

During a time when your husband Dean was hospitalized with a serious illness, you came across a young girl who was humming “Silent Night.”  As you wrote, the conversation was like this:
ME: That’s my favorite carol.
GIRL: Do you like music?
ME: Yes. I do. Do you like it?
GIRL: I sing a lot.
ME: Do you sing all day long?
GIRL: Sometimes.
ME: Even when you’re sad?
GIRL: Yes, that’s when I need it the most.
And you go on to write “Jesus had made this little girl into a messenger to me, but I needed to listen to her soft humming to notice it.”
Do you have further thoughts about this?
Sometimes I am so caught up in my worries that I fail to notice the protection that God is cushioning me with. He piles pillows high around me just before a fall, yet I think I can climb up the ladder by myself. The little girl reminded me that God doesn’t need us to do much. God only needs us to listen, to be his friend, and to sing, especially when we are sad.

Another suggestion you make at the end of a chapter is to “list the different cultures, languages, denominations, religions and ancestral countries that make up your family.” The goal is to have family prayer be “a prayer for the world.” To what extent do you think this sort of prayer can counteract the current trend towards divisiveness and tribalism?
That’s a terrific question. Praying for the ethnic diversity in our own clan can help us be aware of the diversity within our country and the world. Am I proud of being Irish-American? Yes! In 1910, was it shocking for my Irish-American grandmother to marry an English-American? It surely must have been. I can’t imagine what her immigrant parents thought of the situation. When I visited Ireland a few years ago, the relatives there were not happy with my first name--Jane. One of them said to me regretfully, “That’s too bad.” We laughed about it in private, but we began to realize how much healing has taken place in our family in America because of the mix of ethnicities.

I’m curious as to the biggest lesson or insight you may have gained in the process of collecting stories about family prayer and writing THE PRAYER LIST!
The biggest insight I gained from listening to all kinds of people talk about family prayer was that prayers are answered in different ways--sometimes how we want, and other times not--but the practice of prayer brings a measure of acceptance to life’s twists and turns. Many of the people in the book told me, “I knew it was okay.” They didn’t always agree with the way God had answered their prayers, but they knew it was “okay.” I am still pondering this peace that seems to be the fruit of prayer.

Do you have anything else you’d like to mention?
You ask great questions, Dan. Thank you for reading the book so carefully. You dug deeply into these stories. Here's a link to THE PRAYER LIST.

Monday, July 9, 2018

Daniel Hill on Welcoming the Stranger

The following is from Daniel Hill's blog and is used here with his permission. He is the Senior Pastor at River City Community Church, a multiethnic church in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. Originally written in February of 2017, in response to Trump's Travel Ban Executive Order, this post remains relevant - especially in light of the Trump Administration's "Zero Tolerance" policy. Part of this "Zero Tolerance" policy included separating children from their families at the Mexican border. While Trump eventually reversed this particular policy, due to intense pressure, there are still over 2,300 children who remain separated due to its original implementation.
Rev. Daniel Hill
It is no exaggeration to say that white evangelicals have truly become counter-cultural, though its hard for me to imagine that this is the kind of counter-cultural Jesus was calling us to. While the majority of non-evangelical society sees it as inhumane to implement an executive order [Trump's Travel Ban] like this, the overwhelming support of white evangelicals nonetheless has turned this nightmare scenario into a concrete reality for so many.

What is so incredibly odd to me about this position is the way that it flies in the face of Scripture. There are many hot-button, social issues that I expect Christians to perceive differently than those who do not look to Jesus of Nazareth for guidance from. But it is beyond comprehension for me when we get so upside down that the broader society is the one that takes the position most clearly outlined in Scripture, while (evangelical) Christians take the bizarre course of being the ones to undermine the task to welcome the stranger.

One of the most foundational commitments of evangelicalism is to look to Scripture as the source of all understanding, and what I would like to do with the rest of this post is to revisit some of the Bible passages that underscore the moral call to welcome the stranger. As a caveat, I will note that I am not attempting to minimize the need for intelligent debate about specific policy issues within the call to welcome the stranger. But I truly cannot see how any evangelical could read the pages of Scripture and walk away with anything but a clear conviction that the posture of Christ-ones is to welcome the stranger in the name of Jesus.

An overview of some important Bible passages that should inform our thinking on welcoming the stranger, with a bit of commentary on each one:

The Bible tells us that every human being is created in the image of God, and must therefore be treated with respect, dignity and honor (and this remains true whether that person is a 1st generation immigrant, a 3rd generation immigrant, a citizen, an undocumented guest, or of any other social location):

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1.26-27)

The story of God in both the Old and New Testaments begin with a refugee who is dependent on the hospitable reception of a foreign community. In Exodus chapter 1 we see the story of the refugee Moses, whom God will later use to deliver the Israelites from slavery:

Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor…  Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”… Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile… When the child grew older, [the attendant] took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” (Exodus 1.8-11, 22, 2.1-3, 10)

This refugee story is an extension of the call of Abraham, of whom God called upon to become the Father of the nation of Israel. It’s easy to forget that the opening words of that story were a call to walk the road of becoming a courageous immigrant:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12.1)

The themes of immigration and refugee deliverance continue to play a major part in the Old Testament account of the Israelites:

“The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3.7-10)

There are a couple of important things to note from the Exodus 3 passage above. First, we see how emphatically God states the way that God sees the misery of God’s people – God has heard their cries, and God is concerned for their suffering. This is significant to remember when discussing the Biblical call to welcome the stranger, and particularly as we consider the current stance on refugees. While we rightfully worry about dangers on American soil from groups like ISIS, it is important to remember that this pales in comparison to the actual dangers that everyday families face in those regions where groups like ISIS are emerging. That is the genesis of much of the current refugee crisis – there are families who are suffering, who are in danger, and who are in need of a place of refuge to flee to.

