This is the second in a series of opinion columns to be published over the next three weeks exploring Critical Race Theory. The Southern Baptist Convention has managed to do it again! As the nation struggles through a pandemic that…
Advent reflection: The genesis of Jesus
BNG is pleased to partner with Baker Publishing Group and Perkins School of Theology at SMU to present a twice-weekly Advent reflection series written by Jack Levison. The reflections will be published every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the season. The…
Truth Decay: What is truth?
“What is truth?” — Pontius Pilate (John 18:38) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a famous essay called “What Is Meant by ‘Telling the Truth’” claimed that truth telling is “expressing reality in words.” Bonhoeffer’s shorthand definition reflects the commonsense, most familiar understanding…
SBC seminary presidents are propagating fear to maintain control
This is the first in a series of opinion columns to be published over the next three weeks exploring Critical Race Theory. Earlier this month, all six presidents of the seminaries controlled by the Southern Baptist Convention announced a total…
When a Facebook ‘friend’ told me I didn’t understand the power of God
My 70th birthday arrived recently, and my wife, Sharon, kept telling me it’s a big deal. I think she means a big deal this year; next year, when it’s her turn, we’ll see. It causes me to think about why…
How 300 children lost their fathers to lynching on a single day because of a conspiracy theory
At last count, 73,923,495 Americans have voted for Donald Trump. Trump eclipsed Barack Obama’s previous record by more than 4.5 million votes. Trump topped his own 2016 performance by 11 million votes. That’s huge. Trump lost the election; but he…
From life experience, some thoughts on the need for legal abortion rights
So much comes into my mind and heart when I talk or write about abortion. I have to revisit the time I miscarried at 3-plus months in 1979. After a week of hemorrhaging blood clots the size of liver slices,…
Simple, creative holiday activities you can do at home this year
Phawnda Moore is one of the four panelists for BNG’s free webinar on surviving pandemic holidays offered tonight at 7 p.m. Central time. Register here. Being home for the holidays can be a refuge from the ongoing, dramatic events of…
Advent reflection: The advent of liberation
BNG is pleased to partner with Baker Publishing Group and Perkins School of Theology at SMU to present a twice-weekly Advent reflection series written by Jack Levison. The reflections will be published every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the season. In…
Understanding Black theology, white fragility
Back in 2011, Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (and currently in a runoff for one of Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats), preached a sermon drawn from the Gospel of Matthew about whether a person could serve…
If your heart is grieving this season
If your heart is sitting in a place of deep lament and grief this holiday season, you are not alone. No human on the planet has been a stranger to grief or hardship this year. How it has affected each…
Bonhoeffer Moment No. 5: Finding a ‘will for the future’
Reflecting on the long-term impact of the Bubonic Plague (1346-1353) sweeping across Europe and ravaging his native Florence, the poet Petrarch wrote: “O happy posterity, who will not experience such abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as a…