Throughout most of the 2000s, Americans grew accustomed to an ever-present ad campaign with the tagline, “Can you hear me now?” Actor-pitchman Paul Marcarelli showed up all over the place, boasting of the reach of Verizon Wireless service where other…
Nex Benedict death ruled suicide, setting off a new round of suspicions and denials
Nex Benedict died by suicide a day after a fight with bullies at their high school, according to a medical examiner’s report released March 13. The 16-year-old nonbinary student’s death has drawn international headlines for a month now, cited by…
CBF North Carolina marks 30 years of cooperation with emphasis on ‘fellowship’
Thirty years ago, a group of North Carolina Baptists gathered to figure out a new way of working together as they were feeling less and less comfortable in their longstanding home, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Their historic…
U.S. delegation of Christians returns from Gaza with urgent appeal
“Gaza has become a killing field,” according to a delegation of 23 American Christians, pastors and laypeople just returned from a fact-finding mission to the region. “Israel’s response against the Palestinian people is disproportionate by orders of magnitude. The atrocities…
Sen. Katie Britt takes up her cross in a ‘master class’ of far-right manipulation
Republicans and Democrats alike have panned Sen. Katie Britt’s response to last week’s State of the Union address, but Professor Sheri Rogers of Grand Valley State University in Michigan is one of the few people with an explanation for why…
Yet another group forms to turn the SBC in a more conservative direction
Another new group has emerged in the struggle for control of the Southern Baptist Convention — a tug-of-war between traditionalist conservatives and ultra-conservatives. The Center for Baptist Leadership was introduced on social media March 8 by William Wolfe, a conservative…
Settlement means you can ‘say gay’ in Florida schools after all
It turns out you can “say gay” in Florida’s public schools — just so long as you’re not the teacher presenting classroom content. On Monday, March 12, a settlement was announced between the state of Florida and an LGBTQ group…
There’s a new religious advocacy group with ties to Patterson and Conservative Baptist Network
The latest conservative, pro-family, anti-diversity advocacy group affirmed by the James Dobson Family Institute has distinctive Southern Baptist ties and takes its name from a historic Baptist legacy traditionalists might be surprised to see on such an enterprise. In an…
A word in praise of Baptist Press
File this under “Things I Never Thought I’d See.” Last Friday, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention published a 2,300-word news story about the tarnished legacy of Paul Pressler. For the first time, the BP story acknowledges…