For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 1 Corinthians 1:21, KJV If one does a quick search of the name Jamal Bryant on my blog, they will quickly discover that from my seminary forward […]
Read more "Jamal Bryant and the Continued Foolishness of Preaching"Editor’s Note: Below is an excerpt from the sermon I preached this past Sunday, August 25, 2013 as the country celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The scripture text was Acts 2:17 through 21 as follows: In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will […]
Read more "Tell Them About the Dream"Maybe I’m more churchy than I thought, but the christological references in the blockbuster “Man of Steel” was so overwhelming is pushed the movie from epic to cheesy. This was not “The Dark Knight” which in my opinion still outranks this latest genre of Hollywood revisiting the comic classics for the sake of getting me […]
Read more "Superman and the Need for an American Savior"Taylor Branch lifted the Rev. Vernon Johns out of historical obscurity when he published his famous tome on the modern Civil Rights era Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 when he opened the book with the biography of him. His major contribution to the Civil Rights movement as a whole was his pastorate […]
Read more "An Original Uppity Negro: Rev. Vernon Johns"And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of abundance of rain. \ 1 Kings 18:41, King James Version Recently, the United States had the first male player of a professional sports group publicly come out as gay. His name is Jason Collins–and he’s black! Given the […]
Read more "I THOUGHT I Heard the Sound of the Abundance of Rain: The Jason Collins Story"I ended up watching the History Channel’s miniseries “The Bible” more out of the duty of being a cultural critic than I did out of some deep desire to really see the series. Sunday night television is a coveted spot and has since moved out of the family friendly mode that ABC tried to recapture […]
Read more "The Miscoloring of “The Bible” and How the History Channel Got it Wrong"I’m really not one for reality television series. I am quite convinced they are the birth of the child of unrepentant banality that has devolved from American culture and the Enemy itself. Reality TV reflects the lowest common denominator of what ever should be shown on television and there is no intrinsic value to be had […]
Read more "We’re Going to Hell with the ‘Best Funeral Ever’ Along with ‘The Sisterhood’"How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. That quote from Martin Luther King at the steps of the Alabama state capitol following the turbulence of the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 rings hollow at times. Sure the arc of the moral universe is […]
Read more "How Long? Not Long: Southern Baptist Convention Elects First Black President, Fred Luter"Let me put a clear disclaimer before I launch into the deep with this blog post: The institutional Black Church as we know it, something that is a proper noun, has entered it’s final stages of life. The metonymical phrase “the Black Church” is rather black churches that have a different socio-economic and political outlook […]
Read more "It’s a Democracy, Not a Theocracy: How The Black Church Gets it Wrong"All Hail the Great Theocrat, Rick Santorum the First! I guess that’s what the conservative right wing party is saying in certain corners. I guess I’m taking my cue from the biblical story about Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah who refused to bow to the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, who has set up a statue of a Babylonian deity, […]
Read more "The Troubling Theology of Rick Santorum"
Joshua Lawrence Lazard 