Author: John Pavlovitz

This essay was originally written on October 1, 2015 in response to the Umpqua Community College shooting in Roseburg, Oregon. It remains as relevant and timely now as it was two years ago. In fact, Google results for keywords on the subject make it hard to distinguish the search results between the current Las Vegas massacre and the long list of others that have occurred over the past few years. In many cases, the headlines are identical and only the date has changed. I am grieving again today. Once more I am mourning the senseless execution of beautiful souls...

“They’re disrespecting the flag… They’re disrespecting the Anthem… They’re disrespecting the Military!” These have been the constant refrains from many people over the past week (most of them white) in response to NFL players locking arms or taking a knee or placing a fist in the air during the National Anthem: that such things represent an attack on this country, on its servicemen and women — on America itself. Never mind that those actually protesting have denied such things over and over and over again, both before and after every game. Such details are of little importance, especially when...

My conservative friends, I really wish I could understand you. I wish I could step into your shoes, climb inside your head, peek into your heart and see what it is that motivates you when you place your feet on the ground and step out into a day you’ll never experience again. When you realize you’ve been blessed with another precious, fleeting bit of daylight here, why does it seem like your default response to it all is malevolence — no, maybe not to you or your family, or to those you see as your own—but to the vast...

ESPN talk show host Jemele Hill recently posted a series of Tweets calling President Trump a white supremacist who has surrounded himself with other white supremacists. Lots of white Americans promptly and violently responded by declaring that she probably shouldn’t have stopped there: ‘Cause nothing says “we’re not white supremacists,” like a bunch of white people publicly bullying a woman of color for speaking out on white supremacy. That’s helpful and definitely not racist. The White House joined in the caucasian outrage, with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declaring that Hill’s comments constituted a “fireable offense.” Maybe it’s me,...

America has always been the place people could nurture dreams that found welcome nowhere else; the adoptive home for dreamers from every square inch of the planet who came as refugees from the terrible nightmares of this life. America has always been the place people could nurture dreams that found welcome nowhere else; the adoptive home for dreamers from every square inch of the planet who came as refugees from the terrible nightmares of this life. We have been the door of radical hospitality, opened wide to a disparate world fleeing the cruelty of their geography and circumstance; those...

This week over 150 Evangelical pastors and Conservative Christian leaders released a joint manifesto on sexuality and marriage entitled the Nashville Statement. The Tennessee city’s name was attached to the document, due to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s annual conference in Nashville where the document was ratified. The statement is steeped in churchy language and dusty religious-speak regarding marriage, creation, gender identity, and sexual orientation, which may be difficult for the average ear to decipher, especially if not raised to crack the code of such theological buzzwords. Here is a Plain Language Translation of what’s...