The Little Friar

Mark Nauroth's new book, Power of the Creed: These Ancient Truths Will Change You and Your World is a deep, yet accessible guide into the baptismal pool that is early Christian faith -- and the difference that faith makes in our own world. Nauroth has been able, in just 200 pages, to skim church history for a narrative that helps Christians understand who we are -- and Whose we are. The difference in that narrative is absolutely essential in a world only too willing to tell Christians those things. And in a world where Christians don't know how to distinguish the difference between what we believe and the power that has to shape how we are in the world, the creed is not simply a set of philosophical or theological precepts. It's a powerful statement that shapes how we see God's interaction with the world and with us. In short, the creed, for Nauroth, is a spiritual statement of trust.  That's what makes Nauroth's Power of the Creed so refreshing.  And a mus...

Elizabeth Rankin Geitz's Spiritual Truth in the Age of Fake News sets the record straight on what the Bible really says regarding sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, and heterosexism.  "Fake News" about the Bible can be deadly.  It has and continues to destroy lives.  Geitz cites examples of violence from the resurgence of many "-isms" -- sexism, racism, heterosexism, anti-Semitism -- that many people support with misinterpretations of the Bible.  "It is time to set the record straight on what the Bible actually says regarding the many 'isms' alive and well today", she writes.  "It is time for the Fake News about the Bible to come to a screeching halt.  It is time for us to claim our inheritance of spiritual truth for all people." In this concise, and compelling book, that's precisely what Geitz does.  Understanding that divine images are foundational to our worldview, Geitz begins her book by countering the Fake News that the B...

Radical violence in the United States -- particularly connected to the institutionalized racism that takes place in a variety of ways (not simply with law enforcement, but certainly most visibly with law enforcement) -- has reached epidemic levels.  Our social fabric is entirely frayed, and there seems to be no real way forward. There have been, of course, certain very localized attempts to solve this racism.  For example:  But those localized efforts lack the larger vision necessary to develop a collective accounting of racism and its effects on our various social and cultural institutions. This is why so much white guilt continues unaddressed.  Younger generations, when confronted by the realities of that racism, then demand that we remove statues, ban flags, change names of military installations, etc.  Those generations don't realize that those actions really don't address the white guilt over racism and its historical constructs.  So what do we do? On ...

As I write, riots are sweeping through several American cities.  While rioting and looting are always inexcusable, they are perfectly understandable.  Those who decry the violence must first acknowledge the violence of the racist system of law-enforcement in the US.  The Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, in his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), pointed out that "Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed.  How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of violence?  There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation." But he went on, in that same work, to caution:  "When people are already dehumanized, due to the oppression they suffer, the process of their liberation must not employ the methods of dehumanization." Institutional racism and police brutality against colored people long pre-date Trump, though the latter has emboldened white s...