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?
‘Southern pride’ or racism? White Christians are compelled to discern the difference. And confess.
As commonly used, the term “Southern pride” is shorthand for a stubborn refusal to admit that the South, as a concept, is hopelessly enmeshed in the canons of white supremacy.
Without the power of ‘collective effervescence,’ can megachurches (and Donald Trump) survive the pandemic?
Both the Republican Party and the white evangelical megachurches of America may be back to normal by mid-summer. But if the rush to re-open sends the death rate spiraling upward, the white megachurch model may never recover.
Analysis: Will growing divisions in the SBC eventually be good news for American Christianity?
The revolt against racial reconciliation efforts in the Southern Baptist Convention is rapidly metastasizing. The SBC is at war with itself, and the best way to know who is winning is to observe recent public statements by Albert Mohler.
A global pestilence stalks in darkness. Will we tempt God or take up our cross? | #intimeslikethese
We can hang onto Jesus with the right hand, grasp our brothers and sisters with the left, and take one bold step into the gathering gloom of Holy Week. That’s what Lent has always been about. That’s what it’s about now, amid a global pestilence that stalks in the darkness.
Heaven-or-hell theology may be simple, but it is neither biblical nor morally defensible. What’s the alternative?
Most of our churches have left heaven-or-hell theology far behind, but we’re afraid to offer a viable alternative. It’s time for moderate and progressive mainline preachers to talk about the biblical vision of universal redemption.
Kenneth Starr is doing it again
By hitching his wagon to Trump’s neon star, Starr is making the same old mistake for the same old reason.
Last call for aging white evangelicals: The political marriage to Trump will collapse. What then?
Some species of evangelical religion will ultimately rise from the rubble of American conservatism, but it will be greatly curtailed, politically irrelevant and, I pray, more recognizably Christian.
Are we finally ready to learn from Glenn Hinson, one of our Baptist prophets?
Forty years ago, Hinson’s open letter challenged Southern Baptist Convention President Bailey Smith’s pronouncement that “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew.” Today, moderate Baptists know they don’t want to follow Smith and his tribe, but have we embraced a clear alternative?
Bouncing Into Graceland: Paul Simon, Frank Tupper, Southern Seminary and a ‘Scandalous Providence’
Frank Tupper’s view of providence is unflinchingly honest. We survive our personal Gethsemanes, not because we experience miraculous rescue, but because we are not alone: “Jesus has already gone through Gethsemane, a Gethsemane that we will never comprehend, and he stands with us in ours.”