Confederate Monument: Betrayal, Trump Train, and Moving Forward
Cleveland Daily BannerFaith on View has been covering this story since the demonstrations started in June. Our long article archiving the story is now over 16,000 words and can be read here. Hope and Betrayal The presentations to the City Council and the stories in the news eventually led to a call for a task […]
A small southern town and her monument
**This article is a work in progress and will continue to be updated as a repository of this story about the monument. I do not plan to continually publish articles on this subject but to add to this single article as more information is made available to me. (First published 6/25/20; last updated 9/26/20)** To […]
What to watch for during the presidential debates
Those who enjoy pancakes for breakfast will quickly understand that arguments, like pancakes, are never so thin as to not have another side. The wise man of Proverbs understood this when he wrote in Proverbs 18:17, “The one who states his case first seems right, until another comes and examines him.” This wisdom is important […]
To Those Who Knock
It was May of 2014. I was staying Memorial Day weekend at All Saints of America Orthodox Church in De Queen, AR. I woke up early Saturday morning to take a day trip. 30 miles in, I was traveling 60mph approaching Broken Bow, OK when my engine started to sputter and the tachometer bounced forebodingly […]
Facts are Stubborn Things
Private Hugh White stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together to warm them in the blistering cold of a March evening in Boston. Snow blanketed the ground around the Custom House he was tasked to guard. Royal revenue collected at the cost of antagonizing King George III’s colonial subjects rested within. An eleven year […]
A Faith Worth Reviling
Four years ago, then-future President Donald John Trump gave a speech in Sioux Center, Iowa, that would define not only his presidential campaign but the next four years of his time in office. He could shoot someone in the middle of New York City’s Fifth Avenue, he said, and not lose his supporters. During that […]
End the Whitewashing
There is a palatable tension in the air. Do you feel it? This is the feeling of Black people standing up to our Nation’s racist systems. Another unarmed Black man is shot. This time it’s Jacob Blake and he is shot by police seven times in the back. His children were watching. Collectively we mourn […]
Johnny Fencerider, Demon Sperm, and the Real Threat to Freedom of Conscience in America
I had a pastor friend who at one time I considered to be a mentor. Sadly, he proved to be a disappointment both as a friend and as a mentor. I remember as a very young minister standing in the midst of a meeting of the Louisiana Baptist Convention where a crucial vote was to […]
Anti-Racist Monument Presented to City Leaders
The local Confederate monument here in Cleveland, Tennessee continues to inspire demonstrations and interest both within the local community and across the nation. Today, the City Council heard statements from the community. I spoke to them because I have put forward the idea of an Anti-Racist monument that is the subject of an article in […]
Confederate Monument Brings out the Hate
**This is an abridged version of the full 13,000+ word monument account which can be found here.** In 1812, my great-great-great-grandfather moved with his twenty slaves to east Tennessee. My middle name, Chambers, comes from this side of my family. However, I was raised in California—the son of Civil Rights activist Cruz Reynoso. When I […]