14 April 2026 – I am delighted to announce that I have been offered, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) has begun processing, my appointment as Honorary Research Associate in the School of Arts, with a primary affiliation to the Theology and Religion discipline.
This is a wonderful and unexpected honour. UKZN is one of Africa’s leading centres for contextual and engaged biblical scholarship, and I am especially excited to be connected with the...
The Easter Vigil does not begin with the ringing of bells or the triumphant shout of the Exultet. It begins in a heavy, expectant silence. Before the proclamation of "He is risen," there is the shroud of darkness. A community gathers, not yet in joy, but in a shared, breath-held anticipation. A single flame is kindled, and the long, winding narrative of creation, exile, and promise unfolds in the flickering shadows.
In the contemporary West, Easter is often cloaked in a somber, porcelain reverence—a day of quiet reflection and hushed Alleluias. Yet, if we peer back into the high-energy liturgies of the early Church, we find a celebration that was less like a funeral and more like a riotous victory parade. At the heart of this ancient exuberance stands St. John Chrysostom and his 4th-century Paschal Homily.
In the modern cultural landscape, the observance of Easter has become a complex syncretism—a "melting pot" of activities that frequently obscure the profound religious significance they ostensibly celebrate. For many, the season is defined by the superficial veneers of vibrant egg hunts, baskets overflowing with confections, and the ubiquitous presence of the Easter bunny. However, as a cultural historian must observe, these traditions are not merely whimsical additions to the liturgical...
Easter has been rebranded as a low-stakes seasonal escape—a curated aesthetic of pastel sales, getaway airfares, and candy-coated traditions. Yet, beneath this pagan veneer lies a radical, ancient orthodoxy that modern culture finds increasingly difficult to digest. While the world treats the day as a harmless holiday, the Nicaean Creed (325 AD) anchors the event in a far weightier reality: that "true God of true God" became...
In December 2020, in a quiet apartment in Spain, two nights after the death of my twin brother, Darren, the room suddenly filled with light. This was not the metaphorical glow of a fading memory or the internal illumination of a mind desperate for solace. It was a presence with weight—a light that possessed a specific quality of attention. Darren stood there, carrying the irreducible, specific gravity of his particular personhood, and spoke a single word: "Yesssssss."
In 1937, in the red clay of rural Virginia, a ninety-three-year-old woman named Fannie Berry stood as a living bridge to an era of profound sorrow and even deeper hope. She recounted a burial ritual that shatters our modern, sanitized conceptions of the "final journey." When a twin died, Berry explained, they were sometimes laid to rest with a single hand left protruding from the earth. The community believed the ground simply...
1. The Forgotten Day: Entering the Stillness of Holy Saturday
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In the high drama of the Paschal Mystery, our eyes are naturally drawn to the "luminous poles" of the journey: the raw agony of the Cross on Good Friday and the radiant, earth-shaking victory of Easter Sunday. Yet, nestled between the cry of dereliction and the cry of glory lies a "forgotten day" wrapped in a staggering stillness. Holy Saturday is no mere pause in the narrative; it is a grammar...
1. Introduction: The Liturgical and Theological Significance of the "Forgotten Day"
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Holy Saturday occupies a unique, liminal space within the Paschal Mystery, serving as the strategic bridge between the historical reality of the Cross on Good Friday and the cosmic victory of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Far from being a mere chronological gap or a day of liturgical mourning, it represents the "liminal" center of the Christian narrative—a day wrapped...
1. Introduction: The Liturgical and Theological Significance of the "Forgotten Day"
Holy Saturday occupies a unique, liminal space within the Paschal Mystery, serving as the strategic bridge between the historical reality of the Cross on Good Friday and the cosmic victory of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Far from being a mere chronological gap or a day of liturgical mourning, it represents the "liminal" center of the Christian narrative—a day wrapped in stillness where the Word of God...
