“Let me be completely, completely honest with you,” Dallas megachurch pastor Matt Chandler said in a May 2006 sermon titled “What Faith Does,” one year before The Village Church Denton Campus hired his sex abuser father as a janitor and handed him…
Conservative evangelicals claim they are being persecuted by not being allowed to persecute LGBTQ foster kids
In the latest episode of conservative Christianity’s persecution complex, the Biden administration is accused of discriminating against Christians by prohibiting them from fostering kids. “Biden Takes Aim at Christian Foster Care,” one headline from the American Family Association claims. “The Biden Regime…
When being a pastor is ‘the most important calling,’ family values take a back seat
Most of the noise at this month’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting was from men attempting to cement their pastoral power over women, Christian nationalists attacking religious liberty, messengers seeking to censure SBC leaders publicly, and the convention voting to…
What’s happening to megachurch pastors in Dallas?
Megachurch pastors in Dallas are starting to drop like flies. On June 9, Tony Evans stepped away for an unspecified period of time from the 10,000-member Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, a church he started in his living room and led for…
Watching SBC men posture for position is exhausting
It’s exhausting to the soul. That’s what I’m feeling as I consider all the possible stories I could write regarding what white conservative men have planned for this year’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis. Capturing most headlines is…
Rosaria Butterfield is not a model for becoming un-gay
Growing up as an independent fundamentalist Baptist, I was taught that loosening any standards meant you were getting on the slippery slope toward becoming gay. If I grew my hair out over my ears, I might eventually reject God and…
The Harrison Butker story is so much weirder than you know
“The headline could just be, ‘Man who kicks ball for a living and has no other job criticizes women who want to be nurses, surgeons and U.N. Secretary General,’” said Brad Onishi on the Straight White American Jesus podcast episode that featured…
A controversial horror film embodies the real-life horrors of church abuse
There’s a thin line between reading a memoir written by somebody who grew up in conservative Christianity and watching a horror movie. As Christa Brown, a frequent contributor to Baptist News Global, releases her new memoir Baptistland: A Memoir of Abuse,…
Butker’s commencement speech echoes MacArthur and other male supremacists
With Pride Month looming over the horizon and women graduating from college, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker decided to attack “dangerous gender ideologies” when he gave the commencement address at Benedictine College. Butker, an outspoken conservative Catholic, believes the…