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The Gospel Reimagined...

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Sometime you have to reimagine something you were taught in order to learn what it actually means... For those with ears to hear   For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever would believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life... (John 3:16 NIV) For God so loved the world that they sacrificed themselves to make it possible for any person who chose to trust them... to be liberated from isolation, fear and death... to community, love and life (The Gospel Reimagined)  Because God loves, an expression of the Gospel can be shared in ways that reach any person on the planet regardless of who they are and circumstances that shape their lives.  Meditating on this  reimagined Gospel  can help confront our beliefs about  who we think we are  and infiltrate our deepest biases & assumptions until we see that we are somehow intimately connected to every other person on the planet regardless who we think they are.      Once we understand this connection and
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Why HOPE?

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 As have many of you, I have been in conversations recently about the various issues of our current social moment. Of course there are many and varied opinions about what can or can't be done, and some of the most recent conversations have been filled with pain, anger and hopelessness.   At this point, I have been working vocationally to address the issues of poverty & racism for nearly 30 years; and when I reflect on where we are now verses where we were 30 years ago, I can not only see progress, I also have HOPE that many of the changes we need to see are likely to be realized over the next 5-10 years.  While I understand the fear, anger and frustration people feel at what appears to be evidence that nothing has changed (I often feel it too...) I still have HOPE.  Why HOPE? For me HOPE is not a Pollyannaish emotion that does not see the reality of the pain and hurt people are experiencing. My HOPE is informed first, by an understanding of the complexity of the issues that con
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What is Social Justice Work?

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The Story of the River Babies (A Short Parable) One summer in the village, the people in the town gathered for a picnic. As they leisurely shared food and conversation, someone noticed a baby in the river, struggling and crying. The baby was going to drown!  Someone rushed to save the baby. Then, they noticed another screaming baby in the river, and they pulled that baby out. Soon, more babies were seen drowning in the river, and the townspeople were pulling them out as fast as they could. It took great effort, and they began to organize their activities in order to save the babies as they came down the river. As everyone else was busy in the rescue efforts to save the babies, two of the townspeople started to run away along the shore of the river. "Where are you going?" shouted one of the rescuers. "We need you here to help us save these babies!" "We are going upstream to stop whoever is throwing them in!" Saving the babies is Social Work ...
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Behavior or Intent?

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Let me help clarify...the intent of the officer can be debated, the behavior cannot .... so the question is why the behavior? The earliest iterations of Policing in America came out of Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, this gave rise to Slave Catchers & “Bounty Hunters” who would make up reasons to be suspicious of Free Black People   (see 12 years a Slave) so they could take them back or sell them to plantation owners to collect a reward. After Emancipation  in 1877 Black Codes and Pig Laws came into being, essentially criminalizing being Black so that they could be arrested based on a little known clause in the 13 th Amendment that legalized slavery as punishment for “criminals” and enslave or re-enslave them as part of state run prison labor ( Peonage ), where the prisoners were often leased back to plantations replacing the slaves who were emancipated. This labor force was also used to build many of the municipal and factory buildings in southern cities through the tur
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The Opportunity in the Pandemic

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For several years now, I have been saying that we are in the midst of a generational transition, and this emerging generation of believers has an opportunity to be a more authentic expression of the church than any previous generation in America. As they come of age, they have never known a time when the church has had a good reputation. They have watched the builder/boomer church be homophobic, jingoistic, racist and give an enthusiastic endorsement of DJT as President to the even greater detriment of the poor & marginalized, all while asserting Christianity and a love for Jesus.   This emerging generation is ripe for an authentic expression of God's grace, love & mercy. The Opportunity in the Pandemic  And now we have this Covid-19 pandemic, and it has presented an opportunity to demonstrate the grace, love & mercy of God to this generation.  I see this pandemic as an opportunity to teach folks how to share life in ways that demonstrate God's love for thos
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Live Simply ....so that others may simply live.

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Grace & Peace... Robert Caldwell is the Executive Director of AnswerPoverty.org and has been a practitioner and thought leader on the issues of poverty & race for more than 25 years.  Visit AnswerPoverty.org 
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The Absence of Conflict is not Unity

Conflict is one of those things that can be both g ood and bad .  It can be productive or destructive .  However if there is one thing I know, it's that Unity is  NOT possible  without conflict.   Christians & Conflict Now nobody likes conflict, and most of us will do most anything to avoid it. However I have realized over the years that people who *strongly identify as Christian tend to avoid conflict to the detriment of unity.  We will stuff our feelings and will not say things that probably should be said, often becoming passive-aggressive with people. We often don't ask clarifying questions when someone says something we don't agree with or understand, and form negative assumptions about the person.  We will avoid controversial topics or hard conversations about differences because we do not want to get into an argument and cause conflict.  (* Note: These behaviors are not unique to Christians, but my experience has been that folks who do not identify st
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