Rational progress is my favorite false gospel. It goes this way: though Jesus definitely helps, people can see the truth apart from him (ignore, for a second, Jesus’s own thoughts on this), and when they do, they’ll do the right thing. Good information saves the world. Silly, right? Indeed. But no more so than the other false gospels, which are, in effect, alternative salvation strategies. Everybody has one.

Rational progress is my favorite false gospel. It goes this way: though Jesus definitely helps, people can see the truth apart from him (ignore, for a second, Jesus’s own thoughts on this), and when they do, they’ll do the right thing. Good information saves the world. Silly, right? Indeed. But no more so than the other false gospels, which are, in effect, alternative salvation strategies. Everybody has one.

I wonder if we make coffins so we have something busy to do with our hands because we don’t know what to do with our hearts. They empty out all the sawdust and shavings and even spend time sanding it. It seems a bit unnecessary, but at the same time totally necessary to keep the hands and mind occupied. They wrap the wooden coffin in a silver tarp. The corners are tight like a department store Christmas present, wrapped perfectly and stapled into place. It looks beautiful.

Jonathan Tremaine Thomas is an actor, activist, pastor, producer, social entrepreneur, fifth generation “preacher’s kid,” and the grand-nephew of the legendary civil rights artist Dr. Nina Simone. He’s also the founder of Civil Righteousness, an organization committed to racial justice and reconciliation through Jesus. In this conversation, we sat down to talk about Jesus’s unique justice agenda, and the way we play our part.

Some prayers just happen; they are “the cry of the heart.” No training needed when it comes to this kind of prayer. I’ve uttered it thousands of times. Bet you have, too.Like when the phone rings and the bad news starts to spill and all you can do is say, Father...Father...Father, your heart crying out to God. It’s a good kind of prayer, rising from the deep places in us, often unbidden, always welcome to his loving ears. But I think most folks get stuck there, which is kind of like ending your education somewhere around fourth grade. There is more. 

When I met Kevin, I was six months into a year of volunteering in Philadelphia. The year was about “incarnational living,” a term that was often interpreted to mean “being the hands and feet of Jesus to the people in our neighborhood.” When I met Kevin, I was six months into a year of volunteering in Philadelphia. The year was about “incarnational living,” a term that was often interpreted to mean “being the hands and feet of Jesus to the people in our neighborhood.” I lived with five other young women, sharing meals to make our food budget of $17 per person, per week, stretch a little further.

Having survived Y2K and come of age during the peak of the Left Behind series’ popularity, I am familiar with end-times musings. With these fictions and the very real advent of global warming and nuclear proliferation, our generation has never been far from the apocalypse. So yeah, I’ve thought about the end times. I’ve let my mind wander through some emergency scenarios, the same way I’ve pondered how to escape quicksand (lay back and float until you can grab a branch) or kill zombies (headshot, idiots). And yet, the Bible is not so glib.

I’d come to the mountains to restore my soul. It wasn’t working, though God was doing his everyday thing and filling the world with riches. As I spent some time thinking about why it wasn’t working, I came back around to an inescapable discipline, one of the ways God shows a person he loves them: fasting.

I’ve been tending to my inner 8-year-old recently. The holiday season brings him to the surface year after year, but for the most part I ignore him or push him down under a blanket of distraction, sugar, and alcohol. He gets me into trouble and makes me feel vulnerable and stupid, so I’d prefer if he not be so vocal. Beer is great for shutting his voice down. For a while.

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This is an opportunity. You can do more than survive. You can do more than wash your hands. You can offer life, generosity, and hope to a world shaking with fear. You can do this in a hundred ways if you’ll accept the call to action. Stop retreating. Turn around. Walk toward the darkness. View this as your moment.

As I continue to wade into the waters of my twenties, I have made an attempt to build a toolkit. I have done so in order to learn to rely on myself, to attempt to fix what is broken and learn from my mistakes. What I have now is an odd assortment of tools inside a fabric bag. It's hardly coherent. But it is demonstrably pragmatic.

God can, and does, transform human hearts. It is therefore possible to not only resist a sex marketplace but also actively eliminate the demand. Such reformation is the final incarnation of a counter-trafficking effort.

The demolition of the sex industry would be among the greatest revolutions in history. It could only be accomplished by a reformation of desire. And that reformation is central to the mission of God in the world.