As some Black Southern Baptists urge their denomination’s flagship seminary to remove honors to enslavers, prominent white Calvinists associated with the school are defending not only the founders but even slavery.
Secret police then, secret police now
It is always interesting to me, in my role as assistant professor of New Testament and Greek, to point out variations in translations to students while asking them why some translators make the decisions they make. And as someone who…
My journey through purity culture and Christian worship music
The year was 1993. I was a sweaty junior high kid who had recently gotten my first stick of deodorant and had begun experiencing sensations in my body that felt both good and confusing. But one night, as my brothers…
Films on race can help us have hard conversations
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests around the country and across the globe, HBO Max announced earlier this summer that it was pulling the historical epic Gone with the Wind (1939) from the streaming lineup. Then it…
Where do you go for news you can trust?
Steve Lopez, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has been thinking about this question in much the same way as I have. “We are so helplessly, irrevocably divided, it’s time to quit talking about coming together as one and…
Why are Christians so susceptible to conspiracy?
The internet age has rapidly intensified the ability for conspiracy theories to spread across large populations of people, but why are Christians so susceptible to conspiratorial thought? Increasingly these grand narratives regarding the alleged machinations of nefarious figures are making…
Is QAnon a prophet or provocateur? And how should Christians respond?
To some, it’s the beginning of a new religious movement. For others, a puzzle or a game. For still others, it is community, a gathering of like-minded folks who enjoy each other’s company and share a deep passion. But for…
Q&A with Leslie Dorrough Smith on American attitudes about sex scandals
Sex scandals are nothing new to American politics and yet have an uncanny ability to rouse the American public. Religious studies scholar Leslie Dorrough Smith’s recent work, Compromising Positions: Sex Scandals, Politics, and American Christianity, argues that this phenomenon is…
Death of a bishop, birth of a new denomination intertwined for UMC
The untimely death of a visionary African bishop and the disclosure of a traditionalist faction’s plans for a new denomination have reset the playing field for the United Methodist Church’s future. With that reset have come allegations of neocolonialism and…