For Those Earnestly Seeking Unity in the Church, Part 2

The racial unity journey leads straight to one place: the cross. And it’s not a one-time thing. You will find yourself there again and again, as Christ bids you come and die to your opinions, your politics, your presumptions, your preferences, and your privileges. No wonder it’s not such a popular journey. Who wants to die these days? In the American church, it seems, very few do. If you put your personal comfort before racial unity, you will not get there. If you place your political idols before racial unity, you will quickly get sidetracked. If you place your desire

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Learning from a Racial Unity Fail, Pt. 1: It’s Deep, Y’all

The Black South African singer possessed a rich, nuanced voice. Mature in her faith and gracious in manner, she repeatedly yielded the mic to the white South African woman with a thin, average-quality voice who kept asserting a front-and-center role during worship. I watched this dynamic unfold at a small, interracial Christian healing service in Johannesburg, South Africa, several years ago, growing increasingly frustrated. The Black singer was a recording artist with a powerful presence, and she could have blown the white woman off the stage. Yet she honored the sacredness of the moment by refusing to engage in a

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Repentance Is Not a Bargaining Chip

I’m starting to think my American Pentecostal-charismatic brethren have completely lost it. Our movement was birthed among the poor in Los Angeles in 1906 when the Holy Spirit visited a tiny gathering of what a local newspaper derided as “Negro washerwomen.” Led by a one-eyed Black preacher named William J. Seymour, the little church that came to be known as the Azusa Street Mission erupted into a worldwide movement that now counts more than 600 million adherents. Seymour was a follower of Jesus Christ such as we seldom see today. He had no interest in praise from men, and to

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Time to Exit the Cult of Trump

Here is the good news: God is moving in people’s hearts. I have personally witnessed and heard of many people who’ve repented of their involvement in our national sin of racism. These weren’t folks who climbed on a stage to make some big public pronouncement, just everyday Christians who humbled their hearts and were moved by the Holy Spirit to confess their sins one to another. I hope this is an encouragement to the African-American Christians who’ve cried out to the Lord for justice for many years and have seen so little fruit. I pray it is also a salve

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Just Give Me Jesus…I Mean Right-Wing Politics

A couple friends sent me a link to The Return prayer gathering in Washington a week and a half ago. I tuned in on September 26, attracted by the event’s billing as a national call to repentance. Repentance is always good, right? Same with prayer. How can you go wrong with prayer? Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, a Messianic Jew, was already on the stage at the National Mall when I got online. I respect Cahn, author of The Harbinger and The Paradigm, two bestselling books that have circulated widely in Pentecostal-charismatic circles. I listened to his ardent prayer for this nation,