Jonathan David Brown, grammy-nominated (twice) Christian music producer, died suddenly September 27, 2016, of an apparent heart attack. He was sixty years old. His face book pages (this and this) and a gofundme page are filling with condolences from some of the many well-known artists he worked with creatively. But his death also brings into focus a tangled, extremist legacy of […]

Violence against blacks by police. Yesterday, one black man murdered in Minnesota and one murdered in Louisiana. Many yesterdays here in Chicago. Not a time to hear my own white male voice. Where race is concerned this is doubly true. I thought I’d simply post four black novelists’ words here instead. Need it be said that black fiction is often truer […]

Robert P. Jones’ new book begins with a chapter entitled “An Obituary for White Christian America.” And it doesn’t get better from there. But his premise is driven home even for those of us who’d rather be in denial about the demise of our beloved subculture. Architecture hardly seems a promising genesis point for the topic, but by giving both mainstream […]

Professor of Philosophy Adriel Trott, who as a sideline happens to be my niece, is very patient with me and my continual dialogue regarding feminism. Patience is needed, because while I find myself still hashing out what Second Stage feminists fought through, Dr. Trott and her compatriots are post-Third Stage pioneers re gender identity, intersectionality, and ever so much more. […]

Forgive the wry title. And forgive the rambling, unkempt nature of what follows. But what happened to the word “cult” in the 1980s has now also happened to the word “terrorist.” Religious scholar Gordon Melton, I believe, once defined “cult” this way: “A cult is a religious group that we do not happen to like.” I would suggest this: “A […]

This article was originally published April 4, 2008. Forty years ago today, I was four days short of my eleventh birthday, a young boy in an unusually loving family growing up in Fort Benton, Montana. Fort Benton was a beautiful tiny microcosm of rugged individualism and American middle-class values. It was also virtually an all-white town, as were most towns […]

In the face of the Great Recession, Whites, Asians, Hispanics, and Blacks have experienced a loss in median household net worth since 2005. But U.S. Census figures show it is minorities who have taken the biggest economic hit, with the gap between them and whites nearly doubling in just five years. Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics saw their net worth shrink […]

CLINT EASTWOOD AND THE EMPTY CHAIR “I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.” — Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man This isn’t the place to attack or defend my Presidential candidate of choice. That said, to let last night’s comments from actor / director Clint Eastwood go without comment would be, well, an opportunity missed to discuss some […]

[Originally posted Nov 5 2012] A group of pastors and members of North Carolina’s NAACP released the following letter in response to anti-Obama advertisements and other actions by the BGEA (Billy Graham Evangelistic Association) headed by Franklin Graham. We believe this letter is an important counterpoint to many voices in this political season. As background, Franklin Graham was confronted before […]