For decades, progressive white Baptists have opened leadership roles at the highest level to women and people of color. But Black Baptists have shown a greater willingness to affiliate with the conservative Southern Baptist Convention than with more moderate groups…
Prophecy is obedient imagination
Prophecy is a big deal within the world of American nondenominational Christianity. I’m not talking about the kind of application of apocalyptic biblical texts to current events that Hal Lindsay and Tim LaHaye made popular back in the day. No,…
Trying to make sense of January 6: Jesus wept
I watched the bizarre assault live on television as I rocked an infant in my arms. I have spent every waking minute reading eyewitness accounts, listening to podcasts and watching cable news. I’m trying to understand. I’m asking myself if…
How 300 children lost their fathers to lynching on a single day because of a conspiracy theory
At last count, 73,923,495 Americans have voted for Donald Trump. Trump eclipsed Barack Obama’s previous record by more than 4.5 million votes. Trump topped his own 2016 performance by 11 million votes. That’s huge. Trump lost the election; but he…
‘The Critique’ versus ‘The Heroic Narrative’ defines the debate in America today
In 2015, 37% of Republican voters told pollsters that “colleges have a negative effect on the United States.” By 2019, 59% of Republicans said they believed that. Among non-white voters, educational level had no effect on political preference in the…
Is the Kentucky attorney general a sell-out?
“There is always a place for posers who are willing to sell out their own people,” my Facebook post read. “Gain the world, and lose your soul.” The reference was to Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general, who had just…
After 23 years in prison, Curtis Flowers is free
I have been working to free Curtis Flowers for 12 years. He’s been locked up twice that long. Yesterday, Sept. 4, after six flawed murder trials, Lynn Fitch, attorney general of Mississippi, dismissed the charges against Curtis with prejudice. That…
There are two Americas, and they are not on speaking terms
Sioux City, like most towns in the rural Midwest, went heavily for Trump in 2016. It was there that the Republican candidate claimed he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue without losing votes. Many of the Sioux Center residents interviewed…
Jesus and John Wayne exposes militant masculinity in the age of Trump
Why Donald Trump? Why are American evangelicals so enamored of a president who could serve as a poster boy for the seven deadly sins?