There are days during Lent that feel less like prayer and more like hanging on. Days when hope feels distant, faith feels shaky and the waiting feels endless. Sometimes it’s not just our own personal lives that feel heavy —…
A very Baptist identity crisis
When I was in my late teens, the Soul Survivor summer festival craze was in full swing, and for several years I attended with friends and church groups — often also participating in the New Wine conferences to combine and…
Why Good Friday matters as much as Resurrection Sunday
Long ago, Liz was visiting a historic Roman Catholic church in Argentina when her companion paused in front of a carving of Christ on the Cross. “This is how we evangelicals are different from Catholics,” he said. “We don’t have…
Apocalypse Now and our heart of darkness
Every morning, we awaken to a new moral outrage from our president. It is hard to keep our equilibrium. Today, after his oil blockade of Cuba has caused a complete breakdown of the energy grid of the whole island, he…
Donald Trump is the most despised person in America
“Trump made me an activist,” 62-year-old disabled veteran John Mena told the Washington Post Saturday. Mena, who was born in Ecuador but grew up in the United States, showed up Saturday for a No Kings rally near Los Angeles City…
End times obsessions: Why John’s Revelation is worth the trouble
Historically, a feature that often shows up for some people during troubled eras is an increasing obsession with predictions regarding the “end times,” or events surrounding the end of the world. In our current difficulties and hard times, this concern…
How to write an obituary
Recently, I heard a radio news story about how people are turning to artificial intelligence to write obituaries for their loved ones when they pass. And I thought to myself, “Writing an obituary isn’t that hard; why do people need…
In conversation with Tia Levings
Tia Levings is the New York Times bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife, which I got to engage with her on previously for BNG, a frequent resource for the media on conservative Christianity, religion and politics, and the author of…
‘Why would anyone want to trade religious liberty for oppression?’
The Baptist approach to the Christian faith was forged in the furnace of persecution and ostracism. The foolish might try to trace Baptist roots back to the first church in Jerusalem, but that is mere mythmaking. However, there certainly are…
Sticks, stones and words will break your bones
Most of us know the old saying that “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” And most of us know that it is not true because words will hurt us. Over the past decade,…
‘Beautiful, ain’t it?’ Our tragic, magic lives
On Sunday mornings before worship, I check the news to see if there are any new tragic deaths that need to be mentioned. Sometimes I end up writing concerns in the margins of the sermon or the prayers of the…
The Southern Baptist Convention did not get ‘played’
I’ve spent a heckuva lot of time at the pottery studio this week. Working with clay is one of the things I do to try to keep myself steady when everything else seems too overwhelming. And with the release of…