By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Each week someone in the news uses the words “evangelical” or “evangelicalism” as a description, epithet or lament. Often the most visible uses of the term occur when someone who is “in” wants out,…
Gardening: A metaphor for churches
By Bill Wilson In recent years, I’ve been giving a good deal of thought to metaphors that communicate clearly what a healthy church or minister is like. There are many of them, but the one that I keep returning to…
Baptist environmentalism: remembering Earth Day 1970 and Henlee Barnette
April 22, 1970 was an important day in the history of our nation. It marked the first-ever celebration of Earth Day — an event that put environmentalism front-and-center in American society in a very visible way. With more than 20…
Don Draper’s progress
“I keep wondering: have I broken the vessel?” Don Draper’s mid-flirtation confession to his airline seatmate in the April 13 premiere of the seventh (and final) season of the AMC drama Mad Men may prove to be the single most…
My speech to seminary graduates
By Brett Younger Once again, no seminary has chosen me to give the speech at their graduation service. My mother and I don’t get it. We both feel like I’m the perfect person to hand out the kind of inspirational…
‘He is risen!’: What does it mean?
By Chuck Queen A florist mixed up two orders on a busy day. One was to go to a new business, the other to a funeral. The next day, the guy with the new business stormed into the shop. “What’s…
They’re back
In 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court held that school-sponsored prayer and Bible-reading in the public schools violate the First Amendment clause prohibiting laws “respecting an establishment of religion.” The Court said that the clause was intended to protect religious freedom…
Life in the fast lane
By Bob Burroughs This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your…
On the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead
On occasion I have heard someone declare that one thing or another serves as the foundation of their faith. Sometimes it is the Bible. Sometimes it is the love Jesus taught. Sometimes it is even Jesus Himself. But the fact…
How to have a ‘good’ Good Friday
How can Good Friday be good? Good Friday is the day that Christians all around the world remember the suffering of Jesus Christ on a cross. Depictions of Jesus Christ’s suffering are immortalized within our cultural framework because of such…
Our Silence is driving millennials out of the church
David Gushee, a theologian and ethicist who teaches at the McAfee School of Theology, struck a nerve when he suggested that moderate Baptists with roots in the Southern Baptist Convention could benefit from a statement of faith. Bill Leonard, my…
Homelessness, grief and Holy Week
By Trey Lyon During this Holy Week a story keeps reappearing on my Facebook feed, the tale of the varying responses of an affluent community in North Carolina to a bronze statue of a reclining Jesus, cast to resemble a…