By Andrew Barnhill Hundreds of clergy and laity from throughout North Carolina have made their way to Raleigh this summer for a series of protests called Moral Mondays. Organized by the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, the crowd of…
You’re not the boss of me
How well do you respond when you find yourself in the middle of what you consider to be a power struggle or a challenge to your authority? Power struggles can happen when complete strangers won’t let us park where we…
Trayvon and Abdulrahman
By Leroy Seat The name Trayvon, sadly, has become a household name in the United States and elsewhere, but many do not know the name Abdulrahman. Both young men were U.S. citizens born in 1995, and both were tragically killed…
Enthusiastic about our Fellowship
On the night of June 28, I posted to Facebook this status update from my hotel room in Greensboro, North Carolina: From Wednesday’s pre-assembly Baptist Women in Ministry celebration to the closing General Assembly communion service tonight, I’ve never felt…
Zimmerman verdict reveals flawed jury selection process
A jury comprised of five white women and one Latina has acquitted George Zimmerman on all charges. This outcome was largely determined by the way we select juries in America. Imagine that two women who looked like Trayvon Martin were…
Why church matters
By Amy Butler “The true alchemists do not change lead into gold,” observed American author William H. Gass. “They change the world into words.” As one who spends a lot of time trying to change the world into words –…
What is traditional? What is contemporary?
Just what makes a church “traditional” these days? As someone who has written extensively and spoken to religious gatherings on the subject of “traditional” churches, I’m increasingly finding it hard to draw an exacting definition. But by the same token,…
Longing for home
By Molly T. Marshall One cannot be in Israel very long without encountering significant conversation about “the right of return” – the privilege of any Jew in the world to come to the modern State of Israel and claim citizenship….
What if a generation of women in ministry planted new congregations?
It is hard to believe it has been more than 35 years since I was ready to leave seminary in Louisville, KY for what I thought would be my first full-time church pastorate. Although I had grown up in Baltimore…
The shredding machine
By Bill Wilson It was a very impressive group of church leaders. Clergy and laity alike, they were successful and savvy men and women who had been patiently listening to me make repeated invitations to engage in a spiritual-discernment process…
Do we need denominations in the 21st Century?
Those of us who worked in denominational roles in past years often referred to ourselves as “denominational serpents” rather than denominational servants, questioning the motivations of the bureaucracies that employed us. Being part of a denominational organization and seeing its…
Singing in the darkness
By Roger Lovette If you were to travel to New York and move down Broadway to 43rd Street you would find the Stephen Sondeim Theater. If you bought a ticket and found your seat you would be in for a…