From one perspective, my life has been like the Oscar-winning movie, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Like Benjamin Button, my path in ministry went in reverse. I started as a theological educator and engaged academia for 12 years. Then I became a pastor.

"Why was he in a place like that?" Mom nearly shouted into the phone. Mom hung up the phone and returned to the dinner table. "That was your Aunt Lily. Cousin Vincent is in the hospital now. Very badly beaten. In a coma. Two men were arrested. They were white."

NEARLY 10 YEARS AGO, I was denied tenure. Despite receiving the highest recommendation by the tenure review committee, my application was rejected by our seminary president.