Imagine going to medical school or law school and finding out once you graduate and enter your practice that you must forget at least 25% of what you learned or lose your job. Yeah, that is what it’s like for…
When you’re tempted to forget about the latest school shooting, remember the embalmers
Note: This article includes a detailed description of burial preparation for children. I embalmed a baby, for the first time, when I was 18 years old. Another baby I did not embalm — I could not embalm — lay on…
Who’ll be there at the end of your prayer?
It was late in my adolescent chapter of the Fabulous Fifties, and I was a member of the youth group in my home church — the Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Meridian, Miss. Soon, the Sweetheart Banquet would be here…
After Uvalde, let us dream of impossible things
Tuesday night, May 24, 2022. Election night. I turn on the TV to watch the returns come in. The polls close in five minutes. Before I can even get comfortable in my easy chair, the “Breaking News” sign, the crawler…
It’s time for America to rid itself of Asian prejudice
As the pandemic subsides, I cannot help thinking about the tragedy and loss of lives. It is painful to think that during the pandemic, about 18.2 million people died worldwide, including about 1.13 million Americans. These are startling numbers, and…
My husband and I created a database of clergy sex abusers; why couldn’t the SBC?
Many of us are struggling to come to terms with the news that the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has covered up abuse, maligned survivors, and even kept a secret list of 700-plus sex offenders for years. In…
America, blood is on your hands
“The language of white supremacy is a language of cowardice disguised as dominance.” — Toni Morrison Deep grief and rage rest upon the heart and soul as we continue to call the names of Black and brown bodies taken, stolen….
Guns, the elders and the children
Nineteen children were shot dead on Tuesday at their school in Uvalde, Texas; 10 elderly Black people were shot dead on Saturday while shopping in their local grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. The rage of people is palpable but there…
On another classroom full of murdered children
Tuesday afternoon, May 24: My focus was the Republican primaries in my home state of Georgia. Donald Trump, in his continued efforts to protest the lost 2020 election and make sure he can never lose another one, had put up…
Now is the time when we need to hear white evangelical leaders refute white supremacy
“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. … This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.” These words of…
Does the SBC have enough sackcloth?
There’s a saying that’s been around for a long time that goes something like this: “God created man in his image, and then man returned the favor.” The suggestion is that our god is what we want him to be,…
What happens when the good news of therapy and the good news of Scripture conflict?
One of the Scriptures I memorized growing up was Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy…