“Pandemics unmask who we really are — our morals, our values, our ethics, our humanity. They test us in ways nothing else can.” — Sanjay Gupta, M.D., World War C, 2021 In a tutorial for doctor of ministry students at…
Infertility and Roe v. Wade
Editor’s note: In exceptionally rare circumstances, BNG publishes opinion pieces without identifying the author. This is one of those rare cases where, due to the intensely personal nature of the story told and the likelihood of jeopardizing a ministerial career,…
Christ came to make us truly human: Human sinfulness and the image of God
Advent is upon us, and in my house, at least, we are already awash in Christmas decorations, music and movies. The peppermint bark candy is already on hand. The Christmas plates, cups and glasses are out. Our tree was up…
The loneliness epidemic
In 2020, the topic of loneliness was everywhere. Concern for seniors in retirement homes, for singles stuck in efficiency apartments, and for other groups of Americans rose as it became clear that the disease could overwhelm hospitals and interfere with…
Let’s keep the lights on in Georgia
A half century ago, Bobby Russell wrote a song about infidelity, murder and a messed-up legal system. The chorus summarizes the result and gives the song its now-famous name: That’s the night that the lights went out in Georgia. That’s…
The Ahmaud Arbery murder trial encapsulates the two Americas today, but there’s a silent third group
One of the things that’s easy to forget about the conviction of three white men for the cold-blooded murder of Ahmaud Arbery is that there almost wasn’t a trial. There were no arrests for two months after the murder. Two…
A Christmas lesson at BubbaDoo’s
To understand Christmas at BubbaDoo’s, you’d have to understand the setting for BubbaDoo’s itself. This large, old general store sits at a key crossroads in a small rural community. There isn’t much to the little community these days, save a…
The leap from ‘The Bible says’ to ‘Believe me’ and ‘God told me’
I confess to the temptation of dismissing evangelical rhetoric of the political sort as symptomatic of one or another particularly noxious pathology. There’s also my own impatience at what I discern as the absurdity of evangelical political messages confidently delivered…
Could Jesus be coming to us again in the guise of an Afghan child?
You know what I’m grateful for this year as Advent comes? A home. Not just a roof over my head or a house with electricity and running water. I’m thankful for a national home, an imperfect but beloved country, a…
Congress must invest in American families and communities
The United States Congress is currently considering a series of bold investments in American families and communities that will better enable all of us to pursue our God-given potential while protecting the most vulnerable in our society. As a Baptist pastor and as…
The Beatles: Get Back — Returning to the root of something can be a productive, if elusive, exercise
I remember Dec. 9, 1980, like it was yesterday. I woke to the news that John Lennon had been murdered the night before as he returned home to the Dakota Apartments in New York. I was a 13-year-old Beatles fan…
This Christmas, don’t be so hard on the innkeeper
Although Luke’s Gospel does not mention the innkeeper in Luke 2, the notion that Joseph and Mary are turned away from the inn implies that someone did the turning away — and that person goes down as the reason the…