Author: John Pavlovitz

The shooting at a Tennessee Waffle House and its aftermath, say everything about this Presidency: A white shooter. People of color brutally murdered. A black, gunless hero saving strangers. A silent white President. It’s all been on full display: No calls by FoxNews to ban angry young white guys. No white evangelical televangelists taking to social media to condemn the evils of racism and the danger of gun proliferation. Nothing about the victims of color. Not a word from GOP leaders. Barely even any cursory “thoughts and prayers” for the dead. No Presidential praise for the black man who...

A good friend texted me a screenshot with the Facebook page of a mutual friend who died suddenly and very young last week, leaving behind a large community of stunned people grieving his loss. As is often the case, the man’s profile had become a makeshift gathering place for mourners, who checked in to post photos, share memories, and give tributes — but this wasn’t the image my friend shared with me. It was of a Christian friend of the dead man, (who by all accounts was not a Christian), proselytizing on his virtual memorial. He wrote: David was...

Marches are powerful things. They are a necessary visual reminder that we are not alone. They help provide a sense of scale in dark days; to right size the threats that seem so towering and overpowering. They give us a chance to stand with a tribe of affinity and be a tangible response to the things that burden us. Marches are awe-inspiring and goosebumps-inducing and breathtakingly cathartic moments. But marches don’t vote. They can’t craft legislation and they won’t protect people in danger. Marches won’t jettison corrupt leaders from their well-fortified perches of power. They can’t reach into the...

Over the past month I’ve watched the monsters descend on the students of Parkland, and other young people throughout the country moved to activism after their latest exposure to bloodshed and carnage. They’ve trolled their social media accounts, attacked their sexuality, made fun of their college application rejections, and unleashed millions of minions and bots on them. Teenagers. They’ve been doing this to teenagers—middle and high schoolers, many of whom only buried classmates and teachers a few weeks ago. Someone’s minor children—kids who are already living in the most turbulent, most confusing, most disorienting time of life. They are...

Fact-checking website Politifact has determined that President Trump has spoken falsehoods, either substantially or completely—69 percent of the time. He regularly hovers between “Pants-on-Fire” and “Pinocchio.” Understand the gravity of that reality for a moment: More than two-thirds of the time the President of the United States opens his mouth, in a press conference or in an early morning Tweet or in a public rally or in a meeting with lawmakers—he is lying. The Leader of the Free World, is regularly and intentionally manufacturing an ever-malleable counterfeit truth; one that is being perpetuated by political allies, financial benefactors, supportive...

Evangelicals cannot hear the message of love that Jesus preached over the sound of their own gunfire, and they twist the English translation of a passage – taken out of context – to justify their weaponry zeal. In the wake of the shameful growing legacy of mass shootings in American, one of the saddest realizations, is that the loudest, most vehement voices championing the cause of weapons of brutality— have come from professed Evangelical Christians. The cognitive dissonance of supposed followers of Jesus choosing the side of violence and opposing the movement of mercy is staggering, exceeded only by...