We are well-versed in the high theater of the cross. We can narrate, almost by instinct, the profound anguish of Good Friday’s dereliction and the radiant, world-altering victory of Easter Sunday’s empty tomb. Yet, between these two luminous poles of the Paschal Mystery lies a day wrapped in absolute stillness—a "missing piece" that many modern reflections pass over in haste.
Holy Saturday is the forgotten day of the liturgical calendar. It is a phenomenon of divine hiddenness, where the Word...
1. Introduction: The Book They Were Not Supposed to Read
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In the white antebellum pulpits of the American South, the Book of Hosea was a text of profound cognitive dissonance—theological dynamite that was largely left unexploded. Its central narrative was a scandal to the social order: a divine Husband who, despite being shamed by a wayward wife, literally enters the marketplace to buy her back from the auction block and reclothe her in covenant love. For a...
When we contemplate the threshold of death, we typically reach for a familiar iconography of emotional reassurance: the radiant tunnel, the welcoming embrace of ancestors, or the blissful dissolution of the self. These narratives are deeply human, yet they often lack the structural rigor required to describe a truly transcendent reality. What if the "language" of the afterlife is not found in sentimental reunions, but in a sophisticated architectural and mathematical grammar?
For over four centuries, Black mothers have stood at the foot of every American cross. Theirs is the "Longest Lament," a 400-year vigil that began on the auction blocks where children were priced as livestock and continued beneath lynching trees where sons were displayed as public warnings. Most recently, this vigil was held on the asphalt of Ferguson, Missouri, where Lesley McSpadden stood for four hours beside the uncovered body of her son, Michael Brown. It is held by Sybrina Fulton,...
History is haunted by a recurring ghost, but it is not a spirit—it is a shape.
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Across the millennia, scholars and psychologists have grappled with what is known as the "Problem of Recurrence": the inexplicable tendency for specific, complex geometric patterns to emerge across vastly different eras and cultures that had no contact with one another.
At the center of this mystery is Metatron’s Cube. This intricate figure, characterized by its hexagonal symmetry...
In the quiet wake of catastrophe, there exists a specific, hollow silence where the old world used to be. Psychologists call this the "collapse of the assumptive world"—the moment when a life-altering loss shatters the foundational belief that the world is benevolent, predictable, or meaningful. For those navigating the aftermath of bereavement, displacement, or systemic rupture, the old narrative frameworks do not just feel inadequate; they feel unrecognizable. We often find ourselves...
When trauma strikes—whether through the sudden gravity of bereavement, the corrosive sting of racialized violence, or the shock of collective tragedy—it does more than inflict pain. It creates an "existential rupture," a profound dislocation from oneself, others, and God. For those in the aftermath, the world as they once knew it simply ceases to exist. The narrative threads that once held life together are frayed,...
We have been taught to believe that blood is the ultimate anchor—a biological destiny that holds fast even when the world gives way. Yet, for the Black diaspora, history has often been the story of that anchor being violently uprooted. From the auction block to the contemporary migrant trail, colonial modernity has systematically weaponized biological lineage, shattering families to maintain state control. When the traditional house is burned down by external forces, a new way of belonging...
On May 12, 1723, a Virginia plantation ledger recorded a transaction of cold, mathematical cruelty: “Woman Phillis delivered of twins. One sold to Carolina trader. Mother screamed so hard she had to be whipped silent.”
Phillis was a victim of a system designed to weaponize biological kinship—to use the love of a mother for her child as a tool of leverage and, ultimately, a site of destruction. Yet, that very night, the source records Phillis standing in a hush harbor, her back still stinging,...
On May 12, 1723, a Virginia plantation overseer made a clinical entry into a ledger that remains a testament to the calculated cruelty of empire: “Woman Phillis delivered of twins. One sold to Carolina trader. Mother screamed so hard she had to be whipped silent.” In the logic of the slave block, biological "blood" was a liability, a commodity to be severed and traded for liquid capital. Yet, the source context tells us that night, in the damp sanctuary of a hush harbor, Phillis stood and...
