The Roofless Church

Category: Language

  • What Is the Language of Justice?

    “If there was no such thing as language, would we all be saying the same thing?” — Kelly FitzPatrick Silva (Kitchen Philosopher) After the controversy that emerged from the conversation on race between Lou Giglio, the CEO of Chick-Fil-A, and the rapper Lecrae where Giglio tried to rebrand the concept of “white privilege” as “white…

  • Transforming Purpose

    Transforming Purpose

    Years ago a friend told me that he was sad because he didn’t know his life’s purpose. For some reason, I had never thought about that concept before. And so, because I didn’t know how to take what he was saying seriously, I insensitively reacted with laughter. This upset him, which only made me laugh…

  • Communicating to Death (or some better title)

    Communicating to Death (or some better title)

    “Urkel is dead and I can’t breathe.” Those were the words Oprah spoke to the interviewer when they asked her about one of the most recent casualties of a senseless shooting. I couldn’t breathe either. How could Urkel be gone? He held the hopes of so many of us. He had achieved the dream and…

  • Is Common English An Inherently Biased/Oppressive/Racist Language?

    Can a language be biased/oppressive/racist? I know that right off the bat some people will take issue with the question this title suggests. They’ll say, “No. A language can’t be inherently racist or anything else other than a method of communication. It is neutral. Words don’t hurt people. People hurt people.” And to some degree,…

  • Sight Beyond Sight – A Commentary on “Mansplaining and more…”

    Are you familiar with the conversational phenomenon known as mansplaining? If you have never heard of it, here is a working definition of it: Mansplaining can be when someone who has lesser or incomplete knowledge on a subject offers an explanation to someone with greater knowledge of the subject under the assumption that the person…

  • When One “ism” Ends, #Embracism Begins

    When One “ism” Ends, #Embracism Begins

    Racism doesn’t exist. There I said it. Now we can move on. Don’t you wish it was that easy? What if we could uncreate racism or all of the other divisive isms just as easily as they were created and create a new way of being together?  Let’s call that effort #embracism.  As I define…

  • If There Was No Such Thing As Language…

    Recently I’ve made the error of reading comments from people at the bottom of some the articles about the recent shootings, racism in America, so called white privilege, and the Black Lives Matters movement. For years I stopped reading the comments because after doing so I typically walk away with a sense of foreboding. I…

  • Do Your Names and Labels Define You?

    How do you relate to the labels that have been assigned to you or that you have assumed?  Are they prisons that bind you or do they demonstrate choices that you have made and relationships that you are a part of? Do you define the labels or do the labels define you? Here is a…

  • Living for the Questions Dying for the Answers

    How frustrating would it be to be able to speak every language in the world fluently and yet have a language of your own that no one else could speak? Imagine that.  Here you are able to understand everyone in their native tongue, but no one can understand you when you speak yours.  What’s worse…

  • Pour Yourself Out (ANTS Commencement Address 2013)

    In Joel 2, there is a prophecy that there will be a time when God would pour out God’s own Spirit on all flesh.  And it says that when that day comes: “And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall…