My favorite pericope in the entire Bible is John 20:11-18. Days after the Crucifixion, Mary comes to visit her friend Jesus in the tomb, only to realize his body is no longer there. In shock and confusion, she races back…
Democracy and religious freedom
This is the fifth in a BNG series of articles on Christianity and democracy that will lead toward the July 4 celebration of America’s 250th birthday. The series has been curated by Carol McEntyre, senior minister at First Baptist Church…
I grieve for SBC women
I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. I attended Sunday school as a child in a Southern Baptist church. I made a public profession of faith, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and was baptized at the age…
How a ‘good kid’ makes a catastrophic choice
There is a particular kind of grief that settles over a community when a young person kills another young person. It is not only the grief of a life lost, but the grief of a life ruined. It is the…
We also need a reckoning with racist words that cut like a knife
In North Texas last week, all eyes were on a trial in Frisco, a northern Dallas suburb. The person on trial was Karmelo Anthony, a 19-year-old accused — and now convicted — of stabbing to death 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at…
To understand today’s SBC, listen to history
Across America this week, Baptist women are carrying a familiar weight. Some are pastors who have faithfully answered the call of God, only to watch the Southern Baptist Convention debate whether God possibly could have called them. Some are seminary…
What was there left to argue?
I was 6 years old the first time I was told I couldn’t do something because I was a girl. I could be a teacher or a nurse when I grew up, but I couldn’t play on that team and I couldn’t do that thing because…
The ridiculous attack on women in ministry
As the president of another Kentucky-based seminary, I have to note Al Mohler’s forced conversation on women in ministry, like so much in our world today, is ridiculous. Those like Mohler wish to drag us into a debate about “what…
The denomination that protected predators just banned prophets
God calls women to preach. This is not a progressive talking point or a cultural accommodation. It is a theological fact, attested across centuries of Christian witness and confirmed in the lives of countless women who have heard the Spirit’s…
Democracy as the practice of loving our neighbors
This is the third in a BNG series of articles on Christianity and democracy that will lead toward the July 4 celebration of America’s 250th birthday. The series has been curated by Carol McEntyre, senior minister at First Baptist Church…
Why I feel betrayed by the SBC
At the moment, words are hard to come by. As I sat in Palmetto Patriots VA Assisted Living and Skilled Nursing Home listening to one of my congregants share his experience of baptizing a soldier in a pool deep in…
How to read the Bible in a time of biblical authoritarianism
Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has created a stir with his proposed amendment to the Southern Baptist Convention’s constitution. He claims anyone who takes issue with the amendment is opposing biblical authority. The issue is not biblical…