Driving along Highway 27 in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., in mid-September 2021, motorists were surprised to see a billboard bearing a phrase from the Bible they had often heard during the Christmas season in their churches: “Unto us a son is…
Is God the partner of racists?
I am having trouble understanding, or making sense of, what I am hearing and seeing in this country. So many white people — and plenty of non-whites as well — are fully committed to the former president. Nothing he has…
Politics, faith and mission: A talk with Tim Alberta on his book and faith journey
You may have watched Tim Alberta recently on 60 Minutes, Meet the Press, Firing Line or a full house of cable news shows. His rigorously researched and painfully personal bestseller The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory is essential reading…
God of the specific
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Already broken them? Join the club. Odds are you’re vowing to lose weight, get more exercise, get a handle on your finances, etc. If those haven’t worked in the past, here’s a better resolution,…
Racism’s absurdity in light of the gospel
We’ve just celebrated Martin Luther King weekend. The great Baptist preacher, scholar and activist would have been 95 years old. We rightly honor him. The Civil Rights Movement led by King was not that long ago. We still live with…
An honest job description for a children’s minister
God loves the senior ministers whose portraits are on the wall in the church parlor, but God knows the real saints are the ones who care for children. For almost 20 years, Julia Rassmann has been a big fun, big…
The silence of our friends
If you were to survey the most significant decades in human history, the late 1950s to late 1960s undoubtedly would be at the top of the list because of the Civil Rights Movement, better known as the Southern Black Freedom…
Every member of the SBC’s abuse reform task force should resign in protest
When a member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s prior Sexual Abuse Task Force emailed me to apologize, I felt grateful for the candor and honesty. “I want to personally apologize to you,” the person wrote, “if anything I did ever…
A mother’s honest story: The very beginning
Editor’s note: Normally we place the writer’s bio at the end, but for this piece you need to know up front who you are reading and why it matters. Ann Bell Worley is a Houston-based writer and editor and a mother of…
Beyond ‘I Have a Dream’: Meditations on Martin Luther King Jr.’s hard words for white Christians
I rarely crosspost old columns, but this year, I’m re-upping a relevant column I penned two years ago, which contains with one plea for white Christians: If we want to honor Rev. Dr. King and think honestly about ourselves, white…
‘A failure of imagination would be fatal to democracy’
On Jan. 6, 2021, “a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked” by ground forces loyal to then-President Donald Trump. They interrupted the constitutionally required certification of electoral votes from the…
Calmly navigate this election year with strategy, not emotion
Now that the Twelve Days of Christmas are behind us and the confetti we tossed to usher in the new year has been swept up, we finally can be honest: 2024 is going to be a dumpster fire. Perhaps you…