As readers of Baptist News Global are aware, opponents of women in ministry often appeal to Scripture as the reason for women’s exclusion from pastoral leadership. Some well-meaning male ministers may even assert that if it were up to them,…
Monetizing Baptist saints
If Southern Baptists have saints, there are only two and they are both women. Each are revered for their dedication to ministry and circumspect way of living. Neither was flashy or given to being the life of the party. This…
What would Hannah say to Southern Baptists about IVF?
As my social media feed filled this week with posts and updates in the face of yet another gathering of Southern Baptists hell-bent on stripping away any leadership opportunities for women in ministry, I found myself angry and disheartened. While…
Reading the Bible without a leaf of hierarchy
Sunday before last in worship, we read from Genesis 3:8, a passage that says in the NRSV English translation: “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and…
Christian nationalism: Religion or politics?
I am a cultural anthropologist, and I was doing a study in Cabbagetown, a predominantly white, evangelical neighborhood of Atlanta, in the 1970s when I began to hear local pastors talking about taking America back for Jesus. They argued the…
Pressler’s death brings overwhelming sadness
The formal death notice of Herman Paul Pressler III, a former Texas state appellate judge and the chief strategist behind a now 45-year rightward shift in the 14 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, hit me like a brick. For months, I…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Nathaniel Jung-Chul Lee
Nathaniel Jung-Chul Lee is an Episcopal priest who studied with Stanley Hauerwas at Duke, completed a Ph.D. from Baylor and teaches at St. John’s University. We’ve had the opportunity to collaborate on issues of race and faith at the Episcopal…
Bill Walton loved hoops, the Grateful Dead — and people
It is better to give than to receive, in basketball and in life. Let’s start with basketball. When it’s played the right way, there’s nothing more beautiful in sports, whether it’s a March Madness matchup on national TV or a…
A death wish granted
On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. called on the United States to lead the world in what he termed “a radical revolution of values” during a speech at Riverside Church in New York City. He urged the United…
What my grandparents would think of the Southern Baptist Convention today
In 1998, I spent the spring and summer in Rogers, Ark., with my grandparents. I had graduated from college the year before and was floundering, so hanging out for five months with my three living grandparents was a blessing even…
The church’s guide to atheism
Some days, church people might as well be atheists. They say they believe in God, but they live as if God does not matter much. They do not pray that often, read the Bible that much or care for hurting…
Dear Baptist women: ‘We see God’s image in you’
Baptist Women in Ministry offers appreciation to all the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention who voted against the Law amendment because of their commitment to support and affirm women serving as pastors of all kinds in the SBC. We are grateful…