Over the last decade, advances in social justice have been rolled back by a renewed sense of evangelical pride. Donovan O. Schaefer in Whiteness and Civilization: Shame, Race, and the Rhetoric of Donald Trump, argues: “The success of Trump’s rhetoric…
Affirming women’s leadership as a pneumatological moment
“When churches do not recognize the leadership gifts of women, the whole body is impoverished.” — Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, A Many Colored Kingdom As a Latina and Baptist ordained minister, reading about the “Six Markers of Congregational Environments which are Empowering…
MAGA’s appetite for jelly donuts a la Trump
A little more than a year ago, a slim majority of voters elected Donald Trump as the 47th president of the United States. Some of those voters now find themselves experiencing buyer’s remorse. As for the rest? They’re either lying,…
If Trump thought Epstein was a pedophile, did he report the crime?
During a Nov. 12 press conference, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed the release of emails by Jeffrey Epstein — the financier who was convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution and then died of alleged but…
Tourists visiting the poor
Dorothy Day said, “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” That is setting the bar way too high. In 1967, Dorothy Day opened St. Joseph’s House in New York’s East Village,…
When activists need to be silent
To everything there is a season, Ecclesiastes says, including a time to be silent and a time to speak. That’s sage advice in our present moment, as recent conversations with two friends illustrate. I’m one of the lucky ones who…
A Nazi walks into a bar
No, this is not the setup for a tasteless joke. On Thursday, Oct. 23, a 33 year-old white man named Kenneth Leland Morgan, wearing a tailored SS uniform, attempted to enter Cutter’s Pub in downtown Athens, Ga. Footage captured by…
Women in ministry need each other
I’m sure it’s some Holy Spirit work that the “State of Women in Baptist Life” 2025 report was released in the same month as the film Wicked: For Good. The second half of the saga of two electric women is…
Tommy Tuberville versus the tenderness of true faith
Right-wing news outlet Newsmax reported Nov. 7 that, in reaction to Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama predicted the city will be “completely Muslim in three or four years.” I’m sure…
Forgiving the church
Church is a school of forgiveness where we learn to forgive and be forgiven. The Lord’s Prayer invites us to this form of spiritual healing every time we pray it: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass…
How the church broke my calling
Editor’s note: In rare cases, BNG will publish opinion pieces and withhold the identity of the author. This is one such case, for reasons that will become obvious to anyone reading what follows. The author is a real person, a…
The ICE Age is upon us
Besides water hoses, German Shepherds, Billy clubs and racial epithets, what truly makes today’s ICE agents — dressed like militarized Klansmen and women — any different from yesterday’s state-sanctioned terror? The Ice Age, the one taught in science class, ended…