John Perkins
Piety’s Dark Side
Love the Sinner is a short documentary narrated by queer filmmaker Jessica Devaney, who grew up in a conservative evangelical church. In the wake of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, she takes a hard look at the connection between Christianity and homophobia. lovethesinnerfilm.com
Crisis and Conscience
Simone Campbell, Kelly Brown Douglas, Jacqueline M. Hildago, George “Tink” Tinker, Kwok Pui-lan, Jim Wallis, and others write about the “confessional crisis” of our political era and possible faithful responses in Faith and Resistance in the Age of Trump. Edited by Miguel A. De La Torre. Orbis
A Lifetime Adventure
Calling All Years Good: Christian Vocation throughout Life’s Seasons explores calling as something we wrestle with not just as young adults but “from infancy to old age,” combining social science insights with practical theology. Edited by Kathleen A. Cahalan and Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore. Eerdmans
Hard-Won Wisdom
John M. Perkins, co-founder of the Christian Community Development Association, has spent decades working for a gospel that is inseparable from racial and economic justice. In the memoir Dream With Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win, he reminds us, “It all comes down to love.” Baker Books
A little over a week after Easter, more than 250 pastors descended upon Washington, D.C., to worship, pray, and meet with their members of Congress. After preaching about the resurrection of Christ, these pastors asked God to resurrect immigration reform.
A theologically and ethnically diverse group of pastors spoke at a press conference and a worship service before heading to the Capitol Building to meet with their representatives. The pastors told the heartbreaking stories of families in their congregations that had been separated because of the broken immigration system, God’s command to welcome the strangers in our midst, and prayed for God to change the hearts of the legislators who are stopping immigration reform from becoming law.
The event made one message abundantly clear: if immigration reform is going to happen, God is going to be the one who is going to get it done.
For the Christian church it should be a constant question. This “greatest commandment” is given by Jesus in Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 10 and paraphrased here in John 13.
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
So how are we doing?
More Than Equals, co-authored by Chris Rice and the late Spencer Perkins, is considered one of the pivotal books in the Christian racial reconciliation movement that found its greatest momentum in the early and mid-1990s.
I won't even try to describe all of the maddening details of finding a HUD apartment for a homeless, no-income family that consists of a mother, five kids under the age of nine, and a nurturing father. It suffices to say that after three weeks of slogging through that kind of absurdity and ugliness, I began to understand why the mother, our friend Jaleena, tried to kill herself when her original building got condemned. Even with all that, we barely managed an awful apartment, and by the time [...]