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What mystery
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Racism: My Journey
Today I’m happy to host guest blogger Ver-lee Cheneweth. As a seminary student, I must complete two assignments to graduate—called an Agape Project—that blend biblical-theological learning with community service to cultivate growth in compassion. But I wondered what project I would do. Then on May 25, a 46-year-old Black man, George Floyd, died in police custody after allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. The videos from bystanders showing the white policeman, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, even while Mr. Floyd repeatedly cried, “I can’t breathe!” horrified me. I felt the rage over Mr. Floyd’s death, but I didn’t understand the…
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Invoking Culture Change
“I thank God that Thou hast not made me a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.”[1] This was a common Jewish prayer recited in the first century. It made clear the pecking order at that time. As a woman and a Gentile, I would have been considered the lowest of the low. What is your reaction to this prayer? Perhaps it’s one of the following: Oh, that’s horrible. How bigoted. How unbelievably biased. I’m so glad times have changed. To that last response I ask, “Have they? Have times really changed?” The apostle Paul addressed the crassness of this caste system in his letter to the churches of Galatia:…