Several years ago, when I was early in my ministerial career, I went to a trusted mentor and friend because I was struggling with a problem. The whole episode was so long ago that the details are now a little…
How are houses of worship like retail stores? Changing channels of distribution
When a house of worship declines — and many are — the congregation tends to blame a dull pastor, an uninspiring music director or a drafty building with a bad sound system. Suppose the reason, more often than not, is…
Christianity after Christendom
In 1850, there were about 700,000 Baptists in the United States, evenly divided between North and South. As the nation expanded and grew, Baptists advanced in membership and social standing. As they expanded, they divided into divergent denominational groups, and…
Why Christians shouldn’t fear artificial intelligence
When I was a boy growing up in the heartland of America, I learned two invaluable truths from my beloved father. First, I shouldn’t fear the “reaper,” because death will come to each of us (Hebrews 9:27). And second, I…
Walking a Christian pluralist path
Brian Kaylor begins his Aug. 17 Word&Way article, “The World’s Religions Converge in Chicago,” with this personal question of mine: “How did someone rooted and grounded in a Baptist version of Christianity become a religious pluralist?” In that recent speech at the Parliament of…
Baptists Scholars International Roundtable gathers to discuss global mission
You might imagine Oxford, England, to be a wizened, ostentatious sprawl of academic architecture and higher learning. To be a place where people can retreat from the urgent demands of now and lose themselves in books and the rural countryside….
American democracy is in danger, and so is the gospel
In the year of our Lord (?) 2023, tune into any news platform right or left of center and you’ll hear that “American democracy is under threat.” Rightwing media says the 91 charges in four indictments against former President Donald…
Erasmus indicts Trump — and the USA
One thing that has gone tragically wrong with American politics over the past eight years is that the electorate has admitted into the highest reaches of national life a man obviously lacking in the moral temperament, training and character required…
60 years later, only our action can keep the dream alive
In August 2013, I was serving as a pastor on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. All month long, there was a feeling of excitement in the air. That Aug. 28 marked the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the…
‘Who sets the temperature in the sanctuary?’ and other questions pastor candidates ought to ask
After seminary, I was coming to the end of my one-year residency as a hospital chaplain. I was a few months from unemployment and had turned up the heat on finding a position. After a miserable experience in a church…
The Supreme Court’s refreshing unity on religious freedom
If you want to read one U.S. Supreme Court opinion from the past term that doesn’t risk raising your blood pressure, I suggest Groff v. DeJoy. Plenty of the court’s decisions display deep divisions among the justices — divisions that both…
Voice from the past: Tom Graves’ 1991 speech accepting BTSR presidency
With the passing of Baptist educator and pastor Tom Graves this week, our friends at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society located the following transcript of an acceptance speech given by Graves on Jan. 31, 1991, when he was named president…