As I walked around a Confederate cemetery, I wondered what other choice the young soldiers buried there could have made. The values they were raised to believe to be true were affirmed by their schools, their textbooks, their newspapers, their families, friends, their whole culture, and worst of all, their churches.

Amid today’s political polarities and culture wars, American Baptists have significant contributions to make to American society, particularly in the recognition of women in ordained ministry and the rightful place for all religions to provide spiritual life and practice to all Americans and residents from all corners of the world.

The things that cause kids to die in this country - hate crimes, suicide, racism, neglect, abuse, hunger, war, gun violence - were no different in Langston Hughes’ day than they are now, and they ought to spur us not just to act but to move. What movements ought we to be crafting to love and protect children?

When we do not go together as communities, we remain divided and fragmented. Loneliness becomes inevitable. Challenges mount and begin to look intractable.