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…
A conversation with Michael Woolf about ICE and Chicago
On Halloween, ICE agents carried out a number of raids in and around Chicagoland — including in Evanston, home of Lake Street Church, an Alliance of Baptist congregation. In response, Lake Street’s senior pastor, Michael Woolf, joined protests at the…
People of faith should lead the way in protecting the planet
World leaders, scientists, activists and many others are gathered in Brazil for the COP30 conference to set international goals and policies to mitigate the danger of unchecked global climate change. As a participant in many of these meetings throughout the…
Religious freedom and dignity for prisoners at US Supreme Court
Religious freedom is for everyone. That’s a promise — as well as a calling for us today — straight out of our country’s flawed but hopeful “history and tradition” that the current U.S. Supreme Court keeps emphasizing. If we want…