I believe I am an open-hearted person. I don’t debate, nor do I continue trying to explain things as simply as I can to the closed-minded people I may encounter along my way. Throughout my ministry, I have enjoyed many…
Pride Month is about families — all of them
Recently, I saw a headline: 4 states offering Pride Month alternatives that celebrate family.” As if the celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month neither celebrates families nor requires an alternative celebration to better recognize families in different ways. The words we…
Why coercive religious politics undermine Christianity and democracy
This is the ninth 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…
Baptists know better than this
Baptists should not sit quietly while the federal government considers a report that would redefine religious liberty in the United States. The Presidential Religious Liberty Commission’s draft report deserves a direct Baptist response. It challenges church-state separation while advancing a…
Good Friday 2026: Learning from the preachers
Good Friday 2026 hit me hard. The year 2025 was a difficult one for our family, and that pain accompanied me to Good Friday 2026. Except for two COVID-canceled years, I’ve attended Good Friday services every year since 2008, when…
Democracy: A political response to human sinfulness
This is the eighth 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…
Insufficient
The concept of scriptural sufficiency as taught by modern-day Calvinists is untenable and dangerous. In sum, the Bible is not “sufficient” for all truth as too many neo-Calvinists contend. The Bible is, in fact, insufficient in many ways. And that’s…
Anecdotal stories do not tell the full tale of race in America
As I began the journey of promoting my new book, Bridging the Rivers of Difference, A Proclamation of Unity In Resistance, I have encountered wonderful interviewers. Mostly they seem genuinely interested in the topic and have read the book well…
The roots of Christian nationalism
Christian nationalism did not spring up fully formed during President Donald Trump’s first term. Its roots run deep in American soil. Unfortunately. In the Post-Reconstruction South, the United Daughters of the Confederacy planted a Confederate memorial on many a small-town…
Bourdain Day at the Farmer’s Market
I’ll go to a farmer’s market this morning. There’s a large one nearby. The grass will be slightly wet — the humidity thickening like a roux, the heat hinting at a thermometer’s breaking point. I’ll saunter through the sheltered areas….
Pilate asked Jesus, ‘What is truth?’
At this year’s meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, Al Mohler introduced an amendment to the convention’s constitution. His intent was to clarify, in the most specific terms possible, that only men may speak for God. Mohler couched his rationale…
Why hymns still make us cry
What is it about hymns that makes us cry? A worship service can be moving along just fine: everyone standing and sitting when they’re supposed to, liturgy and Scripture flowing without interruption, the sanctuary temperature miraculously just right … and…