These days the stark realities of American culture can overtake us anytime, anywhere. I learned that again at a recent lunch with Doug Bailey, Episcopal priest and former Wake Forest School of Divinity colleague. We’d not seen each other in…
Are our churches prepared for Christian autocracy?
A 1638 treatise titled A Discourse about Civil Government in a new Plantation whose design is Religion, written in response to the founding of New Haven, Conn., contained this definition of a properly Christianized government: Theocracy, or to make the…
November 22, then and now
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, spent the last night of his life in the iconic Texas Hotel in Fort Worth. On the morning of Nov. 22, 1963, he attended a Chamber of Commerce breakfast, then mounted…
Sometimes reforming: Martin Luther, the church and the rest of us
In short, I will preach it, teach it, write it, but I will constrain no one by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences … but never with force. I simply…
Isn’t it really fundamentalist Christian nationalism?
As Christian nationalism forces itself across the American political and ecclesiastical landscape, I’ve been intrigued by recent columns from David French, New York Times commentator and prominent evangelical Christian. These include “Who Truly Threatens the Church?” (July 10), “Political Christianity…
First they came for them, then they came for us
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist….
Confronting our violent culture with an engaged spirituality
Realism, “the attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly,” compels us to acknowledge we live in a ceaslessly violent time, evidenced by weekly, if not daily, volatile events. The…
American democracy is in danger, and so is the gospel
In the year of our Lord (?) 2023, tune into any news platform right or left of center and you’ll hear that “American democracy is under threat.” Rightwing media says the 91 charges in four indictments against former President Donald…
A Baptist by any other name would …
These days, it appears Baptist churches and individuals across the theological spectrum are, for a variety of reasons, calling the very name “Baptist” into question. Truth is, that particular Protestant movement was called into question long before the name “Baptist”…