Monica A. Coleman's Blog

A couple weeks ago, my daughter was doing her math homework at the kitchen table while I was preparing dinner. I could see that she was struggling, but she didn’t say anything. After a while I asked her, “Do you need some help with your math?” If you’re a Gen X-er trying to help a contemporary elementary school child with their math, you know that I really wasn’t sure I could help her. Her math looks foreign to me. I mean, I get the answer, but not the way she is being taught. Nonetheless, I ask...

​Did you know I ran a home health care agency?

I fell into it because I was helping to care for my mom. I always knew my mom would come to live with me. I grew up with my grandparents living with us at different times during my childhood, so it was just always on the table for my mom and me. When I dated I would say, “So how do you feel about … because it’s going to happen at some point.” And when I finally got out of graduate school, I told my mom, “Whenever you want to live with me, just le...

Many girls are socialized to expect a man to ride up on a white horse and rescue them. This is the message of far too many fairy tales and animated (and rom-com) movies. Even if not literally swept off their feet, in many cultures, women are taught to see their worth and value in relationship to a man – their father or a husband.​

Of course, many women rebel against these messages from society. They decide: We are not waiting for some man, some anyone, to come in and save us. 

But let’s be...

In January, I spoke at the annual meeting of the Society for Christian Ethics by the invitation of my friend and colleague Grace Y. Kao. I’m not an ethicist. I’m a philosophical theologian. I specialize in thinking and writing about what people believe. I’m particularly interested in how our beliefs mesh the ways we understand the world. I think that what we believe affects what we do and so I have some thoughts about that. Which is why the ethicists let me in their meeting.

​Grace invited me...

Many people I know grow up in faith communities that discourage people from asking questions. I grew up in that kind of church. Of course, it didn’t work. I was learning to be a critical thinker in school and I had not yet learned to compartmentalize so I brought that critical thinking to Sunday school, worship services and church meetings. And my mom would shush me and discourage my questioning. (Then I asked my questions in whispers.)

I also learned that I wasn’t supposed to be angry. I was...

Is this the hill to die on?

I’m raising a preteen middle-schooler, and so I say this to myself at least twice a day as we negotiate, yes negotiate, time management, homework, sports, lessons, chores and video-gaming. I have clear values and principles and some concrete skills I want this kid to have in life. And all of these seem to be at stake in these afterschool (and before-school) interactions. But they aren’t. Most times, whatever we are talking about is nothigh stakes. And by the next w...

I’ve been quiet with you all because I’ve been so … without words. As a former resident of Pasadena and a resident of Los Angeles county for over ten years of my life, I have been bowled over by the recent fires in southern California. I’ve been concerned about my friends, checking in on those who are evacuated, those who are hosting families who are evacuated and so many who have lost homes, whose friends and family have lost homes, businesses and places of worship. 

Like many others, I can’...

It’s a fairly common idea. Because most of us try to understand unmerited suffering. Deep down (or not so deep down), most of us are okay with the suffering of people we think of as “bad” or “immoral.” We can even make peace when suffering seems to be the natural result of a poor decision. It’s really unmerited – I didn’t do anything to deserve this – suffering that bothers us. 

And so we try to make sense of it. And understand what its relationship is to the good God that we believe in. Thro...

When I was 18, I traveled to South Africa with a group of other college classmates to work with local organizations on voter education for their first free and democratic elections. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Like many others in my generation, I was aware of South African apartheid and incensed by it. I recall the protests and sanctions. As an African American, I felt a deep kinship with Black and “colored” South Africans. When the chance to work there arose, I was ready to go.

My ...

Perhaps nothing is more personal or challenging in the life of faith than how we understand God in the face of suffering, loss and the death of a loved one. 

This June, I got to share how my faith sustains me in those times. 

At an academic conference.

My first bit of summer travel was to a conference where I was giving a keynote presentation. The Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought (IARPT) is one of my favorite group of academic folk – mainly because I get to han...