Alan Cross

Alan Cross is an author at Religion News Service.

All Stories by Alan Cross

If we’re rescinding Southern Baptist history, let’s undo our link to the Confederacy

By Alan Cross — June 11, 2021
(RNS) — Before turning back the clock on CRT, let's rescind a May 1861 resolution aligning the SBC with the Confederacy.

Our California church met in person. Then the police came by. And said ‘well done.’

By Alan Cross — August 11, 2020
(RNS) — We all need to follow Scripture’s commands first, while seeking to live peaceably with our community and work for the common good.

Rethinking white privilege and how we are really blessed

By Alan Cross — June 19, 2020
(RNS) — Pastor Louie Giglio apologized for inelegantly trying to explain white privilege in terms of ‘white blessings.’ But there is something more fundamentally wrong with how he, and many Christians, use the word ‘blessing.’

Prosperity gospel’s false promises aren’t always about money

By Alan Cross — September 10, 2019
(RNS) — There are many subtler prosperity gospels that hold out the promise of victory, success, actualization, a sense of 'arrival' and the good life. They are all equally dangerous.

Seeing Jesus in the migrants at the border

By Alan Cross — June 27, 2019
(RNS) — Jesus saw Óscar and Valeria. Jesus saw the woman and the three little children who died in the desert. He sees all of the crowds of migrants, harassed and helpless and fleeing from a home they can no longer stay in to journey to a place they have never been. He wants us to see them too.

King in Montgomery: A white Southern Baptist minister reflects

By Alan Cross — April 5, 2018
(RNS) — If we benefit from the status quo, we can seek to maintain it rather than recognize that a wheel of injustice might be grinding our neighbor down. King shone a light on that injustice and it often made white Christians uncomfortable. His words and legacy, if we listen, still make us uncomfortable today.

America hardly notices while Louisiana drowns

By Alan Cross — August 24, 2016
DENHAM SPRINGS, La. (RNS) But churches spring into action and racial tensions are washed away.
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