Hello World,
Congratulations to the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock on his Senate win! Even if you don’t agree with his politics, the symbolism of the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the spiritual home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., being elected as the first black U.S. Senator from Georgia is inescapable. And that’s all I have to say about that…
Any thoughts?
Hello World,
I should be surprised by this news, but nothing in politics surprises me anymore. But this news does sadden me. No one should receive death threats just because he or she is a political candidate, but to threaten the elders of a church is pure evil. Surely the devil and his agents are at work. See the Facebook post of Praise 102.5 Radio Personality Darlene McCoy below…
Pastor Warnock and the elders and leaders of his church are receiving death THREATS to their family JUST because He is…
Posted by Darlene Johnson McCoy on Thursday, December 10, 2020
Let’s pray for the safety of Pastor Warnock and the elders and leaders of Ebenezer Baptist Church, the church of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Even if you don’t agree with him politically, you should not want him, the elders of his church nor anyone for that matter harmed for political pursuits.
In other news, black ministers recently sent an open letter to Pastor Warnock to challenge him on his recent statements on abortion, according to the AJC.
Below are a few of the highlights:
*Dear Reverend Warnock,
We are a coalition of Black Christian ministers who, like you, feel called by God to preach the Bible, advocate for justice and fight against societal evils. We applaud your commendable efforts to share Christ while pursuing political solutions to our most pressing problems today.
But precisely because we share so much in common with you, we feel compelled to confront your most recent statements concerning abortion. You have gone on the record saying that you are a “pro-choice pastor” who will “always fight for reproductive justice.” You have publicly expressed your views that abortion is an exercise of “human agency and freedom” that is fully consistent with your role as a shepherd of God’s people.
*Abortion prematurely thwarts God’s providential and loving plan for a promising human life. And by terminating an innocent unborn life in the womb, abortion directly violates the seventh commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” God demands that every faithful Christian protect and uphold the sanctity of innocent human life, at every stage of life. Supporting abortion represents a serious abdication of and a transgression against that responsibility, just like the disrespect of the poor, the disabled, or the elderly.
Couching abortion in the language of “reproductive justice” may be savvy marketing, but killing an innocent human life has nothing to do either with reproduction or with justice. Do American adults really need another public voice urging them to put their own short-term desires ahead of the needs of their children? As a pastor who speaks for the Christian community, we implore you to speak the plain truth about a practice as barbaric and destructive as abortion.
To read the entire article, click HERE.
Any thoughts?
Latasha Morrison/ Photograph by Ben Rollins
Hello World,
I’m so excited because recently I was blessed with the assignment of writing a cover story about racial reconciliation as it pertains to the church in Atlanta for Christianity Today, one of the foremost publications in the Christian world! Although it is a thorny topic without question and I certainly wish we didn’t have to continue highlighting this issue, I’m glad that I am continuing the work of my father, who is passionate about this topic. In fact, he created a newsletter for the Christian church, hosted an annual Racial Reconciliation Service each January (to coincide with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day) and traveled to speaking engagements to address racial reconciliation. Additionally, my father is the one who introduced me to Christianity Today magazine when I was only reading VIBE, Essence, The Source and similar magazines back in the day.
Well, my article “Racial Reconciliation Is Still a Dream for Atlanta Christians” is now available for you to read. Below is the beginning of the article and you can click on the link below the excerpt to read the rest.
Dhati Lewis set out to start a church that could be a blueprint for urban discipleship, a church “in the city, for the city, that looks like the city.” But first, he needed a city.
A decade ago, he left the college town of Denton, Texas, for Atlanta, an urban hub four times larger. With him came 25 longtime ministry partners, including rappers Lecrae and Sho Baraka and pastor John Onwuchekwa. Together they planted Blueprint Church in the Old Fourth Ward, a story chronicled in a recent documentary, Becoming Blueprint, released in honor of the church’s 10th anniversary.
Lewis’s approach to ministry grew out of the tension he felt between the white evangelical culture that fueled his faith in Denton and the familiar black culture of his upbringing. In Atlanta, though he was a black pastor leading a diverse congregation in a majority-black city, the work of urban church planting was complicated.
For one, the area around his church continued to gentrify. “In this neighborhood, what scares me is the fact that you have Section 8 housing on one end and like a million-dollar home on the other end,” he said in the documentary.
Read the rest HERE.
Below is the gorgeous cover of the October issue of Christianity Today!
My story is part of a four-story cover package. The official description is as follows:
Raphael Warnock, the pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church who’s now running for US Senate, talked about his calling into politics as a Christian. He said, “My impact doesn’t stop at the church door. That’s actually where it starts.” That approach to living out the gospel extends across generations and segments of society in Atlanta. In this month’s cover package, we hear from pastors, politicians, and entrepreneurs—black Christian leaders whose faith calls them back into their communities in the diverse hometown of Martin Luther King Jr.
So check it out and let me know what y’all think…
Any thoughts?
