Baptists in the United States have had a complicated relationship with Indigenous people since Roger Williams fled Salem, Mass., and found shelter with the Wampanoags. In his pre-Baptist days in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Williams had gotten himself in trouble,…
Searching for gratitude amid the chaos, calamity and confusion of 2020
Thinking about Thanksgiving from the sinkhole otherwise known as 2020 seems at once harder and easier than it has in years past. Unless you got married or had a baby or backed into a positive life-transforming event, you’ll probably agree…
Let’s be honest about spiritual discernment in churches
For many years, I have been a fierce proponent of churches using spiritual discernment as they navigate their futures. In hundreds of settings, across multiple denominations (and no denominations), in city/urban/suburban/rural locations, across all aspects of the theological spectrum, I…
Seven ways to embrace a reality-based religion
In these days of “alternative facts,” pronouncements that “truth is relative,” where science is disregarded as just another opinion, and where we are taught to distrust any news except the news on “my” channel, let’s consider what a reality-based religion…
No more airtime, Mr. President!
I watch the news on television every day, more than once a day. In the past several months of election rancor, I often watched or listened all day. In that period of all-day news, I sometimes neglected the more weighty…
Nine chapters that summarize how I got from there to here
When we became the co-pastors of Park Road Baptist Church in 2000, we were introduced to the Park Road Clergy, an informal fellowship of six churches within about a mile of our office. For 20 years, six pastors have met…
Women and the call to lead
For the first time, a woman has been elected vice president of the United States. It only took 231 years. Kamala Harris carries the hopes and ambitions of many generations of women of all colors who aspire to lead in…
The first thing you think when you get COVID-19
Here’s the first thing you think when you get COVID-19: “I wish I could turn back time.” If only I hadn’t gone … or stayed … or passed by … or did whatever it was that caused me to catch…
Carl Lentz and the pitfalls of male power
As news of another megachurch pastor’s indiscretions makes headlines, not only in The New York Times, but in outlets such as Vanity Fair, People and even Page Six, it’s a reminder that when leaders abuse their power, they do so…
Why conservatives can’t get Jeremiah Wright out of their heads
The spectacle seemed to dominate every news station, barber shop, beauty shop and church fellowship hall across the nation. For months on end, an excerpt of a sermon offered in the sacred confines of the Black church had taken center…
The colors of America
I am one of those white Baby Boomer guys who has screwed up everything — or at least the finger has pointed often our way. I don’t totally deny it. I grew up in Oklahoma, Tulsa. When I went off…
Reports of the death of white Christian America are greatly exaggerated
In the beginning of his 2016 book titled The End of White Christian America, Robert P. Jones issued an obituary for white Christian America. The time of death was listed as “in the latter part of the first decade of…