That leads to the second observation from the Exodus passage. God foretells of bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, and leading them to a new land – one that is good, spacious, and flowing with milk and honey. In short, God’s plan is one of national immigration. This reiterates the important words of Psalm 24.1: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”

I have already acknowledged that there are policy issues that must be discussed as to how this happens, but what seems indisputable for someone developing a Christian worldview is the clear recognition that this is God’s world. God is the one who moves people around as God sees fit. When there is/was mortal danger facing a group, it is/was commonplace for God to move them to another for safety, protection, and refuge.

Once God delivers the Israelites from the hand of Pharaoh, God then develops the Mosaic Law to guide the actions of the people. In legislation that directly contradicts our current stance in America, God says this to the people:

“‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19.33-34)

The Law showed the people what they were to do when it came to treating the stranger with respect and care, and God consistently underscored the why behind the Law by showing how it was part of God’s very character. Passages like this are found throughout the Old Testament story:

“[God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10.18)

There are dozens of passages that could be pulled from the Old Testament prophets, in which a fiery judgment was exacted onto the Israelites for neglecting these commands to welcome the stranger with dignity and respect. But in the interest of time, let me move on to some New Testament passages, starting with the birth account of Jesus:

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2.13-15)

I will never forget the first time that the weight of this passage hit for me. I was sitting in a workshop at a conference on urban ministry with Ray Bakke. The session was entitled, “A Theology for Urban Ministry,” and the entire workshop went through the birth narrative of Jesus in the book of Matthew. Bakke started by showing how the theology of reconciliation is made manifest in the genealogy of Jesus. Though Jesus was a Jew, he carried more than just Jewish blood in his veins – his birth account tells of great grandparents that were Hittite, Moabite, and Caananite – all of which were bitter rivals of the Jewish community at one point or another. Bakke reminded us that Jesus didn’t just spill his blood for all people – he inherited it from them as well.

Bakke then moved on to what he called one of the most important refugee stories in the whole Bible. When King Herod heard of the birth of Jesus, he ordered that all of the boys under the age of two in Bethlehem be executed. It was at this point where the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, and commanded him to seek asylum in Egypt.

Bakke presented a poignant question for all of us to consider: “What if the politicians of Egypt had passed legislation that prohibited refugees from coming into their country?” And he followed that by asking, “If Jesus and his family had to flee to America, would we welcome them?” Though this was close to twenty years ago, its startling to see that in our current climate the answer from the evangelical community almost certainly would seem to be “no.”

If we jump from the beginning of Jesus’ life to the end, we then come in contact with one of the most surprising teachings from Jesus. The overall message of Jesus was clearly built around the notion of grace – namely, that one cannot come into relationship with God based on human efforts. It is the sacrificial exchange of Jesus’ death and resurrection that serves as the basis for salvation, and nothing else. And yet, even with this being the case, Matthew 25 records the sobering words of Jesus as to the fruit of those who know him, and those who don’t. Jesus referred to those who exhibited the character associated with those redeemed by him as sheep, and to those who didn’t as goats. Included on this list is welcoming the stranger:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’… “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed… For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in…” (Matthew 25.34-36, 41-43)

Within evangelical circles there is a debate as to whether Jesus’ commands here were directed exclusively to being within Christianity (i.e. welcoming the Christian stranger), and I assume this is where the current notion of allowing only Christian refugees into America finds its origin. That is not my interpretation of this passage, but even if that were true, it does not alter the overall arc seen throughout Scripture. God has self-identified as a God of the foreigner, alien, and stranger from beginning to end.

One final passage to consider, this from the writer of Hebrews:

“Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13.1-2)

To summarize:

It seems clear that from the beginning of the Bible until the end, God has made his position clear: God is a friend to the immigrant, alien, and stranger. Furthermore, God defends their cause, and expects Christians to do the same.

I acknowledge that there are policy questions that must be contended with as an extension of welcoming the stranger, but there should be no mistaking our overall stance:

Christians should be seen as friends of immigrant.

Christians should be leading the way in hospitality to the stranger.

Christians should be seen as defenders of the foreigner.

Christians should be on the front lines of protecting refugees in harms way.

I pray that we as evangelicals will repent of our current stance (one way to define repent is to talk of changing the way we think), and that we will change the narrative that is currently attached to our witness.

I pray that when the watching world looks at those of us who bear witness to Christ, they would see those that bring a smile to the face of God. That they would see those who welcome, and love, and who defend the stranger.
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Daniel Hill is the author of WHITE AWAKE: An Honest Look at What it Means to be White 

Top photo by Heidi Zeiger photography

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