Across America this week, Baptist women are carrying a familiar weight. Some are pastors who have faithfully answered the call of God, only to watch the Southern Baptist Convention debate whether God possibly could have called them. Some are seminary...
In North Texas last week, all eyes were on a trial in Frisco, a northern Dallas suburb. The person on trial was Karmelo Anthony, a 19-year-old accused — and now convicted — of stabbing to death 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at…
Across America this week, Baptist women are carrying a familiar weight. Some are pastors who have faithfully answered the call of God, only to watch the Southern Baptist Convention debate whether God possibly could have called them. Some are seminary…
Immigrant and civil rights advocates condemned the $70 billion immigration bill President Donald Trump signed into law June 10. The “Secure America Act” passed by Congress a day earlier provides funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol…
The Trump administration continues to deny legal benefits to some immigrants based on national origin and in direct violation of a federal judge’s June 5 ruling to halt the practice. In response, an emergency motion was filed June 10 asking…
Attending the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention is, in a word, exhausting. Why any Baptist — pastor or layman — would take several days of vacation time, travel at significant expense, read all the printed reports, participate in…
I was 6 years old the first time I was told I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. I could be a teacher or a nurse when I grew up, but I couldn’t play on that team and I couldn’t do that thing because…
All sanctions against Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary have been lifted by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. Seminary President David Dockery announced the action June 11, ending a difficult saga in the history of what once…
As the president of another Kentucky-based seminary, I have to note Al Mohler’s forced conversation on women in ministry, like so much in our world today, is ridiculous. Those like Mohler wish to drag us into a debate about “what…
God calls women to preach. This is not a progressive talking point or a cultural accommodation. It is a theological fact, attested across centuries of Christian witness and confirmed in the lives of countless women who have heard the Spirit’s…
In November 1883, 38-year-old Emma Lazarus wrote a poem as part of a fundraising effort for Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s “Liberty Enlightening the World” — what we now know as the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled…
It may be true that no man is an island, but the Southern Baptist Convention is working hard to isolate itself from the world. After a decade of holding back the most strident far-right forces in the convention, this year…
At the moment, words are hard to come by. As I sat in Palmetto Patriots VA Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Home listening to one of my congregants share his experience of baptizing a soldier in a pool deep in…
