Why should we open our border to poor people from Central America? What if they are really terrorists? What if they have COVID, or something even more contagious? How can we afford to take care of “their” children when we…
My journey toward LGBTQ inclusion: God still speaks
As a cisgendered heterosexual male, my own sexuality was not a problem in the Southern Baptist faith of my youth and young adulthood. Having come of age with the Moral Majority, though, I cannot remember a time when the question…
Racism is never an innocent joke
I don’t think Baptists today are particularly gifted in the spiritual discipline of confession of sin. We’re glad to echo Romans 3:23 and declare that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, but we tend to avoid candid…
During Lent, I’m learning to walk with a limp
As a small-town Southern Baptist, I had little if any idea what Lent was until I lived with Scoop. Scoop, my junior-year roommate at the University of Georgia, was a somewhat intermittently practicing Catholic — he called himself a “High…
Private property or the public good? Thoughts on wealth, taxes and justice
Growing up in the 1970s, there were some things I was sure of. One such truth was that America is a Christian nation — founded by Christians, based on Christian principles, uniquely favored by God. I suspect many Christians who…
Three signposts for American Christians in a changing world
A lot can change in 40 years. As a decidedly liberal and middle-aged me looks back at the Reagan Republican twenty-something I once was, I’m forced to ponder the road that led from there to here. I worry that similar…