Whitewash

ByHal Hammons

Israel is brown.  Really brown.  I haven’t been, but I’ve seen pictures.  And I’ve heard others talk of their experiences.  Paint just gets sandblasted off the buildings, more or less, so most locals don’t really make the effort anymore. That’s what makes the “whitewashed tombs” of Matthew 23:27 remarkable.  They can’t possibly stay white.  Coat…

Appropriating Jesus

ByHal Hammons

It seems to me that “cultural appropriation” only becomes problematical if the “culture” being appropriated is associated generally with people of color.  (White, by the way, is a color.  The Crayola people say so, anyway.  And the pale orange-peach tone that accurately defines the skin of this “white person” is a color, too.  But I digress.)