Two years before he divorced his wife of 21 years and married his secretary, pastor Greg Locke rose to internet fame through a Facebook video decrying the morality of Target restroom policies that allowed people to use the restroom they felt expressed…
Let’s reimagine how your church property might serve the community
This is the last in a series created by a partnership between Baptist News Global and the Campbell University Center for Church and Community. Each month’s columns explore one of the seven types of capital described in the Community Capitals Framework developed by…
Southern Baptists join Catholic bishops in asserting ‘no Constitutional basis’ for abortion at all
There is no constitutional basis for abortion in America, and states should be able to regulate it without interference from the federal government, according to a court brief filed July 28 with the U.S. Supreme Court by the Southern Baptist…
From purity pledges to the Equality Act: How evangelical concern about sex has shifted and what it has to do with creation
When more than 200,000 evangelical purity pledges were being planted at the National Mall in 1994 at the height of the True Love Waits movement, nobody would have imagined that the next 25 years would bring about a total revolution…
The plantation lived on through Texas Baptist evangelism
Recently during worship, my minister sang a song of lament he composed about the whitewashed history of violence and slavery in the United States. In “This House,” Aaron Austin sang: “They said it was history, time to move on. They…
New national survey flips the narrative on mainline Protestants and the ‘nones,’ but why?
Two giant questions leaped off the page as the interpreters of American religion began reading the latest data dump from Public Religion Research Institute July 8: How could this data about mainline Protestants be correct, and why is the data…
It’s past time to unearth and acknowledge our role in Native American boarding schools
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced the United States will launch an initiative to search for possible burial sites at the former grounds of the federally created Native American boarding schools that forcibly removed thousands of children from their…
When it comes to shaming women, the SBC isn’t the only perpetrator among Christians
The Southern Baptist Convention has made headlines not only in Baptist circles but in secular publications in the days after this year’s annual meeting. In addition to Critical Race Theory, the media has been reporting on the SBC’s commitment to…
How churches can help encourage financial capital in nonmetro areas
This is the seventh in a series created by a partnership between Baptist News Global and the Campbell University Center for Church and Community. Each month’s columns explore one of the seven types of capital described in the Community Capitals Framework developed by…