After my lifelong connection with evangelical faith, midlife has unearthed surprise skepticism about what once was sacred ground. Unexpected questions crowd my thoughts about church and what it means. This includes questioning the fine print beneath the slogans I once…
Why homophobia is really about women
Alex and I are treated differently. That’s not a complaint, and it isn’t something either of us spends much time dwelling on, (I’m not sure he’s even noticed) but it’s simply true. We’re both gay men. We’re now married to…
The contemptible case of Clarence Thomas
To understand the judicial legacy of Clarence Thomas is to examine a decades-long exercise in institutional alienation. His trajectory on the Supreme Court cannot be viewed merely through the lens of conservative legal theory; rather, it is defined by a…
The transmogrification of the SBC: When Baptists no longer are Baptist
As the Southern Baptist Convention in its recent annual meeting has proved itself unreliably Baptist, it gives me pause to think about how quickly the transmogrification of this Baptist denomination into its ecclesiastical opposite has happened. Baptist folk often have…
The permanent paradoxes of Christian thinking about war
The morality of warfare has been in the news recently. This occurs every so often, usually when the United States launches a dubious military action (like the one against Iran) and someone in the administration (like JD Vance) claims the support…
In conversation with Scott Cairns
Scott Cairns is a poet and writer who is the Curators Distinguished Professor of English emeritus at the University of Missouri. He is the author of poetry collections such as Slow Pilgrim, and of the spiritual autobiography Short Trip to…
First they came for the Mormons
These days, you’d think we wouldn’t be shocked by a new weekly, daily or hourly religio-political-cultural-rightward-revisionism in the land of the free and the home of Project 2025. But “adjusting” to such practices seems abidingly stressful and/or depressing to many…
Churches, pay attention: Americans gave $617 billion last year
When I meet with pastors and ask how giving is going, the answer is pretty much the same: Giving is down, and not just during the low seasons churches are used to experiencing. The decline in giving is no longer…
Democracy and prophetic witness
This is the 10th in a BNG series of articles on Christianity and democracy that will lead toward the July 4 celebration of America’s 250th birthday. The series has been curated by Carol McEntyre, senior minister at First Baptist Church of…
Don’t let John Piper determine whether your loved one ‘should’ be cremated
In the 1970s, my father opposed the switch in women’s basketball from half-court to full-court play. He was so dogmatically conservative, he nearly did not receive tenure at a Southern Baptist college. But when he died, per his wishes, he…
Dear Mike Johnson, be careful what you ask for
For decades, political conservatives have been clamoring for “originalist” and “textualist” interpretations of the U.S. Constitution because they want to conserve the frozen-in-time ideals of the Founders. This is why they loved former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was…
What, to the white Christian, is America 250?
This year, the Trump administration dispatched a fleet of six Freedom Trucks, traveling across the country to promote the story of American exceptionalism on the United States’ 250th birthday. Many visitors report the exhibit champions a sanitized version of U.S….