Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:2 NLT “I don’t see colour.” I cringe every...
Race
Renewing What Lies Between
Anne Snyder
What if you heard there was an immediate way to put your life on a different trajectory, and all it would take is a little initiative and a dash of courage? That’s the promise of Community Renewal International, an organization headquartered in Shreveport, Louisiana,...
Black Lives Matter and the Church
Eugene F. Rivers III, Jacqueline C. Rivers
This article is part of the Arc of Justice series, responding to the killing of George Floyd and the international movement it has sparked. On Juneteenth, Plough’s Peter Mommsen talked to Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III and Dr. Jacqueline Rivers about the international...
Acting Justly, Loving Mercy, Walking Humbly
Heinrich Arnold
This article is part of the Arc of Justice series, responding to the killing of George Floyd and the international movement it has sparked. In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd and as protests swept across hundreds of cities, the Bruderhof convened a virtual...
Changing Police Culture from the Inside Out
Ernie Stevens, Joe Smarro
America’s criminal justice system—and police norms in particular—are under the public microscope. Ernie Stevens and Joe Smarro are cops from San Antonio’s police department who have played a pivotal role in seeding a more humane culture there, with ripple effects emanating out into the broader community. In this conversation, they share all that they’ve learned and would like to see as the country wrestles with “Defund the police.”
Radical Accountability: The Key to Changing Police Culture
Dave Durocher, Joseph Grenny, Tim Stay
Mutuality is not something we hear invoked in the context of power. But a community of former felons has some advice to give to today’s police.
Political Wisdom and the Limits of Expertise
Jennifer Frey
In this moment of national crisis, this summer of protests and pandemic, we need both political prudence and the contributions of experts. But expertise and political judgment are not the same, and conflating them is a recipe for disaster.
Justice and Race: What We Can and Cannot Change
Matthew Loftus
The problem of police violence against black people in America is outrageous—and often feels hopeless. It’s been the better part of a decade since protests in Ferguson, Missouri, first brought the issue into America’s broader national discourse. In that time an...
From Ashes
Susannah Black
It’s a strange time to build. We’ve lived through what seem to be many worlds since February. They come in quick succession, as the layers of the everyday have been, so painfully, peeled back to reveal stranger and more frightening landscapes.
Read about the thinking behind the Breaking Ground project in this opening editorial, published when we first launched.