The editor of Riforma, an Italian-language newspaper published by and for Baptists, Methodists and Waldensians in Italy, invited me to contribute a front-page article for this week’s edition sharing my perspective on recent events in the United States. This is what…
A word about the killing of Charlie Kirk to Christians beyond the USA
The editor of Riforma, an Italian-language newspaper published by and for Baptists, Methodists and Waldensians in Italy, invited me to contribute a 5,000-character front-page article for this week’s edition sharing my perspective on the shooting of Charlie Kirk and American Christian…
A word about June 14 to Christians beyond the USA
Last week the editor of Riforma, an Italian-language newspaper published by and for Baptists, Methodists and Waldensians in Italy, asked if I’d be willing to write a front-page article for this week’s edition sharing my perspective on events in the…
Remembering the ‘People’s Pope’
My reflections on the papacy of Pope Francis, who died at the age of 88 in Rome on Monday, April 21 — less than a day after delivering brief Easter Sunday greetings to worshippers in St. Peter’s Basilica — are…
Two views of government as a Christian concern
Two months into Donald Trump’s second term as president, not a day has passed without news headlines of multiple controversial efforts of his administration to reshape the institutions of American government. Team members of the newly created Department of Government…
What I found hiding in my church library
Some of my former fellow seminarians reminded me on social media at the beginning of this week that 31 years ago on March 9, 1994, Russell Dilday was fired by trustees as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary after ultraconservatives…
The sacrilegious singing of ‘How Great Thou Art’
Around 3 a.m. Eastern time on Nov. 6, a crowd gathered in the lobby of the West Palm Beach, Fla., convention center where Donald Trump had just delivered his victory speech. The crowd, which included Christian singer Sean Feucht, began…
Inside U2’s ‘cathedral in Las Vegas’
People could perhaps be forgiven for cynically receiving U2’s 2023 Super Bowl ad announcing a Las Vegas residency inaugurating The Sphere as an indication that almost five decades after their 1976 founding, the Irish rock band has arrived at semi-retired…
Resolving to ‘respect the diversity’ of the global Baptist family
Last week, Baptist News Global reported the removal from the Baptist World Alliance Commission on Interfaith Relations and another BWA commission of a gay man whose sexual orientation and same-sex marriage were known at the time of his appointment. Much…
Remembering the theologian who became pope
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on the morning of Dec. 31 at the age of 95, leaves a legacy that will be the subject of intense discussion and debate for decades to come. In the hours that followed the…
Baptists and Catholics together? Progress and promise despite a shaky start
A few years ago, I delivered a keynote address for a symposium on the Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, held at Creighton University in connection with the 50th anniversary of its promulgation on Nov. 21, 1964. The fact…
Re-receiving the gift of inclusive liberty, with help from Pope Francis
This past weekend, I offered Baptist ecumenical reflections on Pope Francis’s most recent encyclical “On Fraternity and Social Friendship” (Fratelli Tutti) on the program of the Hearth for the Human Family conference sponsored by the Focolare Forum for Dialogue and…