personal development on Racism

Frederick Douglass describes how the evils of slavery and racism acts as a sap on the integrity of both our country and our faith in a God where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free: Fello...

O God of the ages, you have created each of us uniquely. We each have so much that makes us interesting and unique! Yet at times, even against our own wishes, we find ourselves falling prey to the -is...

When did the topic of justice become important to you?” Gideon Strauss posed that question to two dozen people crammed into our living room one fall evening in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Some of us wer...

Prayer of Adoration Living and present Lord: You often surprise us, coming when we least expect it; or, You simply fold back the curtain to show us You’ve been there all along to give us hope and to ...

All that I ever really needed to know about uncivil language I learned in the fifth grade. At a small Dutch Calvinist school in a New Jersey city, I was playing with other students just before classes...

God of love—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You loved us before we ever knew You. Give us such a deep love for You, that we can see the world as You see it, feel the compassion You feel, and be a people ...

The book of Proverbs is, in ways, a treatise on talk. I would summarize it this way: words give life; words bring death—you choose . What does this mean? It means you have never spoken a neutral ...

Gracious and loving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We praise you for how wide, how high, and how deep is Your vast love for all people. Incarnate in Jesus, You offered Your life for the healing of ...

Martin Luther King, responding to criticism from Southern White Pastors with respect to Civil Rights Activism: Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to s...

If we get our very identity, our sense of worth, from our political position, then politics is not really about, it is about us. Through our cause we are getting a self, our worth. That means we MUST ...

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.

A great burst of proselytizing among slaves followed the Nat Turner revolt. Whereas previously many slaveholders had feared slaves with religion—and the example of Turner himself confirmed their fears...

I knew a man who was the head of a set of car dealerships in the South. The way in which things were done was you could come in and negotiate, and the salesman had a pretty big window of what they cou...

At a recent gathering of seminary professors, one teacher reported that at his school the most damaging charge one student can lodge against another is that the person is being “judgmental.” He found ...

A predominant characteristic . . . of the behavior of those I call evil is scapegoating. Because in their hearts they consider themselves above reproach, they must lash out at anyone who does reproach...

People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.

Our race would not have gotten far, Had we not learned to bluff it out And look more certain than we are Of what our motion is about.

Human beings, being what they are, somehow feel entitled to question the reasons for everything that happens to them. In many instances life itself becomes a continual criticism and dissection of one’...

Whenever I have encountered any kind of deep problem with civilization anywhere in the world—be it the logging of rain forests, ethnic or religious intolerance or the brutal destruction of a cultural ...

Martin Luther King, Jr. was right: We can overcome, despite adversity, the trend toward mediocrity, and the temptation to rationalize our weaknesses. You simply cannot keep a good person down. Crippl...

As the darkness began to descend on me in my early twenties, I thought I had developed a unique and terminal case of failure. I did not realize that I had merely embarked on a journey toward joining t...

You know there is a problem with the education system when you realize that out of the 3 R’s only one begins with an R.

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

Jesus is a reconciler of people, not a divider. He wants to bring people together, not finalize separations.

As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the religious practices of other people, even when these people clearly are raving space loons.

The person striving for superiority is “always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinion of others ​and, so to speak, derives the sentiment of his own existence solely from their judgm...

Many minorities actually try to change their appearance to look more light-skinned or white. Eliza Noh, assistant professor of Asian American studies at California State University of Fullerton descri...

People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu put it this way. Each of us has what he called a habitus: a set of dispositions to respond more or less spontaneously to the world in particular ways, without mu...

Unfortunately, the world has taken some of the greatest minds God has given us and locked them up in cages. Most very brilliant or creative people seem strange to ordinary people. Geniuses are almost ...