There is much handwringing about the “state of the church” these days. I want to suggest that handwringing is a bit exaggerated. I know the statistics. There are certainly many U.S. churches that are struggling and some that are closing….
The Bible is not just a white man’s book
You’ve been told the Bible was a white man’s book. You’ve seen the images — pale-skinned angels, a European Jesus, blonde-haired apostles. Church walls lined with Renaissance art have shaped a quiet but powerful assumption over time, that holiness somehow…
Confessions of a cancer caregiver
After a lifetime of trying to follow Jesus, the enormity of his teachings becomes tangibly real when cancer comes into your life. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon, and my husband, John, is asleep. He’s no slacker; he’s recovering from…
When baptism becomes a carnival
In some evangelical circles, baptism is a spectator sport. It’s always about which pastor or church can baptize the most people or put on the most extravagant baptismal super event. Thus, when Mark Francey, pastor and co-founder of Oceans Church…
Resurrection’s joy ascends, but so, too, its detractors
For many years the joy of Easter Sunday’s resurrection observance has been contested by the continuing powers of death. Easter’s portable feast (due to its lunar calculation) means it typically falls in the vicinity of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s execution by the…
Letter to the Editor: I was there
Dear Editor: I was there on the night of Sept. 20, 1990, when Herb Reynolds met with a small group of trustees to present a plan to transform Baylor’s governing board into a self-perpetuating body, independent of Baptist General Convention…
Backfilling history
Look around. What do you see? Often, it’s what you expect to see, not what’s really there. All of us share this tendency. Language, too, affects what I see. If I don’t have a word for it, I probably won’t…
It’s time to try a new approach on racial healing
In order for any old ways and systems to change, there must be people with the capacity for vision who can imagine that change. Bridging the Rivers of Difference, A Proclamation of Unity In Resistance is my new book that…
The blame for Trump’s messiah complex lies with Franklin Graham
Last week, Donald Trump began to openly challenge and mock the pope and then posted an image of himself as Jesus Christ. Many conservative Catholics and even evangelicals who have wholeheartedly defended and supported Trump were taken aback, but not…
In conversation with my grandmother
This wasn’t the In Conversation I thought I would sit down and write this week. I did not plan to interview my grandmother from a hospital chair. The room was quiet in the way hospital rooms often are — machines…
Texas Baptists demand representation without taxation
Baylor University is trapped in an abusive relationship with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and needs to step away. Some of you already think that language is too strong, but please hear me out. When a person or organization…
Dan Patrick is wrong again
Yesterday morning, coffee in hand, I was met with a sobering claim. Our Texas lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, broke the news: “Separation of church and state is a lie.” Despite my “limitations” — a public-school education, a private college degree…