New Calvinism and Holy Hip Hop

I just finished listening to a 9Marks Audio installment where Mark Dever interview Christian hip hop artists shai linne and Voice.  I’ve heard shai linne’s “Atonement Q&A” before; it’s something like a rap catechism that’s part of his album “The Atonement.”  Shai and Voice are both theologically Reformed, and they view their work as a [...]

Book Review: Divided by Faith, by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith

Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America is a historical and sociological study of white evangelical attitudes toward white-black relations.  I found it fascinating.  I should also try to read some reviews by trained sociologists who may be able to offer some insight into their research methods.
Emerson and Smith state [...]

On the Justice Journey

From Monday through Saturday this week, I will be going to some of the famous civil rights movements sites with about 40 white and black Chicagoans from several different churches.  We hope to learn about the history of the movement and also work on racial reconciliation.  I hope to have some interesting experiences to write [...]

Combined Book Review: Evangelism, Racial Reconciliation, and Community Development in Mississippi

John Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down (1976)
John Perkins, With Justice for All (1982)
Dolphus Weary, I Ain’t Comin’ Back (1990, 1997)

On June 15, I’m heading down Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee with members of 9 different Chicagoland churches.  Organized by Willow Creek Community Church, the idea of the “Justice Journey” is to get white and black Christians [...]

Surveying God’s Truth in Chicago

Yesterday, I took a bus tour through some different neighborhoods of Chicago: Austin and Garfield Park on the West Side, the Gold Coast closer to downtown, the Prairie Avenue area that boasted the homes of some of the richest Chicagoans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Bridgeport (the home of the Daley dynasty), [...]

A Gut-Wrenching, Heart-Breaking Story

In 1994, a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old tried dropped a boy of just 5 to his death out of a 14th-floor window in a housing project.  Prosecutors said it was because the younger boy had refused to steal candy for the older boys, although one of them now says it was purely an act of [...]