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He Taught the Whole Nation to Sin

Manasseh was the worst king of ancient Judah, and to compound his awfulness, he reigned longer than any other—55 years. The Bible records just how vile he was: He erected idols in the temple, practiced sorcery, and sacrificed his own sons in the fire. “But Manasseh led Judah and the people of Jerusalem astray,” 2 Chronicles 33:9 says, “so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.” In other words, not only did Manasseh sin, but he taught the whole nation to sin. Which lands me right at the end of October 2024,

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When Giants Fall

The last two weeks have been tumultuous for evangelical churchgoers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, to say the least. Two of the most revered megachurch leaders, Pastor Robert Morris of Gateway Church and Pastor Tony Evans of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, both stepped down after revelations of sin. While Evans’ confession of an unspecified sin “a number of years ago” was cloaked in vagueness, Morris’ was not, thanks to the public outcry of an Oklahoma woman who claimed that Morris sexually abused her for more than four years beginning when she was 12 years old. Morris was a married traveling

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Learning from a Racial Unity Fail, Pt. 3: It’s All About the Heart

You saw it. The defense attorney’s opening statement in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who planted his knee on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Not once did the attorney acknowledge that a tragedy had taken place, that a man’s life had been snuffed out. You heard the excuses. That Chauvin was a little guy, and Floyd was very big. Illegal drugs were found in Floyd’s system. The onlookers made the officers feel stressed and anxious. Now it’s time for a heart check. Do you lean toward the excuses, or do you lean

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Learning from a Racial Unity Fail, Pt. 2: No More Crumbs

Starting in December, the Lord repeatedly brought me to a passage in Ezekiel 9. The prophet was recounting a vision from God in which he was carried in the Spirit to Jerusalem. Here in the holy city, Ezekiel witnessed something that would have horrified any devout Jew of his time: The glory of God lifted from the Temple and paused at its threshold. Then poof—it was gone. Before the glory departed entirely, however, the prophet saw a “man clothed in linen” holding a writing kit. The Lord commanded this man to “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a

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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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The Trump Prophets Repent, All Hell Breaks Loose

The day after the Capitol riot, a prominent charismatic prophet named Jeremiah Johnson repented for prophesying that President Donald Trump would be re-elected in 2020. The response was immediate and devastating, according to a Facebook post from Johnson: “Over the last 72 hours, I have received multiple death threats and thousands upon thousands of emails from Christians saying the nastiest and most vulgar things I have ever heard toward my family and ministry. I have been labeled a coward, sellout, a traitor to the Holy Spirit, and cussed out at least 500 times. We have lost ministry partners every hour

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Name It and Claim It or Go Home

While the Capitol riot was still unfolding on January 6, with Trump supporters scaling walls, smashing windows, beating up police officers, and threatening reporters’ lives, some white friends contacted me privately, asking if I was sure that “every single one of them [the rioters] is white,” as I reported in a Facebook post and on this blog. I responded that I had been watching the insurrection for 90 minutes and had not seen a single Black person who wasn’t a journalist, police officer, or member of Congress. And I posed a question in return: If it turns out that one

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Don’t Ride the Fence So Hard That You Emasculate Yourself

Trump supporters have stormed the Capitol, shouting “This is our house.” All of them are white. Shots have been fired. The President started this. He won’t stop it. When will American evangelicals get it? When will they realize that their continued support of Donald Trump is a disgrace to the cause of Jesus Christ? When will they care that they are permanently dividing Black and white believers in the American Church? When will they rebuke their blind prophets, who fed this madness through their idolatrous assurances that Trump would be re-elected? When will our church leaders speak out and name

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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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