As Bishop Curry spoke about the power of love during Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal wedding in 2018, having recently joined the Anglican Communion myself, my heart was full. But when I watched Oprah’s interview with Harry and Meghan last week,…
Top-down schism plans ignore local United Methodist churches’ new reality
The United Methodist Church staggers toward a twice-delayed global legislative conclave that appears likely to split the 12-million-member denomination. The options available to concerned United Methodists are multiplying at the highest levels, but church life differs greatly at the grassroots…
What I learned working in a Texas prison: Retribution, not reformation
I served as a pastor for 33 years and then worked nearly six years as a counselor at the most high-profile maximum-security prison in Texas. There, I ran the mental health department, nestled in the prison infirmary, which serves all…
Is the Beth Moore Effect a feminist awakening?
Beth Moore’s recent defection from the Southern Baptist Convention has been a long time coming. Moore built her career modeling Southern Baptist, submissive womanhood, but her public witness has challenged the gender roles that she, until very recently, defended. Moore’s…
Why Beth Moore’s departure from the SBC really matters
In its own year of racial reckoning, the Southern Baptist Convention just awoke to a high-profile gender reckoning as well. Beth Moore, the popular Bible study teacher and author who for years has maintained the line of being a “teacher”…
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…
Equality Act stirs passions about the definition of religious liberty and RFRA’s role
When the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Equality Act last week, the long-simmering battle between religious conservatives and the rest of the nation reached a renewed pitch. At stake is the desire of religious conservatives — especially evangelical Christians…
Does landmark religious freedom legislation need a fix or is it fine as is?
Does the landmark Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 need a legislative fix? Some Democratic Congressmen and religious freedom advocates believe so, which has prompted a renewed attempt to resolve problems they believe have been created by conservative court rulings…
Rural churches need to understand the cultural capital of their communities
Originally being from the Upper Midwest, Justin began to undertake a process of cultural learning upon moving to the South (first to Texas and eventually to North Carolina). This included practicing subtle but important language differences (like using “y’all” rather…
What I learned by listening to women pastors during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a differential impact on women. In particular, working mothers have faced a greater burden of child care and home schooling than men and have ended up leaving the work force in significantly greater numbers than…
The two Georges, the world and American leadership
Amid the recent tumult of events, the 100th birthday of George P. Shultz Dec. 13 passed relatively unnoticed. As did his death Feb. 6. But attention must be paid. Shultz was one of the ultimate “inside the Beltway” guys, those…
SBC agency’s appeal to Supreme Court touches on religious liberty, defamation and Baptist autonomy
A federal lawsuit that combines questions of religious liberty, defamation and the meaning of Baptist autonomy has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board, the defendant in the original 2017 case,…