When I learned of John Killinger’s passing on June 5 at age 91, I found myself reflecting with deep gratitude on a friendship that spanned 35 years and strongly influenced my life and ministry. Respected as one of America’s most…
The girl at the edge of belonging
She was 15, and she believed. She hadn’t been raised in church exactly. But somewhere along the way, she found her way in — drawn by something tender and true, something that stirred in the songs and the stories, the…
How I’m preparing for No Kings Day
In the long-ago time when cell phones were becoming more ubiquitous, we were encouraged to put the letters ICE with the names of our contacts who should be called In Case of Emergency. Everyone knew if someone was in need…
In conversation with Stephen Newby and Robert Darden
I’ve had plenty of opportunity to get to know Robert Darden and Stephen Newby. Bob is a distinguished writer and teacher, and in our youth, we lived a few houses apart on 30th Street in Waco’s Castle Heights neighborhood. With…
Why Michael Tait’s apology is not enough
“I can do anything! Anything!” These are words posthumously ascribed to Russian mystic and claimed religious healer Grigori Rasputin. Their authenticity is debated by historians, but the dramatization of the real event did make for excellent television in the Netflix…
A million miles driven leads to transformation
In 1993, I was a 21-year-old rookie truck driver from Silver Creek, Miss., on Interstate 90 in North Dakota, driving west toward Billings, Mont. I was driving for Burlington Motor Carriers based in Daleville, Ind., a company that hauled anything…
57 years ago, student protesters were welcomed at SBC annual meeting
I can regularly count on late May and June as a time when news about the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention begins to circulate. This year was no exception. It seems this year dealing with charges of sexual…
We are in dangerous, uncharted waters
“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.” ― Eugene Victor Debs On Saturday, June…
Daughter of Adrian Rogers claims her father’s anointing and mantle
On Monday, June 9, Gayle Rogers Foster spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Wives and Women in Ministry Conference. She is the daughter of Adrian Rogers, the late pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., and one of…
What happened to the SBC’s Vision 2025 and its $1.25 million?
Southern Baptists arrived in Dallas this week to consider how they will finance mounting legal bills after a spate of lawsuits were filed in the wake of a 288-page report published in 2022. That report detailed at length how key convention…
From votes to violence: Trump’s betrayal of Latino loyalty
What began as a peaceful protest in downtown Los Angeles quickly spiraled into a full-scale federal crackdown — rubber bullets, flash grenades, tear gas and a federally activated National Guard descending not on an enemy nation, but on American citizens….
Reckoning with fear, justice and the misuse of ‘Free Palestine’
I come to this writing not as a bystander, but as a neighbor, a witness and a believer in justice, peace and the sacred dignity of every human being. On a recent afternoon in Boulder, I stood shoulder to shoulder…